Recording a Demo
A Demo is a recording of game activity from the perspective of a single player (the player recording the demo). The player recording the demo is often spectating and following another player.
Demos are often used to record evidence of bad behavior in anticipation of a ban.
Recording a demo during gameplay[]
This saves the game as a special .urtdemo file, which takes about 6 MB for each 10 minutes recorded. These are not videos, but files that record the 3D displacements. You can export them to video files after recording the demo if you like (see Rendering the file below)
When you're in a game, just press the default F12 key to start recording. If you don't have F12 bound to the record function or it doesn't seem to work, open the Console and type /recorddemo to start recording. You will notice that the recording has begun at the top of the screen (filename and size in kilobytes). Press F12 again to stop recording, or type /stoprecord in the console.
If you want to specify a file name, use /record <filename>. So
/record OMGhacker
will record your demo to OMGhacker.urtdemo
You can also use a script to record demos. See Script: Record Demo.
Note that recording continues even across a change of maps.
Files are stored in the demos folder inside your game folder.
Demo Playback[]
If you launch the game and click on Demos in the main menu, you will see all available demo files in your Game path. To view a downloaded demo, save it to the /demos/ folder in your Game path.
To use the following commands, open Console by pushing ~ or ⇧ Shift+⎋ Esc and type the command. It can be useful to execute a demo-viewing script first to make several demo commands easily available through keybinds instead of written commands.
/cl_freezeDemo 1
Pauses the demo (although the action will continue and when you un-pause (cl_freezeDemo 0), you will pick up further in the demo as if it wasn't paused.
/com_cameramode 1
Enables "camera mode," which allows you to push key commands (like Tab ↹ to view scores) without exiting the demo.
/cg_thirdperson 1
Enables third-person view (behind the recorded position), and allows you to look around with cg_thirdPersonRange [0..500] and cg_thirdPersonAngle [0..360]
/r_shownormals 1
Allows you to see players through walls. Useful for checking for wallhackers.
Rendering the file[]
Once the recording is made as a .urtdemo,
- Adjust the graphics settings with the resolution you want (800x600 is a good choice), and adjust the level of maximum detail (textures).
- Go to the Main Menu. In the Demo menu, run the demo you want to export to video.
- Early in the demo, open the Console, and enter
/video. - Then immediately hide the console.
Urban Terror begins to create the AVI file. Note that the display is very slow, which is quite normal (each rame is saved to JPEG).
/stoprecord will stop recording.
You can also use a script to render videos. See Script: Demo Playback.
The video is created in the videos folder inside your game folder.
Compressing Rendered AVI files[]
Handbrake Tutorial - How To Video (Easy Steps!)
Rendered AVI files are uncompressed, so the files can be quite large. For example a 680kb/1:30 demo file rendered to a 244 MB AVI file. Once the AVI was run through a compressor, the video was just 24 MB.
You can use the video compressor of your choice. If you're not sure what to use, Handbrake is quite nice, cross-platform, and free. Simply add the video to Handbrake, and click the Start button to get good compression. You can tweak the settings if you like to get even smaller files or better quality files.