Demos: how to save them and play them back

[greaserpirate]

I'm interested in making videos for RE, but my computer can't take recording video and playing at the same time (FPS drops to under 20). I've heard you can record demos and play them back, but I don't exactly know how they work and I haven't been able to find any documentation. Any help?

[wowie]

Any server that allows demos allows you to retrieve the demo for the last finished game by simply typing /getdemo I think. You can then play the demo however you like on your own machine.

Modifying server variables on your own machine allows you to do things like modify gamespeed for slow motion shots or temporarily change the way things look/act for a certain scene. Recording in slow-mo (sv_gamespeed 25 makes everything play at 1/4 speed.) and then speeding up to normal speed also allows you to get shots with a lot of camera movement (e.g. long-take tracking shots) that look smoother, both in terms of framerate lag and unintentional camera movement. Beware that if you modify sv_gamespeed that the audio and video will not sync up so you will not have audio (barring music added in post-production) unless you do two passes and manage to get the camera in approximately the same place and facing for both passes (do one pass for audio using low video quality and one pass for the video using high video quality and slow-motion, then combine the audio from one and the video from the other in post.)

Type /movie "nameofyourmovieherewithoutquotes" to start recording whatever is onscreen to an .avi file. I forget how to show and hide specific parts of the hud but /showhud 0 hides everything.

You can change a lot of the /movie variables by tabbing while having /movie typed in. /moviefps and the width/height settings are relevant, and there are a bunch of other ones that I have forgotten what they do at the present. I think one of them also stops recording if audio and video desynchronize, too, when set properly. Recording with 25 gamespeed (one quarter gamespeed) and 15 moviefps (the fps the movie records with) then speeding that up in post-production to four times faster would make a 100 speed (normal speed) video with 60 fps.

There's a bunch of things you can do. I've never actually tried, though, because I've never had the time, or a reason to do so.

Whenever I use the term "post-production" in this context I mean "the video editor that you prefer using the most."

It would be faster and easier to do this if there were a feature like TF2's replay editor, or somesuch, but that conversation belongs in the suggestions thread.

[bonifarz]

Well explained, Wowie. Remind me of this.

A short and old explanation:

To view a dmo file, open the console in Red Eclipse and load it with the /demo command (using the Tab key to auto-complete the filename). You can then follow the recorded game in spectator mode, i.e. left click to snap on the player and toggle between free rotation and first person view using the F9 key.

You can record a demo either offline or as server admin using /recorddemo 1 prior to starting a new game. /stopdemo creates a "demorecord" file, which you can rename manually or with /getdemo.

I found it tedious to watch a demo if you are interested only in a specific part, so I wrote this cubescript:
viewtopic.php?f=73&t=3597&p=35663#p35663

There are several guis for video recording settings, one included in the very nice package by S.E.S
viewtopic.php?f=73&t=3304
and another one by Calinou
viewtopic.php?f=73&t=3462