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How to record and upload a demo


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#1 Lin

Posted 16 March 2011 - 05:35 PM

Parts of this post have been taken from a very informative post originally authored by Comet. Thank you Comet for the starting material! Do not be fooled by the length of this tutorial: this is a very easy process!

MoonGamers encourages an open policy for sharing demos of any player that you feel may be hacking or scripting. To this end, we have created an open area in Downloads for DoD:S demos that any member can upload, and any member can download to review/comment. Demos that have been uploaded are reviewed by MoonGamers admins to ensure our servers stay as clean from hacking and scripting as possible. Encouraging our members to bring incidents to our attention is part of this policy.

When you upload a demo, a discussion thread is automatically created.

Upload area: Click on the Downloads link at the very top of the forum, then to to DoD:S Demos. Link: http://www.moongamer...oads&showcat=15
Discussion area: General DoD:S section of the forum (where you are now), discussions are located in the subforum titled DoD:S Demos. Link: http://www.moongamer...p?showforum=273

Now let's get started. This tutorial is to ensure we all make the most of the recording time, utilizing the recording for watching the subject...not finding them, or watching them in the wrong view.
In order to create a demo to provide evidence of hacking or suspicious game play you need to record it in the correct camera perspective. The best perspective for this is 'first person'. To select various camera angles simply press the space bar to cycle through them until you are in first person view. It will remain in first person until you change it. If the demo is for personal reasons then select the camera angle and change it to suit your project.

First time only: Make sure your console is enabled. It is enabled if you see the console when you press your tilde (~) key. Your console is where you will enter the command to record your demo. If you don't see your console:
1. Go into: Options - Keyboard - Advanced
2. Check "enable developer options" (~) This key is located under the ESC key on most keyboards.

You're now ready to record demos.

Set up your subject prior to recording:
1. Move to spectate mode.
2. Select the person you are suspicious of...use the left mouse button to cycle through the players, remember only alive players are in that cycle so you may have to cycle through several times. You can reverse cycle using the right mouse button.
3. Once you have your subject, move to first person view using your "jump" key. First person view is where it looks like you are the one behind the gun, it's like your normal gameplay view.
4. You will have to reselect the person each time they die and re-spawn. The fast way to do this is when your subject dies, hold down your Tab key to view the player screen and find the subject. When the player is dead there is a white skull next to their name. When that skull disappears, they have respawned. Release the Tab key and left click your mouse once, this should immediately recapture your subject for the demo.

Record your demo. Remember after you start recording that you cannot resume your own game; you will need to stay on the subject as long as you are recording your demo:
1. Open the console (press the ~ key)
2. Type status to capture a list of the players/steam IDs that are currently in game.
3. Type record nameofdemo - the file name should be the name (full or partial) of the subject and cannot contain any special characters or spaces.
4. Select Resume from the left menu and go back into game. You should be on the subject that you selected prior to recording. If not, press your Tab key to check that they're still in game, and then use your left mouse button to recapture your target player. Remember to recapture your player every time they die.
5. When you have recorded enough (the length of which will be up to you) go back into console to stop the recording.

To end demo recording:
1. Go into console
2. Type stop
3. Scroll up through your console until you find the the data from your status command. Select and copy the player's information...name and Steam ID...to identify the player later.

You can start recording anytime within a running game and stop recording with the stop command. If a change level occurs while recording, the current demo file will be close and a new demo file name_2 (name_3, name_4, etc.) is created.

The demo file (.dem extension) is saved in your current game directory, e.g. C:\Program Files\SteamApps\yourname\day of defeat source\dod

How to playback a demo:
1. Go into Console
2. Type the command playdemo nameofdemo

OR

Shift + F2 while in game, then open your demo.

Anytime while playing back a demo file, the Demo Playback window can be brought up by pressing Shift-F2 or the demoui command. The Demo Playback window allows you to pause and resume, change playback speed or move your camera viewpoint. It also includes adding fades, changing FOV (zooming), parsing commands during playback, changing playback speed, etc.


Credits for this tutorial:
Floyd Lamingo of BRNPGA for the original writeup
Comet, for adapting for use at MoonGamers
Warrior124 for adding current information

Other useful info about the demo player can be found here...

The Valve Developer Community
http://developer.val...Recording_Tools


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Now that you have created a demo how do you share it in Forum?

1. Zip the demo. You will need a zip program like winzip or winrar. Winrar will create zip and rar files, and is more versatile. It is free, click on the following link to their download page. Most will use the English 32- or 64-bit version: http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

2. Upload the demo. Access our Downloads section by scrolling to the very top of the forum. You will see a menu, and Downloads will be the first menu item. Click on it to get to the Downloads section, then go to Steam Demos > DoD:S Demos to upload your recording.
The .dem extension is created by The Source Engine, therefore it must be played back within a Source game or converted into a more familiar file extension. To simplify matters we suggest the .dem file be zipped as above, then uploaded to the Downloads section created for DoD:S demos.

3. Identify the subject player. In the body of the upload form, please copy in the player's name and Steam ID number. Other information we will need is the date/time/time zone you took the demo, and what you feel the player was doing to warrant being recorded. Any information you can provide to help us identify the player and his/her activity will be helpful.

4. Download/view the demo: once the demo has been uploaded, any member can download the .zipped file, then extract the .dem file and place it in the following directory...

C:\Program Files\SteamApps\yourname\day of defeat source\dod

Once placed in the above directory go into your game (for viewing the demo I recommend you Create Server, select any map), open console, and type playdemo nameofdemo (OR press Shift+F2 while in game).


Thank you all for helping to keep our servers clean! If you need assistance learning how to record, upload or view demos, please ask a DoD Admin and we will help you through the process.

#2 K9

Posted 10 April 2011 - 02:18 PM

1. Move to spectate mode.2. Select the person you are suspicious of...use the left mouse button to cycle through the players, remember only alive players are in that cycle so you may have to cycle through several times. You can reverse cycle using the right mouse button.3. Once you have your subject, move to first person view using your "jump" key. First person view is where it looks like you are the one behind the gun, it's like your normal gameplay view.4. You will have to reselect the person each time they die and re-spawn. The fast way to do this is when your subject dies, hold down your Tab key to view the player screen and find the subject. When the player is dead there is a white skull next to their name. When that skill disappears, they have respawned. Release the Tab key and left click your mouse once, this should immediately recapture your subject for the demo


Alternatively, when you are taking a demo press control (Ctrl) in spectate mode. This will bring up an in-game interface where you may select players from a drop-down list.

There are many other cool options to work with in this interface while taking a demo.
- Settings
1. Show tracks (shows the route players have taken)
2. Show health
3. Show names
4. No rotation
- Overview
5. Change map settings (Large Map, Small map, No Map)
- Player View
6. Change the view of the player (Free Look, First Person, Free Overview)

#3 dj_spleen

Posted 11 July 2011 - 09:12 PM

Very informative, thank you for posting.


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