Suggestion: Recording and playback

[StarSeeker]

I'm not sure how the recording was actullay done in T1, but I know it's done pretty well since the rec files don't really take up any space and reccing while playing doesn't require extra CPU.

So, my suggestion is to create some kind of recording capability, much like in T1 and T2. Also, some control over playback would be nice, for example like NoFixes Democam for T1.

If you can make anything even slightly similiar to DemoCam it would improve/ease the making of videos greatly = cooler looking videos easier = better publicity in the internet. That's how I see it anyway

A little example of Democam use I found in YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nwbcmb91PM or search "Dramatic Tribes.".

And while waiting for Ascension to be released, I'm going to go play some T1

E: Of course, if you can record games to .rec(or any other filetype you might come up with) files you should have a playback system in the game itself, and possibly export options. Export options are not really necessary though, Fraps(or equivalent) should do the trick too. But that is up to you of course if you decide to do this.

-StarSeeker

[Bjra]

and give us rec file modification tools, so we can stirng together insane combo's and brag to our friends

[Amadeus]

Torque .recs are a series of OS/network commands, notes made by the game saying things along the (very rough) lines of "at 00:34:16 player 2 started jetting in this and this direction", and these commands are interpreted and executed by the engine on the fly during playback.

Taking a quick glance at the Torque forums, it seems that the stock recording tool only allows playback. Not sure if changing playback speed is supported, but that wouldn't be that hard to mod in anyway. Rewinding and skipping to certain points in a recording could get tricky and also increase the size of recordings, but I'm no expert.

Bottom line is, no video feed is being recorded by the engine, and I don't suppose such a feature will be developed for Ascension since there are multiple 3rd party apps to do so. That means no video editing tools either, but there are free tools of that sort out there too.

[StarSeeker]

@Amadeus: You said it pretty much exactly as it works. Thank you, I couldn't have put it to words

I don't need pretty much anything more. The main thought I had in this is though that when you enter a certain "edit" mode, you kind of switch to observer ("camera") mode, while the whole game world on the rec file keeps going(including your character). This way you can follow for example a disk or a grenade that is shot by player A at player B, keeping it in view all the time(if you wish so). This is especially useful for example while showing midair shot and shots that explode over on the other side of a little hill. If not that, you can just stay a distance away and record/watch a duel from distance, etc..

http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/project.tribes/democam/

You can get the program there, and try it in T1 if you wish or have a look at the code. Doesn't look too complicated IMO.

Everything I would expect from a playback tool is the observer ("camera") mode and playback speed adjusting(from pause-10x would probably be enough, with special values for slow-mo), as well as some camera/observer move speed adjusting. No rewind/skipping/edit tools etc needed.

[Night Terror]

This sounds good. A full observer mode sounds nice, especially if it has 3rd person support.

Not sure about playback speed adjusting though, since it can be done with third party apps...

[StarSeeker]

@NightTerror: I do know it can be done with 3rd party apps, but when done with those, the FPS drops when going slowmo. In the game playback though, this shouldn't happen.

Ingame playback
Speed 1.0 = FPS60
Speed 0.5 = FPS60

when again 3rd party apps
Speed 1.0 = FPS60
Speed 0.5 = FPS30

And yes, the observer mode should have freefly, 1st person and 3rd person modes, though I think the freefly cam is the most important one for the edit mode.

[Amadeus]

Originally Posted by StarSeeker

@Amadeus: You said it pretty much exactly as it works. Thank you, I couldn't have put it to words

I don't need pretty much anything more. The main thought I had in this is though that when you enter a certain "edit" mode, you kind of switch to observer ("camera") mode, while the whole game world on the rec file keeps going(including your character). This way you can follow for example a disk or a grenade that is shot by player A at player B, keeping it in view all the time(if you wish so). This is especially useful for example while showing midair shot and shots that explode over on the other side of a little hill. If not that, you can just stay a distance away and record/watch a duel from distance, etc..

http://www.team5150.com/~andrew/project.tribes/democam/

You can get the program there, and try it in T1 if you wish or have a look at the code. Doesn't look too complicated IMO.

Everything I would expect from a playback tool is the observer ("camera") mode and playback speed adjusting(from pause-10x would probably be enough, with special values for slow-mo), as well as some camera/observer move speed adjusting. No rewind/skipping/edit tools etc needed.

Yeah, spawning a camera and giving the player control of it isn't hard by any stretch of the word.

[Oni Link]

Originally Posted by Amadeus

Yeah, spawning a camera and giving the player control of it isn't hard by any stretch of the word.

Great thing with the democam was that you could then fraps it from every angle to make a movie, which was pretty neat.

[StarSeeker]

Originally Posted by Oni Link

Great thing with the democam was that you could then fraps it from every angle to make a movie, which was pretty neat.

Exactly

[Night Terror]

Yeah, forget my previous post... If possible, it would be nice.

Bullet time anyone?

[*TMS* Shade]

man that would be great...record a matrix shot showing you pwning 2 n00bs while all their shot miss...^~^