Battle Recorder Discussion

[WarGimp]

Yeah, I know... A thread about something other than complaining about this or that element being overpowered, or accusing someone of cheating, or speculating on what new bugs we can expect in 1.21 is totally out of place here. What the heck, tho... a change of pace might be nice.


Let's attempt to ignore that BR is currently non-functional ATM and talk about the feature itself a bit.


I'm wondering how many people actually use the Battle Recorder system? I've had some great fun messing with files I've pulled down from the R2 server. Lots of potential there that doesn't seem to be capitalized on at all.

It would be very cool to see Dice return to the concept of BF2TV by going back to BR and filling out it's feature list. Failing in that, maybe some talented folks out there might be able to put something 3rd party together.

Some stuff I'd like to see:
- Index points
There's a solid reason that you can't rewind the BR playback. When you are watching a BR file it's actually using the game engine and all client/server communcation to recreate the battle. You simply can't reverse that data flow and expect to get accurate results without some massive number crunching. HOWEVER, you could make an index point that would save all current object properties referanced to the playback flow. This would give you a point to jump back too. For example, if there was a spectacular event that you want to get multiple camera angles on, you could make an index point just before it happens, recored your camera, jump back to that point, and do it again.

- Stock Camera Angles
It would be hella handy to be able to use all the camera modes that are avilible to you in-game. Including follow, fly-by, and first person.

- Jump to player via list
This would just be conveniant. You could use the Tab menu to bring up a full list of players and click 'em to jump to 'em.

- Render points:
Much like indexing, but these points would be strictly for referancing what should be rendered. You'd have a start point and a stop. Render out what's in between. This would cut down on render times and HUGE file sizes if you want to get uncompressed output. Should funtion for sound output as well as video.

Anyone else have thoughts?
I'm not sure what the feasability of writing a wrapper for BR playback with extended features would be. BattleLauncher makes a good tool for managing playback and takes lots of the comand line stuff out, but it's very limited and hasn't seem to have gotten any TLC for awhile now.

[jdogg88-Fed]

some good ideas in that. I would like to see some of that stuff cause it would make it so much better and not a pain as well

[WarGimp]

Oh, and before anyone mentions it, yeah... this is way down the priority list. Fix bugs first.

Doesn't hurt to yap/speculate/BS about it tho.

[exho]

I have 2 servers that I can get BF files off one is a 24/7 wake and one is another clan server.

Dissedents Clan Server (mostly city maps)
69.41.178.85:16567

24/7 Wake USK Ranked
72.232.0.242:16567

Both usually admined too

[WarGimp]

I have 2 servers that I can get BF files off one is a 24/7 wake and one is another clan server.

Dissedents Clan Server (mostly city maps)
69.41.178.85:16567

24/7 Wake USK Ranked
72.232.0.242:16567

Both usually admined too

No ya can't.
Not right now anyway... and not functional.
1.2 BR .demo files crash as soon as a UAV is launched.


Er, that's not the point tho.

Who'd love to see BR get built on?

[Wreck0]

I posted a thread about my Battlerecorder wish list a long time ago (http://www.totalbf2.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26917). Here's the list I made:

1. Rewind. Yes, harder to program, but rewind and replay is the whole point of recording a battle. It would also make movie-making easier.

2. A map. Something like the commander map except you see both sides. Or maybe you can "be" one side, and see what actions the commander took (UAVs, spotting, etc).

3. Jumping to any player from a list. Instead of having to jump from one player to the next.

4. Camera focus on a group of players. Instead of being able to focus on only on player, you should be able to select 2 or more, and the camera will focus on the center-point of the group. Good for following a chase or squad.

5. Different chase modes. I remember even X-Wing had this. Sort of like the camera view modes already in the game while you play it.

6. Record in-game chat? I mean just the text messages, but voice would be cool too. That might be too instrusive though.

7. Missile view. Heck, bullet view.

8. A control bar, as an optional replacement to using the playback rose. Those roses are kind of awkward to use.

[WarGimp]

1. Rewind. Yes, harder to program, but rewind and replay is the whole point of recording a battle. It would also make movie-making easier.

Unfortunatly, it's not a matter of it being a little hard... it's about it being virtually impossible.

This dawned on me when I figured out what was actually going on with the record/playback system. Thus, I came up with the index point (which I posted about a long time ago) as a way to work around the problem. Even this would be problematic since I'm thinking the save files it would generate would likely be a little larger than a map file.

[Wreck0]

Indexing is something I'd accept as a compromise. Beats nothing at all.

There would be another way. A "renderer" could be written that, once the recorder file is downloaded, could be run using the recorder data. That data would then be translated into a more complete, detailed, and version independent recorder file. It would contain the data needed to reproduce the battle as an animation, rather than as an actual BF2 game with scripted moves.

This, of course, would be large undertaking. Not impossible, but definitely time-consuming.

[« R²» HKS]

Some great idea's there guys. I would love to see BR get a tweak and add more features. I would also love to see BFTV become a reality as we would broadcast games being played on our server.

No1 on my list: I love the idea of an index point. I would make more and better vids if this was a feature. Too many times you have to go back to the start to redo a camera position/angle to get it just right and in the end I just say blah that's good enough.

No.2 1st person view. I can't understand why this was not included in BR.

No.3 Missile cam view. This can currently only be done in game by clicking on the spawn screen anywhere but a spawn point then closing down the spawn screen by hitting the cross in the top right hand corner. Then cycling through the players using the C key. If you say choose the gunner in an attack heli. Everytime they fire a TV guided missile, you ride on the missile in missile cam all the way to the target. Oh I like the idea to of bullet cam, or rocket or grenade cam etc too.

BTW our server below has BR setup correctly however as you know it crashed in 1.2 after the UAV is deployed. When BR functions correctly we will of course have it functional for all also.

[WarGimp]

What got me thinking about this topic was a buddy of mine expressing intrest in doing an animatics project. We'd love to use BF2, but it's so un-wieldly that it would be hard to justify it.

I'm also really just sick of Fraps videos.