A question about Demorecord...

... for those who might know.

How far can demorecord "see" at any given time? In other words, to get the data on an entire map, would I need to travel across that map or would just a few seconds of recording be enough to save the information?

Second question: does the size of the map matter? For example: If I am outdoors on a zone map would the record need more information to save the map as opposed to a mission map?


Just a few questions that came into my head the other night while running around Moth Cemetary.

I've not personally tested it, although the range is fairly impressive from what I can tell. Even a 10-second demorecord in someplace like IP can capture quite a bit.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

All the maps are stored clientside, the map doesn't get "downloaded" as such, the demorecord will simply call whichever map your on and the client will load it up. So you could have a 1 second demorecord and you will still have the entire map. Bases are different since they are stored on the server and the individual assets are on the client. You may need to run around the base to get it all or it might have loaded it all when you first load the base, not too sure on that one.

As far as data collection goes, things like NPC spawns and other characters probably only get collected if you were within viewing range or just beyond ingame when you recorded. So if a character for example is running around on the other side of IP and you're down the other end, you're probably not going to see demorecord take down that data because the server hasn't downloaded that data to the client since you would be too far away to see it ingame. It's whatever the server is streaming to the client that will be captured in demorecord. The server is most likely smart enough to know what it doesn't need to stream stuff in the zone that the client isn't going to see. You may notice when you're in crowded areas especially, characters may start vanishing, there are limits to just how many characters and NPCs the server will stream to you at a time.

So, whatever you can't "see" ingame is probably not being recorded, but that's just purely NPCs and characters. The map itself is purely clientside.

That's just my beliefs, I haven't used demorecord anywhere near as extensively as Dark_Respite here, but that is the basic gist if I am not too far mistaken.

OT, but I was incredibly sad to discover that demo playbacks lost the ability to play sound. I haven't taken an in-game demo in a long time, so I missed that this bug/behavior had crept in. I was really looking forward to being able to use demos as a bit of a memory lane thing, but having them be silent is loses so much more of the effect. (I play with game sound and always have.)

And of course, we can't get that fixed now.

Oh, well. At least I have FRAPS. Actual movies take an asston more storage though.

All of the maps in the game - except for bases - are stored on the client. In fact, all data is stored on the client. Essentially, all that is received from the server are commands to display objects and play animations/sounds.

As I understand it, if you start a demorecord, it records all these commands in the demo file. Then, when you replay the demo, it's doing the same thing the server does, without the interactivity.

As for how far it sees... The range is... I THINK... 200 feet from the PLAYER, not the CAMERA. (The range might be different, seems I read a tutorial from Zloth that gave that number.) So, you could edit a demo and place the camera all the way across the zone from the PLAYER. What the camera would see is a big empty zone, and waaaaayyyyy off in the distance a cloud of stuff... as the camera approaches, the PLAYER would come into view and everything within range of him.

Zloth's posts on demos is my trusted source, but Samuraiko is definitely the next best thing.

Yeah, I've made some seriously cool desktops thanks to the demorecord feature.

That way you can time a shot just right:





Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

One place I use is the PhotoGallery that comes with my domains.

The other is Twitpic.com.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite