TF2 Film Making - #2: Recording and Encoding your movie

[Son of Dad]

Well, now this is where all my knowledge really comes out. Every you need to know from loading TF2, to recording your demo into TGAs, and compiling your TGA sequence into a video file that you can edit later on.




If you plan on recording staight from TF2 you'll need a movie hud (I got this from Seeker a while ago) to which you'll replace your resource and script folders in your TF2 folder. You should bump your graphics up to max and if you want to bump your graphics settings to ultra max you can either use Chris' Max Quality config or use these commands just before you play your demo:

mat_picmip -1; mp_usehwmmodels 1; mp_usehwmvcds 1; cl_burninggibs 1; cl_new_impact_effects 1; r_lod 0; cl_smooth 1; mat_hdr_tonemapscale 16; mat_specular 1

The binds I use for recording are:

Bind "o" "host_framerate 240; host_timescale 0.001; startmovie name"
Bind "p" "host_framerate 0; host_timescale 1; endmovie"



Once you've recorded your footage into a bunch of TGAs you'll need Virtualdub to compile this sequence into an AVI. You'll need the lagarith lossless video codec for the best quality RAW footage encoding.



In this last video, I explain why you see so many people say what fps they recorded at and why they would do such a thing. Just something i get asked frequently.