I been an avid movie maker of the games i play for a while now. Learning new things each time i produce a new flick. Right now i am currantly working on a BF2 video, hopefully you will all like it when finished. I have asked a bunch of questions and also gone through the whole trial and error thing. The guys who made the Mine video, i been to thier forums and theres some very useful info there on making movies in BF2. And of course, these forums as well have provided a ton of info, and than theres tweakguides.com, theres one hell of a tutorial there. So much info i had to print some of it out.
I am fully aware of all the posts about the Battle Recorder, but i wanted to put up my expierence with it and also, i kept the title of the post as straight to the point as possible. Hopefully helping people in the future when searching for related info.
Anyway,
Some things ive learned about the BF2 recorder.
If you want to go multiplayer you need to find a server with the Battle recorder activated and properly set up. Too many times i have played on a server and gone to download the demo only to get an error that says i cant for whatever reason. One night i hopped through 20+servers that were supposedly Battle recorder ready, before i managed to get a demo that would download properly. Ever since the new patch Demo's are such a pain in the ass to get on a multiplayer server. Good luck.
If you want to create your own demo, but without joining a multiplayer game there are 2 options for you.
1. Create your own server, from your PC.
or
2. Start a single player game.
While in either game, open your console by pressing the ~ key.
To record a demo
Type the following command: demo.recordDemo name
replace "name" with whatever you want to name your demo.
To stop recording
Type the following command: demo.stopRecording
your demos will be found here:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2
Move them to:
My Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles\Default\demos
Once you have moved the files to the right folder, start your BF2 game and click on the community tab as seen in SS below. Any files on the left side of the screen are files from servers that you played on with Battle Recorder enabled. The file(s) on the right are either demos you already downloaded or created yourself.
Once you start your demo you can do a number of different things.
press the T key to bring up the Camera Rose. You can cycle between players here and also change from free cam or to player cam.
To change the speed at which your demo plays back press the Q key. From here you can also Start, Pause or Restart the demo. Unfortunately i have not found an option to Rewind.
**NOTE** If you turn your HUD off as explained below you wont be able to see the cam or player rose box's. By pressing the # keys you can use the Playback Rose from there.
1: pause
2: play @ regular speed
3: play @ 5% speed
4: play @ 25% speed
5: play @ 50% speed
6: play @ regular speed
7: play @ 150% speed
8: play @ 300% speed
Spacebar: cycle forward between players.
Shift + Spacebar: cycle backwards between players.
Right Mouse Button: cycle between free camera and player camera.
Mouse wheel: zoom camera in and out when locked onto a player.
W, A, S, D, Ctrl and Shift: move free camera around map, forward, left, backwards, right, down and up.
To remove the HUD from your screen while watching a demo (the mini map, and any text on the screen):
renderer.drawHud 0
To put the HUD back on:
renderer.drawHud 1
If you want to get rid of the red and blue player names you need to do something a little different.
Goto C:Program Files/EA GAMES/Battlefield 2/mods/bf2/
and locate the GameLogicInit.con file.
Open it with notepad and add the following line,
renderer.drawNametags 0
**NOTE** To view the red and blue names again you will need to remove that line. If your going into a matchor something dont forget to remove it that would suck for joo.
Heres some usefull programs to help you create movies from your demos
Auto Gordian Knot: Used for encoding (adding a codec, preferably DivX or XviD)
http://www.autogk.me.uk/
Vitrualdub: Used for compressing (making a huge file smaller so people can download it faster. Make compression your friend )
http://www.virtualdub.org/
Adobe Premiere Pro: Used for editing, Not a free program but you can get a trial.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html
Sony Vegas: Used for editing, Also not a free program but you can get a trial.
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/produc … sp?PID=977
Use one of the following Codecs when encoding. They are the most popular.
DivX Codec
http://www.divx.com/
XviD Codec
http://www.xvid.org/
Thanx to:
Noken @
http://www.snoken.mine.nu/
Koroush Ghazi @
http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_1.html
and countless people on the BF2s forums that have pitched in what they know, thanx to you too.
-DMFDxUconn 12/06/05
===============
Idle & Perform: #dmfd (Gamesurge: Random US Server))
http://www.dmfdclan.com
I am fully aware of all the posts about the Battle Recorder, but i wanted to put up my expierence with it and also, i kept the title of the post as straight to the point as possible. Hopefully helping people in the future when searching for related info.
Anyway,
Some things ive learned about the BF2 recorder.
If you want to go multiplayer you need to find a server with the Battle recorder activated and properly set up. Too many times i have played on a server and gone to download the demo only to get an error that says i cant for whatever reason. One night i hopped through 20+servers that were supposedly Battle recorder ready, before i managed to get a demo that would download properly. Ever since the new patch Demo's are such a pain in the ass to get on a multiplayer server. Good luck.
If you want to create your own demo, but without joining a multiplayer game there are 2 options for you.
1. Create your own server, from your PC.
or
2. Start a single player game.
While in either game, open your console by pressing the ~ key.
To record a demo
Type the following command: demo.recordDemo name
replace "name" with whatever you want to name your demo.
To stop recording
Type the following command: demo.stopRecording
your demos will be found here:
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2
Move them to:
My Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles\Default\demos
Once you have moved the files to the right folder, start your BF2 game and click on the community tab as seen in SS below. Any files on the left side of the screen are files from servers that you played on with Battle Recorder enabled. The file(s) on the right are either demos you already downloaded or created yourself.
Once you start your demo you can do a number of different things.
press the T key to bring up the Camera Rose. You can cycle between players here and also change from free cam or to player cam.
To change the speed at which your demo plays back press the Q key. From here you can also Start, Pause or Restart the demo. Unfortunately i have not found an option to Rewind.
**NOTE** If you turn your HUD off as explained below you wont be able to see the cam or player rose box's. By pressing the # keys you can use the Playback Rose from there.
1: pause
2: play @ regular speed
3: play @ 5% speed
4: play @ 25% speed
5: play @ 50% speed
6: play @ regular speed
7: play @ 150% speed
8: play @ 300% speed
Spacebar: cycle forward between players.
Shift + Spacebar: cycle backwards between players.
Right Mouse Button: cycle between free camera and player camera.
Mouse wheel: zoom camera in and out when locked onto a player.
W, A, S, D, Ctrl and Shift: move free camera around map, forward, left, backwards, right, down and up.
To remove the HUD from your screen while watching a demo (the mini map, and any text on the screen):
renderer.drawHud 0
To put the HUD back on:
renderer.drawHud 1
If you want to get rid of the red and blue player names you need to do something a little different.
Goto C:Program Files/EA GAMES/Battlefield 2/mods/bf2/
and locate the GameLogicInit.con file.
Open it with notepad and add the following line,
renderer.drawNametags 0
**NOTE** To view the red and blue names again you will need to remove that line. If your going into a matchor something dont forget to remove it that would suck for joo.
Heres some usefull programs to help you create movies from your demos
Auto Gordian Knot: Used for encoding (adding a codec, preferably DivX or XviD)
http://www.autogk.me.uk/
Vitrualdub: Used for compressing (making a huge file smaller so people can download it faster. Make compression your friend )
http://www.virtualdub.org/
Adobe Premiere Pro: Used for editing, Not a free program but you can get a trial.
http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere/main.html
Sony Vegas: Used for editing, Also not a free program but you can get a trial.
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/produc … sp?PID=977
Use one of the following Codecs when encoding. They are the most popular.
DivX Codec
http://www.divx.com/
XviD Codec
http://www.xvid.org/
Thanx to:
Noken @
http://www.snoken.mine.nu/
Koroush Ghazi @
http://www.tweakguides.com/BF2_1.html
and countless people on the BF2s forums that have pitched in what they know, thanx to you too.
-DMFDxUconn 12/06/05
===============
Idle & Perform: #dmfd (Gamesurge: Random US Server))
http://www.dmfdclan.com
Last edited by DMFDxUconn (2005-12-06 15:36:52)