Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

[[FM]Master_Chief]

OK, our can is trying to do a little video using battlerecorder and since we never used it before we need some help.

The main issue is that as usually it is the case when making movie, maybe 10% of actual footage makes it into the final cut. We just tried out with a 10MB demo (around 1hr) file and it seems like it's gonna take 24hrs to render it. Mind you, it's running on a 4000+ with 2BG of RAM, 2 Raptors in RAID and 1900XTX so it's not a slow machine. I can render a full length high quality DVD in probably 6 hrs on that machine. But when I checked on it this morning, I was maybe done with 20% of 1hr long demo after 6hrs of rendering. I'm using BattleLauncher 1.2 BTW.

OK, so my question is this. In that 1hr long demo maybe we have 15mins of footage that we want to render. Is it possible to record camera angles and render just PART of a demo file? OR is it possible to PAUSE and RESTART battlerecorder while the server is running so we cut on the length of the demo? Or is there a third option that I'm not considering here.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
folks at ~cn

[Sir. XaliaS]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

I've been meaning on contact Senap about this: To find out if some sort of Bf2demo file cropping tool is actually plausible.

I know what you're trying to say and it is a bugger to work around.
The only method of cropping a part of a recorder file through a camera file is to end the recording early, thus cropping the end off the file.

There is no way to selectively render a section of the file, which is where we need some kind of tool, working under a timeframe, to select the good parts of a bf2demo file.

There is next to no hope of getting DICE to work on this, so as far as I’m concerned it’s up to the peeps who know the most about BF2 recorders already.

It would be such a critical tool for us movie makers… I would pay for it.

But like I said, the only methods now, are of what can be done manually (by pressing escape during rendering)

The only other way is to setup recording “for the moment” then stop it again unless you are under the controls of the server. But even that’s a hassle if you have to restart a round every time.

You have a good system, you can run fraps and have good performance I recon.

[AudieMurphy99]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

While rendering, if you hit R you will stop rendering and it will speed through the footage and exit to the desktop. The problem with that is if you have footage at the end of the file you have to wait anyway. That's basically the only thing you can do to render only part of the footage. DICE didn't spend a huge amount of time on Battle Recorder. =/

If you record the camera angle you want and then exit without allowing the footage to finish the camera file will be screwed up.

I've been meaning on contact Senap about this: To find out if some sort of Bf2demo file cropping tool is actually plausible.

I know what you're trying to say and it is a bugger to work around.
The only method of cropping a part of a recorder file through a camera file is to end the recording early, thus cropping the end off the file.

But I thought if you ended the camera file early it becomes unusable? :hmm:

[[FM]Master_Chief]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

Thanks guys. I was affraid that's the case.

So there's also no way to pause demo recording if I'm running my own server, right? Like a sort of pause command you eneter and then unpause when you want it to record again, all in one round.

[Sir. XaliaS]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

But I thought if you ended the camera file early it becomes unusable? :hmm:

It seems to crash yes, but when I render it everything works out and the avi stops compiling where the .cam file ends. :hmm:

[AudieMurphy99]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

It seems to crash yes, but when I render it everything works out and the avi stops compiling where the .cam file ends. :hmm:

Hmm... I may use this trick this sometime. :)
I had no idea you could do that.

[Sir. Xios]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

If you are running your own server, e.g. you are hosting you can start and stop demos by using "demo.recorddemo name".
But im guessing you are not on the host machine.

It is possible to record by entering "rcon exec demo.recorddemo name" into the console when you are logged in as admin. This has worked for me when I admined a server, but ive yet to see this work again in other servers.

[[FM]Master_Chief]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

I am on the host machine!!! So I can just use "demo.recorddemo name"????? OMG that's great. Explain the use of it to me exactly. As soon as I start the server it starts to record demo. When I want to stop it I type demo.recorddemo name (name being what? it names them with date/time stamp, do I just look it up in win explorer?). And where do I type in the command? In game or in server console?

Also, I just got done rendering our first file and for some strange reason quality of the render is all over the place. Parts of it seem to be the same quality as original demo but other parts look like crap. Hughe amount of pixelation and blur. Like I said the machine is pretty good and I left it alone over night so there was nothing going on on it. I did it in 1024x768 and used Xvid as recommended. So why is the quality so drastically different in different spots?

[Sir. XaliaS]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

You use demo.recorddemo name to start recording a demo then type in demo.stoprecording to create 1 file. Each time you start a new file you will have to change the name e.g. demo.recorddemo name2 and stop it again to create a new file while in the game.
The files will be created in your game directory/mods/bf2/demos folder if I remember correctly... not your documents folder.

About the bluryness in some parts of the video... happened to be too and I had to re-record using another codec and/or settings. Best to play around recording many 5-10 second versions in diff codecs before rendering the final copy.
I ended up using DivX @ 4000 kbps. It eliminates most of the picture corruption but don't take my word for it.
It's when you import compressed footage into your editor it will slow down, as the processing time it takes to read it will be long, (very long for me) and longer to edit than fraps footage.

[[FM]Master_Chief]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

Thanks man.

One last quick question. Do I uncheck record demo in server settings and just type that command when I'm ready to start? Cause otherwise it just starts to record at very beginning.

[Sir. XaliaS]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

Yep leave it unchecked.

Good luck with the filming!

[[FM]Master_Chief]

Re: Need help with battlerecorder PLEASE

Thanks again