Server side demos

[cant speall]

Hey powers that be,

I was wondering if it is even possible to have the slayboxes record some server side demos. (client sides being the ones which I can record but do almost nothing with...apparently). After doing some research I've found that my client side ones are kind of...well...pointless. It records exactly me, and I'm pretty much limited to my own first person view of each match. I'm really interested in making some frag videos for our server, mostly fun stuff, with all the shenanigans and awesome stuff.

Just wondering if it's possible or if it's just a dream.

[Vivi Hill]

You can use sourcetv to record, but that doesn't let you demosmooth. You actually can control the camera with a normal demo. Simplest way? Play back a demo and set sv_cheats to 1. Then you can use thirdperson. For more advanced stuff search for demosmoothing.

[Nameless]

I'm not exactly sure on the mechanics so I may be talking out of my ass on some of the stuff here, but I think I've seen a server constantly record demos on their server, and then let players request certain awesome moments to be extracted out of that demo and included in a highlight video. I'm assuming they give the details (time it took place, what the moment was, etc) to the admin, who then finds said moment from the demo and converts it into a video. Does something like that sound feasible here?

[cant speall]

You can use sourcetv to record, but that doesn't let you demosmooth. You actually can control the camera with a normal demo. Simplest way? Play back a demo and set sv_cheats to 1. Then you can use thirdperson. For more advanced stuff search for demosmoothing.

I've already done a bunch of research on the topic, but maybe I'm not doing something right. Everytime I smooth a video or even use thirdperson I cannot control the camera (without having my own character model disappear or block the view with the model floating around the middle of the screen). If you aren't sure what I'm talking about I suggest you give it a shot. Like I said, I could be doing something wrong, but it looks like I'm stuck with only doing stuff involving me.

[Vivi Hill]

If you've read about demosmoothing then there should be no issues. You should be able to move around. The mechanics are annoying but it's the only way to properly get out of the persons' body.

You can use sourceTV to record demos, but you can't demosmooth them. You can only look at them as if spectating the game. You can't move the camera around freely and record that movement. Demosmoothing a normal demo will get you stuff like this:

Demo smooth test

You can't do something like that with a SourceTV demo.

[cant speall]

You'll notice in that video that you dont see the scout, even though he has some sort of voice command for the start of the round. He's gone, and what I'm looking to do is find a way to get him back. the command 'thridperson' doesn't really work like I want it to. If you've tried it you know what i mean.

the combo of thirdperson and smoothing just moves your character model around the map like your camera.

still no luck

[Vivi Hill]

Yeah there's no way to smooth yourself at all. The only way to get what you want is to have a friend record the demo or wait for Source Film Maker to come out publicly.

[cant speall]

Ah, sadly this was the answer I was expecting

But thank you for trying, I really appreciate it.