Alliedassault - BF2 How To: Battlerecorder

Taken from TotalBF2 forums:

Quote:

Originally Posted by DirtySock888

This step allows you to record your camera movements in the game.

1.Download ftp://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/misc/demo.cmd and place this in both of these folders.
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2

2.Create a demos folder in the following location.
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2

3.Place all the demos that you wish to render into this folder. Your demos can be found in the following location.
C:\Documents and Settings"yourname"\My Documents\Battlefield 2 Demo\Profiles\Default\demos
(I recommend rendering one demo file at a time so that its less confusing)

4. Open your command prompt. (This can be done by pressing start, run, and typing cmd. You may also be able to find your command prompt in your windows accessories folder.)

5.In your command prompt, type the directory to your BF2 Demo.
Example: cd c:\program files\EA Games\Battlefield 2 Demo

6.Now a line of text should appear that states yoru BF2 Directory.
Example: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo>
Type in the following command: demo.cmd +c "name of demo"
Example: demo.cmd +c demo8

Your game will start up and you should also recieve a message in your command prompt that states: Playing back demo and recording camera...
After you get past your game loading screen, you will enter a loading game screen. Once the game is done loading, click join game. You are now in your video. Any movements of the camera that you make now are being recorded.
It is STRONGLY recommended that you continure recording until the video ends. My video froze at the end and i pressed control+alt+delete and closed Battlefield out and my video works fine. Just be carefull on this step.

Thats how to record. Once the video starts, it will automatically be recording your camera movements. Now if what you mean is "how do you get battlefield recorder video files", you can download these from servers that are running the battlefield recorder. To find these servers, click Battlefield Recorder in your Multiplayer filter.

From Planet Battlefield

[quote:a6a09]Battlefield 2: BattleRecorder

The following commands can be used to control the game replay and camera in a recorded demo. (Note: the term "Demo" depicts the recording itself)

Q – opens the Playback Rose. Move the mouse to highlight the desired playback option and press the Left Mouse Button to select. Options available here that are not bound to separate keys include "Restart" and "Quit".
T – opens the Camera Rose. Choose the camera option or cycle through the available players.
1 – Pause the playback (also available in the Playback Rose).
2 – Playback recorded session at normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
3 – Playback recorded session at 5% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
4 – Playback recorded session at 25% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
5 – Playback recorded session at 50% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
6 – Playback recorded session at normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
7 – Playback recorded session at 150% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
8 – Playback recorded session at 300% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
Spacebar – cycle 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.
Mouse look – aim free camera.

Basic Rendering Instructions
Playing back a demo outside the client and recording your camera movements
This mode lets you record a camera path to go with a demo recording so that they can be played back together. The camera works exactly as described in the instructions above but all movements you make are recorded.
If working from the machine that recorded the demo, drop the demo.cmd file provided with this update (click here to download the demo.cmd file) into the root of the Battlefield 2 install folder.
If working from a client that has downloaded a demo from the game’s front end:
Create a "Demos" folder in the root of the game install folder.
Move the demos you wish to render from into the demos folder from their normal location in you’re my Documents folder.
Drop the demo.cmd folder found below into the root of the game install folder.
Launch the demo recording as follows
Launch the Command Prompt and browse to the game’s install directory.
E.g. type "cd c:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2" and hit ENTER
Type "demo.cmd +c " and press enter.
E.g. "demo.cmd +c mydemo mydemocam" will record a Demos\mydemocam.bf2cam for demo Demos\mydemo.bf2demo
Before quitting the game, wait for the message 'camera file closed' in the console or the camera file will be broken.
Playing back a demo with pre-recorded camera movements
This mode combines the previous steps and shows you a take with both the demo and camera tracks active.
Launch the game as follows: demo.cmd
To watch the demo with the default recorded camera use: demo.cmd -def
Rendering images to disk
This mode writes out an AVI file to disk based on a demo file and a recorded camera file.
Launch the game as follows: demo.cmd +r
A dialog box pops up where you can select encoder (Xvid or Divx is recommended) and the quality settings for that encoder.
If you want to stop rendering before the end of the demo, press 'R'
Capturing sound
This mode tries to set up an ideal environment for recording sound.
Launch the game as follows: demo.cmd +s
Use external recording software to capture the sound from the playback.
Information for Server Admins

Impact on server performance The Battle recorder feature can impact server performance in two ways:
A bandwidth hit (if the demos are uploaded on the same machine that is running the game server.) We strongly recommend that you do not run battlerecorder on the same server you are using to host gameplay. Instead, set up a separate ftp server to host demo files.
A performance hit - dependant on the demo quality setting, which is found on the BF 2 server launcher UI. The demo quality setting can range from the default setting of 1 (lowest quality / minimal performance hit) to 10 (maximum quality / biggest performance hit.) Depending on the server specifications, you'll want to set your demo quality appropriately. We recommend no more than quality 5, the highest quality was built in for users that are creating movies / trailers with the Battlefield 2 engine. Due to the demands even the lowest setting of quality can have, we do not recommend running Battlerecorder on any server that is configured for 64-players.
Requirements
FTP server (only if using a separate machine from the server to host demos.)
Web server - our in game downloading system requires http transfers, and does not support ftp downloading.
How To Set It Up
To activate the BF2 Battle Recorder using the BF2 Server Launcher UI the admin must:
Enable the AutoRecord option.
Input the address where users can download demo files (this has to be in the format of an http: address, as the Battlefield 2 front end does not support ftp downloads.) IMPORTANT - at the end of the address (i.e. 123.456.7.8/demos/) make sure you include the final slash, or the demo download url won't parse correctly in the Battlefield 2 front end, and clients won't be able to download your demo.
If the FTP server is password protected (which we strongly recommend) the admin must use a text editor to make changes to the rotate_demo.cfg file located in the c:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Server folder to contain the proper server address, user login and user password.
The section of the file you must edit is shown in its default state here:
# login information for the ftp server goes here
ftp_server = my.ftp.server
ftp_user = my_user
ftp_password = my_password

Make sure to enter the full address for the ftp server as shown below:
# login information for the ftp server goes here
ftp_server = ftp:\\1.2.1.1
ftp_user = user
ftp_password = userpassword

Inside the rotate_demo.cfg file, you will also be able to set the maximum number of demo files to keep in the rotation, before older demo recordings are overwritten.

Once the above steps have been completed correctly the server will post a recording of the action to the specified server at the end of each round.[/quote:a6a09]