Features for Demos menu

[MH]

I'm coding a demos menu for MHQuake, and I'm interested in some opinion from you lot before I get too far into it. Generally what features you'd like to see in it (and you can use a wish-list format for this if you want, rather than restricting yourself to the items below), but specifically the following items:

* How many demos have you got? There's space for 17 in a simple flat menu, but it can be expanded (sky's the limit) using a scrollbox (I already support demos from both PAK files and the filesystem, so that's OK).

* Is the name of the .dem file sufficient to display, or do you want further info on the demo (I'm prepared to parse the file and pull out this info if required).

* Do you want to be able to record demos from the menu? Is an automatically generated name OK? Do you want to be able to select the CD track when recording?

* What about stopping recording? Do you have a keybinding for stopping, do you want me to trap a key specifically for this (and if so which key?), or are you happy to pull down the console and type "stop" yourself?. (I'm leaning towards bringing down the console or bringing up the menus triggering a stop.)

* Is playdemo support OK, or do you want timedemo too?

* I'd like to give a demo preview (displaying in a small window to the side of the list) but it seems like too much work for little gain. It would be cool though, maybe a version 2 feature. What do you think?

* Any other useful features you can think of!

Thanks in advance.

[Baker]

* Is the name of the .dem file sufficient to display, or do you want further info on the demo (I'm prepared to parse the file and pull out this info if required).

I can say that the map name of the demo is essential.

[Deigo]

* How many demos have you got? There's space for 17 in a simple flat menu, but it can be expanded (sky's the limit) using a scrollbox (I already support demos from both PAK files and the filesystem, so that's OK).

I have plenty of demos, but the flat menu can be any size as long as there's a scrollbar.

* Is the name of the .dem file sufficient to display, or do you want further info on the demo (I'm prepared to parse the file and pull out this info if required).

I think the things that need to be in a demo name are as follows:
Map name
Date taken
Time taken (I prefer military time)
Game type played
Example: July 12 2008 - 1930 - CA - DM3.dem (this is actually how I rename all my demos)

I realize that this is a bit extreme for the majority. I wouldn't expect anything this silly in any release.

* Do you want to be able to record demos from the menu? Is an automatically generated name OK? Do you want to be able to select the CD track when recording?

• Being able to record demos from the menu wouldn't be essential for me.

• An automatically generated name would be ok since I go back and rename them all as stated above.

• Selecting CD track when recording is a clever idea, but I never use CDs. When I actually plan on doing movie making, though, I use Fraps and my own video editing software to implement specific audio and transitioning. I don't see this being a need option, either.

* What about stopping recording? Do you have a keybinding for stopping, do you want me to trap a key specifically for this (and if so which key?), or are you happy to pull down the console and type "stop" yourself?. (I'm leaning towards bringing down the console or bringing up the menus triggering a stop.)

I have a specific key for stopping recording. Right next to my 'no' vote, so frequently used to avoid E1M7 and Start on Shmack.

* Is playdemo support OK, or do you want timedemo too?

Not sure what this is.

* I'd like to give a demo preview (displaying in a small window to the side of the list) but it seems like too much work for little gain. It would be cool though, maybe a version 2 feature. What do you think?

Very cool idea. If it's an extreme pain to do, I wouldn't worry about it. It is a rather nice 'extra', though.

Sorry I couldn't offer anything new to expand upon. I hope the information and insight that I gave helps you with your menu. Thanks for your support in keeping Quake alive.

[MH]

Sounds good so far!

I suppose each person's personal naming convention is something to be worked around - there's limited width too!

I generally do dates in YYYY-MM-DD, primarily so they'll sort correctly in a directory listing (a longstanding habit of collecting live bootlegs is the cause of this), so if I'm displaying date that's the format I'll use.

Regarding info to display, if it can be pulled from either the demo file or the filesystem, if it's generally considered useful, and if it doesn't turn into overload, I'll do it. If there's too much, something will have to go, I'm afraid.

Interesting that a record function isn't seen as being useful or desirable to you - it's one of the main items I would have thought everyone would want!

[Zop]

I record from the command line, or bound key- which also will contain the filename I want to use. Though, a record submenu might be useful for players that arenot familiar with demoing- allow them to input a name and mapname (or server?), to make it easy on them.

For previewing demo, I think it would suffice to play in the background of the menu (as if you initiated a demo, then started the menu). I recommend that it's not automatic, so players can scroll through demos as well as not interrupt whatever they had going.

[Senban]

I think that it would be smart to put the demo start button in the menu, as it makes the game as open as possible to newbies. As for naming the demo's the simplest way to handle it might be to auto-name them at the time of recording but allow the player to rename them in the menu.

The best thing to have demo wise would be the ability to start recording at any point (which is available in Qrack at least) and put a record on/off command in the controls menu.

Info wise how about putting in the highest scoring players name (or top three depending on how much space is available), and maybe up to three + signs to denote players not named on the list?

[MH]

I'm almost starting to regret that I mentioned a demo preview! It seems as though it would require quite a bit of re-engineering of the engine to allow for two simultaneous client sessions, which you would have if browsing the menu while connected to a server. Of course, since I've converted to C++ I can move all the client state over to an object and just instantiate that, but at the same time, it's a version 2.0 goal for now.

Here's what I have so far:

* Unbounded list of demos. They're displayed in a scrolling listbox, so you can have as many as you like and I'll display them all.

* Demo playback directly from the menu - hit Enter on a demo and it will play (should I return to the menu after playing? I think so.)

* Demo recording directly from the menu - select "Record New Demo" and a "Demo Recording Setup" mode is toggled (select it again to cancel the toggle), then run through the Maps menu or start a new SP or MP game to begin recording.

* Demo names are autogenerated in YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS format (converted to YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS for display - filesystem limitation workaround).

Planned new stuff includes:

* A Demos subfolder. This is just to please me, as I like keeping ID1 (or wherever) clean of files. I'll support reading from the top level or from /demos, but I'm planning on only supporting writing to /demos.

* Sorting the listbox! This is quite important, as it could potentially display from / or /demos in both ID1 and the current game directory. I use the same listbox class for Maps and Load/Save, so it's advantageous all round. I can then add incremental search to it.

* Start recording at any point. I'm glad someone mentioned that as I'd forgotten it; so I'm figuring I might steal some QRACK code. Also required for starting recording from a Load.

* (Possible) Append to a demo.

Keep 'em coming!

[Senban]

Maybe a screen-shot would make more sense than a preview? This would be particularly cool if you could auto-generate the screen-shot from the point in the demo when the most entity's are on screen at one time and button0 is being pressed.

[metchsteekle]

/ thinks back to the game loading images has seen before

[MH]

Maybe a screen-shot would make more sense than a preview? This would be particularly cool if you could auto-generate the screen-shot from the point in the demo when the most entity's are on screen at one time and button0 is being pressed.

You mean while recording? Sounds nice enough, I'd be interested in hearing more thoughts on this one. I'm wary of doing it on a button-press though, as I really want to make a "don't make me think" interface here - something like just taking a shot on frame 10 sounds roundabout right to me. Maybe allow an override (overwrite) of that on the button press.

Autogenerating a screenshot is incredibly easy, I can just pump it through my mapshots code (already used for saves), and if memory serves that takes a path in the filesystem as a parameter, so I might be able to do it without even changing anything. Likewise with drawing the shot.

Yeah, consider this something that *WILL* happen. Good idea!

I might put a notification (in bottom-center screen, or somewhere else reasonably prominent but not too much in the way) that we're currently recording a demo, just to remind the player not to do anything silly like go off and spend 20 minutes making coffee and toast while recording.

[MH]

The autogenerated screenshot is done. Easy as pie.

I haven't done the user override shot yet, but that will have to wait until the next idea is done, which is to take a screenshot during playback if one doesn't exist. I'm also going to add this to regular map running.

___________________________________________


All done. Both demo playback and regular maps will now take a mapshot on frame 3 if there isn't already one there. Demo recording always takes a mapshot on frame 3 (should this also be if there isn't already one there?). Saving a game always takes a mapshot, as before.

Mapshots are 256 x 256 images (so they can be taken quickly), but you can replace with a larger if you like (you'll have to do this manually - I might add a menu option for 512 x 512, but you really won't get any extra quality in the view as I draw at 144 x 144, and it will break in 640 x 480 modes). They have the same name as the associated file, go in the same directory, and display in the same menu (yes, there's a Maps menu too). If no mapshot image is found, the conback image is used.

A mapshot command has been added (bindable, added to the Customize Controls menu too) allowing you to take a shot whenever you want. If you're recording or playing a demo, it goes in /demos with the same name as the demo, if you're running a map it goes in /maps with the same name as the map.

_______________________________

Next: pulling info from the .dem file.

[MH]

OK, the initial cut is now finished and a screenshot is available here: http://mhquake.blogspot.com/2008/08/...-finished.html

Thanks to everyone who contributed ideas and suggestions, or who contributed to the general discussion. Sorry everything couldn't make it in; I had to balance the desire to display useful info with the need to avoid recreating the server update parser in the menus!

Any last-minute suggestions or comments are still welcome, of course!

[metchsteekle]

look good

[Baker]

Very impressive.

[Spirit]

More ideas:

Playername(s)
Skill
Length (if possible)
Maybe the end stats (monster and secrets) (if possible)

Great work what you are doing.