Demos from Day 1?

Z

ZProtoss

10,000++
Veteran XV
Probably a very simple question no doubt considering you guys are using the unreal engine. However its worth asking since some games still don't ship with an easy to use demoing capability. Will there be an easy to use demo capability from the beginning?

Second question would be, will we have a demo editor? One of the greatest things to happen would be the ability to chop up demos in any way you see fit. For example, the ability to make a seperate demo of minutes 7-15, out of a demo from 1-30, for example. The ability to add some type of commentary to demos would be absolutely amazing as well. Built in commentary that is.

To elaborate a bit more on some neat features you could add to demos to expand their usefulness and innovate. As stated earlier, add the ability to embed voice recordings into the demo. It'd let players releasing demos easily narrate what they were doing, and what was going through their heads. While we're at it, you may as well embed the ability to put in sound effects/music in certain parts. As well as adding in the ability to add text to a certain window in a part of the screen for the player viewing the demo.

In short, please innovate demos past the ancient stage of just replaying what someone did. Add in some neat editing abilities as well, as they'd open up another world of option for demos and demo releasing.
 
make it output into a movie format or atleast the frames. it will get done eventually but im sure the dev guys could make it faster and better
 
This seems kind of complex for something like T:V. If it could be done it'd be absolutely amazing though.

Yaason said:
make it output into a movie format or atleast the frames. it will get done eventually but im sure the dev guys could make it faster and better
Click to expand...
 
yeah. especially if you have the ability to add sound and text. then anyone could make a movie of their MA's and send it out.
 
Adding sound and text would add so many possibilities. Combined with the ability to cut up chunks of demos, it really opens doors. Obviously combining different maps seamlessly would probably not be doable, but it'd allow people to share certain shots/plays without making them search through what could potentially be a very large demo to begin with.
 
They could have a "monitor" option for settings where you can choose a mixer line and have that audio recorded with the demo stream. So if you wanted to, you could have realtime TS2 recordings embedded in your demo stream.

Of course that's another method from event driven playback of existing sounds and would probably involve inclusion of some encoding codec and would increase the size of the demo considerably. Given the developer's present attitude I don't think it will happen.
 
ZProtoss said:
This seems kind of complex for something like T:V. If it could be done it'd be absolutely amazing though.
Click to expand...
You want the entire world in demo capability, but output to avi or something is too complex? :confused:
 
All the stuff I listed is within the game. Converting the actual game to avi is alot more complex than simply embedding sound to be played.

Ixiterra said:
You want the entire world in demo capability, but output to avi or something is too complex? :confused:
Click to expand...
 
ZProtoss said:
All the stuff I listed is within the game. Converting the actual game to avi is alot more complex than simply embedding sound to be played.
Click to expand...
Uhh obviously you have little concept of programming. And none of what you described is "in the game," not sure where you got that from. If you're asking them to put it in there, how could it already be there? And output to a standard, uncompressed avi would be rather easy to do. It's just not a priority.
 
I think ZP means all the functions to perform what he is asking are built in. His text feature would be the same as a chat hud. Recording a voice over the game would be the same as the built in game comms from T2. T2 also has the ability to play any mp3's during game play.

Basically ZP is asking for the ability to record a demo as you normally would in T1 or T2, then go back and either cut a section out, pop up a chat hud and type "sample of DX spam", then record 10 seconds of voice saying, "I am spamming the flag, then once the capper starts his run I switch to the back station".

This ability means you could make learning demos, strategy demos, match plans, fun movies, bloopers, match highlights, etc.
 
I understand what he means. My point is that to implement those features as a function of the "demo editor" is not the same as just having them in-game. Demo->avi is quite simple as all it has to do is convert frames and audio (or maybe not even audio). These features he wants would require actual implementation and execution, and chances are it's not going to happen because demo features seem to be super low on the priority list for games.
 
quoting after commenting is gay, stop.

Also, ZP you are asking for alot more in your first post than Yaason asked for in his post. Video output can be done by fraps, so no real need for it built in. Also I think it's a waste of the DEV's time to add more than basic VCR abilities to demos (FF, RW, Pause, slow-mo). Adding all those other features that can already be done much better by programs even as simple as WMM2 would be needless.

One thing that would be nice is if they could publish a convertor from demo to avi or mpeg, so that after you get your demo you can export it and edit it without having to go demo -> frames -> mpeg/avi.
 
I'd like to see an option to automatically record the last game you played to an autosave.rec file. While I don't know how much this would take up from your memory, it would give people the chance to record games that were not expected to be fun, but turned out to be.
 
Amadeu5 said:
I'd like to see an option to automatically record the last game you played to an autosave.rec file. While I don't know how much this would take up from your memory, it would give people the chance to record games that were not expected to be fun, but turned out to be.
Click to expand...
That is an excellent idea. Or perhaps you could set it to record x number of previous games, then delete the oldest once you get past that number. Say 10 for example. It records 10 games, then on your 11th game it will delete the 1st one.
 
Uh...you guys realized that all demos are are a log of the network activity? They're not rendered frames. This is why you can't rewind them or start from a given point - you have to start from the beginning and always go forward. Granted, there might be ways to footprint what is going on periodically, but that might drastically increase demo size. There would have to be some tool to render the images and export them to a movie format.
 
A simple solution (at least it seems to me) to that Hob is keyframes. Once every 10 seconds or so, make a keyframe, and all it is is a position to start again. So if you want to rewind, you can do it in 10 second increments. I may be wrong, but just because it's a network log, I don't see why this couldn't be implemented.
 
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.
 
Ixiterra said:
A simple solution (at least it seems to me) to that Hob is keyframes. Once every 10 seconds or so, make a keyframe, and all it is is a position to start again. So if you want to rewind, you can do it in 10 second increments. I may be wrong, but just because it's a network log, I don't see why this couldn't be implemented.
Click to expand...

That would work, but would drastically increase demo size like he said.

For those who want video output: Fraps 2.0. That is what Thrax used to grab most of the footage for the movies that have been released (and the quality is good, don't like the IGN, etc videos where they've been scaled down for public consumption turn you off to this method).
 
Yogi said:
That would work, but would drastically increase demo size like he said.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Back
Top