Demos from Day 1?

Were did we say UT2003 had support for dumping demo's to AVI? We did say you could dump them out as frames.

But yes, DIVX support is in and works great. I just have to write a nice interface for it.

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3 30873&perpage=30&highlight=ut2004&pagenumber=3

apparently ut2004 has divx recording

Didn't irrational say they were going to release 'Mojo' the program they use for cut-scenes in single player. If so, that will kick ass as well.

Good Ideas.

The only thing I would like to see from demo functionality is the backwards compatible demo. No, I am not talking about playing T1 or T2 demos in T:V. What I mean is a demo recorded on day 1 still can be played back on day 3234554 after all (the unavoidable) patching has been done to the game.

I understand it will be my job to hold on to the maps, etc. but the game should still be able to play the demo.Unlikely. Any change in network code will likely break all demos, and nothing is more likely to change than the network code.

For those of you who want video with sound, I can't reccomend Fraps highly enough. Simply replay a demo (or section of a demo) and record it at up to 1024x768 with full sound, you can then render that to any format you want, including DivX or a more standard MPEG-4 scheme.

Well this is true. However, wouldn't it be possible to work around this by leaving the old exes of T:V (after a patch), in the T:V folder? Then when someone goes to view an old demo, it'd exit out, start up the old T:V exe and start playing the old demo. With a notice before hand of what it'd do. Since it's always been possible to play demos from older patches with a copy of the old exe, maybe saving the old exes + implementing some code would serve the same purpose?


EDIT: Before disk space concerns come up, when someone patches you could always give them an option that basically says "Would you like to save your old T:V exe to maintain older demo compatability?".

Unlikely. Any change in network code will likely break all demos, and nothing is more likely to change than the network code.

what is the chance of us being able to rewind demos?

Rewind would definatly rock... always wanted to be able to take a second look at that clutch play without reloading the demo. Of course, who knows how the code would deal with negative time--only the devs.

what is the chance of us being able to rewind demos?

Yeah, I think two pages isn't too much to read, that has already been brought up.

Yeah, I think two pages isn't too much to read, that has already been brought up.
Though not answered. I believe they have previously said no though.

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3 30873&perpage=30&highlight=ut2004&pagenumber=3

apparently ut2004 has divx recording
Neat. In theory we'll get access to that code, too,
KP

Well this is true. However, wouldn't it be possible to work around this by leaving the old exes of T:V (after a patch), in the T:V folder? Then when someone goes to view an old demo, it'd exit out, start up the old T:V exe and start playing the old demo. With a notice before hand of what it'd do. Since it's always been possible to play demos from older patches with a copy of the old exe, maybe saving the old exes + implementing some code would serve the same purpose?


EDIT: Before disk space concerns come up, when someone patches you could always give them an option that basically says "Would you like to save your old T:V exe to maintain older demo compatability?".
No. Old content is compatible with new builds but new content (i.e. patched content) isn't guaranteed to be compatible with old builds. So you'd have to archive all changed content, too,
KP

Edit: fixed typo and clarified that it's not an absolute rule, but rather that it's simply not guaranteed to work.

what is the chance of us being able to rewind demos?
Slim to none,
KP

I would be very very careful about allowing demo editing. The inability to edit demos is what has made them such a vital tool in cheat protection in major tournaments in many games.

I would be very very careful about allowing demo editing. The inability to edit demos is what has made them such a vital tool in cheat protection in major tournaments in many games.
Remember: there are server side demos now. As well, he's not asking to be able to modify the actual gameplay, just add a few bells and whistles.

No. Old content is compatible with new builds but new conent (i.e. patched content) is not compatible with old builds. So you'd have to archive all changed content, too,
KP

We were able to keep an old T2 exe around to play old demos with T2. Minute changes didn't affect it. This of course may not be the case with T:V.

We were able to keep an old T2 exe around to play old demos with T2. Minute changes didn't affect it. This of course may not be the case with T:V.

i think this is the alternative and they are discussing the ability to watch demos without having to go through all that on our own but i could be wrong

Why would it drastically increase the size? I can't say I know how it works that well, but it doesn't seem to me like it would make that big of a difference.

Demos are normally (to retain small size) a series of commands with as little position data as necessary. To rewind or to jump ahead, one can't use these series of commands, because the commands will inevitably not sync up, meaning that if I start at 10 seconds, I won't know where any players are, I won't know what half of them are doing (cause the commands started before 10 seconds), and the game won't know what to render.

The solution is of course, to record a gamestate, which implies recording all positions, all commands in progress, and a number for how long the command has been running. This gamestate forms a keyframe which can be jumped to.

As you imagine, these gamestates would be HUGE chunks of data compared to normal demo data. Even if you saved one keyframe per each ten second interval, the demo size would balloon.

Ah, ok, now that makes sense Zoo. Thanks. ;)

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