Watching Replays

Playback Interface

from Sins Forums

I am relatively new to SOASE but I would really appreciate some help.  I have recorded a few games and tried to watch them but (as a noob) more than a couple replays are 12+ hours long.

I know.  Pretty bad, eh?

Is there any way to watch a replay and: ...

1) Jump to a specific time (game time or machine time)?

2)Rewind?

3)Fast-forward more than 8x?

4)Convert the recorded game file to a video or some other format which allows any of the previous?

Thanks in advance,
                           Phoenecian

14,634 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

1) Jump to a specific time (game time or machine time)?
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Nope; you gotta fast-forward to the point you're interested in.

2)Rewind?
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Nope; you gotta restart and fast-forward to the point you're interested in.

3)Fast-forward more than 8x?
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Nope; that's maximum.  In practice, though, very few systems would actually be able to handle higher than 8x once fleets get large.

4)Convert the recorded game file to a video or some other format which allows any of the previous?
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You can always try recording the screen and creating a video that way.

 

The way replays work in Sins (and most games) is that they record the initial state of the game, the random seed, and then an exact list of every action ever made by the human player, timed down to the millisecond.  Basically, if you put exactly the same inputs into the game at exactly the same time, the game plays out exactly the same way.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

So each input has a time stamp attached to it?  Wouldn't it be possible then to jump to that time stamp?  Or would that require a serious coding overhaul?

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Darvin3, reply 1


4)Convert the recorded game file to a video or some other format which allows any of the previous?

You can always try recording the screen and creating a video that way.

End of Darvin3's quote

How do you do that?

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

So each input has a time stamp attached to it?  Wouldn't it be possible then to jump to that time stamp?  Or would that require a serious coding overhaul?
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The problem is that you'd need to keep track of the game state at each of these times, as well.  This is the whole point; the replay system doesn't record the position of every unit at every point in time.  It just records what you do, then plays the game as normal. 

In theory, there's nothing stopping a developer from creating a system where the replay "saves" the game every few minutes and allows you to jump to these saves (this feature is in Starcraft 2, for instance) but I do not know if this would be feasible for Sins.

 

How do you do that?
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You'll need to download a separate program that records everything on your screen.

I recently tried recording myself in-game using a program called CamStudio, but the quality was pathetic and the sound was jumpy.  It did work, though.

 

PS - use the "edit" button rather than double-posting in future :-)

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

How do you do that?
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There is also Camtasia (what I use) or Fraps. This takes huge amounts of processor and ram to play the game and record video and the files will also be huge until you convert them.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Thanks, gents.  I'll look in to a recording program and maybe learn some coding next semester to try to implement the recording saves.