Team Fortress Wiki talk:Weapon Demonstration

Demonstrating item sets

Here's an idea: demonstration for item sets. Demos of stuff like:

• Scout with 125 HP gets hit. Set Scout with 150 HP hets hit.
• Soldier gets hit by sentry. Set Soldier with set gets hit by sentry and survives longer.
• Pyro runs, get killed by boolets. Set Pyro runs faster, get killed by boolets faster.
• Demo gets hit by fire. Set Demo gets hit by fire and takes less damage.
• Heavy gets hit by crits. Set Heavy gets hit by crits and survives longer (?)
• Medic takes damage, recovers health. Set Medic takes damage, recovers health faster.
• Sniper gets headshooted. Set Sniper gets headshotted and survives.
• Spy cloaks, decloaks, bumps into someone. Set Spy decloaks with no sound, bumps into someone too.

And stuff like that. Of course, that would require people to have the set hats. -- OluapPlayer _(t) 21:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support Yes, I like dis weapons. — Wind 21:57, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

 Oppose According to the project page, the point of this project is to "To demonstrate how weapons work (duh); firing animation, reloading animation, projectile trajectory, speed, damage, and simply viewmodel". I feel like demonstrating sets doesn't apply to 6/7 of those objectives. IMHO, the set bonuses are quite simple and self explanatory in comparison to some of the weapons --Nate ^{(T | C)} 23:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support If you're sticking strictly to the objectives, then all non-projectile weapons and melee weapons each disobey one of the seven. Plus there's no reason not to show it; for example, some people might want to see just how well a tank-busting Soldier can stand up to a Sentry. Either way, if we do make these videos, I'd suggest putting them on the pages for the set hats rather than the main Item sets page - BUT the Demo and Medic sets don't actually include hats, so that might be a problem. Ideas? —烏Γ ^{(kaw at me)}, 02:06, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

 SupportI think this is a good idea. I've always been curious has to how much the sets do, like for the Tankbuster I don't know how big of a deal 20% is. I say go for it. KingofKoopas 04:00, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support I was just going to suggest this, I guess we'd put the demo videos on the stat bonus page. I have all the set bonuses, so if this gets approved I can help with it. Perhaps for the resistance ones we could have a 3rd person perspective showing the decrease of health differing or something of the sort. Raptor Llama 21:07, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support Videos are fun. Also, they'll show players exactly how much the bonus matters. If we do make them, we ought to put them on the pages of all the items that comprise the set. If we need to, we could make them a sub-category of weapon demonstrations. -Armisael 20:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support It's probably going to be a leetle tricky to make the Heavy set bonus perceptible, but if someone can do it, it's us! — nVis (talk) 18:58, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there are two good choices for the heavy demonstration. Obviously, both heavies have to have the claws equipped. There's only one weapons that is neither streaming nor has a bleed/fire/explosion effect associated with it: the L'étranger (3 critical hits vs. 4). If the set heavy eats the steak, and takes minicrits, there are more options. Armisael 19:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking about shooting a crocket at the Heavies. Crockets do 270 damage, so both would survive. -- OluapPlayer _(t) 19:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

That's the problem with almost every weapon in the game; they don't distinguish between a set heavy and a non-set heavy with the claws. A quick scroll down the weapon page makes it seem as if the bats (basher excepted) are the only thing added by the minicrits. The chart below shows the ranges that the base weapon damage has to be in; they're absurdly tight, and absurdly rare.

Number of Hits to non-set kill	Full Crit Range	Minicrit Range
One	94-98	208-219
Two	47-49	104-109
Three	32 (L'étranger)	70-72
Four	24	52-54
Five	19	42-43
Six	16	35-36 (bat)
Seven	14	30-31

Overanalyzed for this conversation? Probably. -Armisael 19:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

 Comment I got L'etranger, Your Eternal Reward, and Familiar Fez (Saharan Spy) so if this thing goes through, I could deal with that. Maybe Cloak myself and the Spy Bot and make to hit each other a couple times or something. If it matters, I also have Ullapool Caber (1/2 of Expert's Ordnance) and Holy Mackerel (1/4 of Special Delivery). Well, I have spares of those 2 Weapons anyway, but I also have Bushwacka (1/4 Croc-o-Style), Brass Beast (1/3 Hibernating Bear), and Degreaser (1/3 Gas Jockey) available if push comes to shove. I got other Polycount Weapons, but those are Store-bought and therefore, not tradable (Without Gift Wrap). Lancer anti-tank Rocket 10:10, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

You can just edit items_game.txt to give yourself all the items you want, so availability is not a problem here — Wind 22:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Scottish Resistance

I wanted to try my hand at weapon demonstration, so I reserved a gun. Only afterwards did I realize that the Resistance requires a ton of stuff to be shown:

• Faster firing speed
• Maximum placed stickies
• Slower arm time
• Selective detonation
  • Sticky jumping still possible
• Breaking stickies

These are what I'm going to try to demonstrate later. If anyone thinks of stuff to add beforehand, go ahead - I'll check the page before I start recording. — nVis (talk) 00:32, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Be sure to show that stickies det if they're near you, whether you're looking at them or not. Armisael 01:06, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I had some trouble with codecs and syncing the audio, but eventually managed to get it working after several attempts: Scottish Resistance v1. It demonstrates most of what I wanted it to, but it doesn't exactly follow the proposed format. I'm pretty happy with the timing, though. — nVis (talk) 23:31, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is the original AVI file, just in case. — nVis (talk) 00:31, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Not bad for a first attempt~ But some things should be improved.

• Always reload at the end of a clip (before taunting, and after jumping on 2fort)
• The main purpose of the scottish resistance is the ability to detonate stickies in an arbitrary manner, and I think this video fails to demonstrate this properly. For instance, show how the outlines become blue depending on cursor position, make a sticky carpet and explode it progressively, etc; this would show it better than by making clusters.
• Faster firing speed should be demonstrated by split-screen: have two demoman firing 8 stickybombs as fast as possible (don't forget to reload)
• You should also show arming time with a split-screen, by having them fire a sticky and exploding as soon as possible
• This clip shows what happens when you drop more than 14 stickybombs at 0:51. This is a good thing to show, keep it in (just saying this in case it was unintended)

— Wind 02:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. Here's a version with a different bombing approach and split screen views to illustrate the differences (download). — nVis (talk) 10:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I noticed that my last video had a slight problem with one of the fadeouts, and was missing ammo counts during the firing speed comparison (a pretty significant flaw). I ended up using a panning motion to reveal the ammo counts in a hopefully non-distracting way. The arm time comparison doesn't display them, but only two bombs are fired, so it shouldn't be necessary. Uploaded on YouTube and MediaFire. — nVis (talk) 14:32, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Good job with the Stickybomb-Scottish Resistance comparison, but...

• Premature loading at 0:50 before Taunt. Let your Clip empty before reloading.
  • Considering you fully loaded before taunting, it may have been recommended to use editing Software to plant that part at the end.
• Bots not killed in order. Not a big problem that needs a re-take though.
• Might be a good idea to put a SR Bomb behind an obstacle on purpose to show you can still see its Aura. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 16:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

0:50 is not a premature reload; always reload before taunting/when clip is over. Bot order is a worthy sacrifice to make because that way it makes it easier to show how stickies can be exploded selectively. Agree about the aura thing though. On to my analysis~

• Reshoot the clip at 0:41: We should be able to see the Demoman firing his stickies, otherwise they're not obviously visible. Since the stickies shouldn't be all clustered in one single place, you should have a friend drop them, or using bot_mimic with some clever bot_mimic_yaw_offset value. Also, we don't properly see the Demoman's behind when taunting; move a bit toward the fence before taunting.
• The panning to show the ammo count isn't necessary. It looks kind of disturbing (non-natural camera movement) and doesn't bring much value (they know that both weapons have 8 stickies already)

— Wind 00:55, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I've uploaded version 4 (download). I added a scene that demonstrates detonating stickies through a wall, reshot the sticky destroying part, and removed the admittedly disorienting panning effect. — nVis (talk) 15:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you~ Will be uploaded 22:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

As promised

• Backburner
• Minigun
• Iron Curtain
• Gunslinger

Any thoughts about showing the crit-negating effects of the battalion's backup? The current video doesn't show it, but it ought to be shown. Having a friend kritz a bot could certainly work, but if anyone can think of a simply solution that would be nice. Armisael 01:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Have a splitscreen with a sniper trying to headshot you, maybe? - Zhnigo 20:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not obvious to see that he was aiming for the head. — Wind 02:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Both Minigun and Iron Curtain continue playing for some time after the video has ended, but that can be fixed easily. Aside that, I couldn't find anything else wrong with them. Well done. 20xx0 10:28, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

That has been fixed. Armisael 13:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

You are quite right about the battalion's backup. Kritz medic seems to be the best solution, and the most obvious one when demonstrating things with critical hits involved (like the heavy set bonus effect).

As for the videos, I only got a problem with the Backburner one, when demonstrating damage on the Soldier: Are you sure the minimum amount of damage possible when puffing is 5? Try going backward just a little bit and see. Also, when demonstrating the closest-possible damage, we can't see the damage number. All other videos are good, thanks a lot :3 — Wind 02:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Backburner redone. I'm at the maximum range, as demonstrated in the video. I suspect that 4s are possible, becuase I think I saw some, but I couldn't reliable produce them. Armisael 03:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Build/Destroy PDAs

Seemed simple enough. I could shave five seconds off the video by not killing the Spy and I was wondering, should hauling buildings be demonstrated with this? It's not specific to the PDA but the PDA allows for building construction, and those buildings can be hauled, so...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7IqeHmjlyE i-ghost 11:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't kill the Spy indeed. It's interesting to show that you can't destroy a building though. But are you using the pldx particles again? The buildings explosion seem to use custom particles.

Oops, pldx particles on by accident from recording non-wiki footage, my bad. What about hauling buildings though? Should I demonstrate that? i-ghost 13:22, 23 January 2011 (UTC) (forgot to sign, sorry)

I don't think so. I think there'll be Buildings Demonstrations later so they should be shown there. — Wind 19:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

New version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay8jQFfUePE i-ghost 17:32, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

It's good, save one annoying thing: The demolition PDA's animation doesn't show. I believe it always shows if you go from shotgun to demolition PDA or if you press 5. Could you fix that? It's a bit awkward when it just flashes on screen right away — Wind 22:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been conducting some testing and it doesn't appear to play the animation regardless of which weapon you switched from. I'll just keep re-recording the demos and see, via trial and error, if I get a clean, fully animated run. This will take time, unless somebody can fix the model/animation for me. i-ghost 13:14, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

If it takes too long, keep the version where it works most of the time — Wind 22:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Equalizer

Equalizer on YouTube Backburner will be later.

Wrong aspect ratio, Equalizer not equipped in loadout screen.20xx0 22:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

What 20xx0 said, plus:

• Is in Russian D: (You probably already knew that one)
• Should show when you have about ~150 HP if possible
• Try taking damage from the enemies (press F to make them fire) instead of self-damage

— Wind 02:47, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Tell me, please, how to start game in English. I tried to set language in Steam, but changes only voice commands. Gringo perm 05:10, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well that's... weird... Maybe change the language and then reinstall TF2? (But you probably don't feel like doing that, I'm guessing). Otherwise, try overwriting tf_russian.txt with the contents of tf_english.txt. — Wind 06:57, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

F@$# yeah! I've set English language of Steam, and game was translated automaticly! Gringo perm 08:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I've redone video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX3t_0pfgW0 - here it is! Gringo perm 10:21, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Still the aspect ratio is wrong, and don't rotate the model in loadout screen while already recording. 20xx0 11:28, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I have small monitor (15') with maximum resolution 1024x768. Gringo perm 11:32, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, then I'm afraid you can't do weapon demonstrations :( The minimum is 720p, which at 16:9 means 1280x720. D: The video demonstration content is good though — Wind 19:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmm... FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!! Excuse me... I NEED AT LEAST 200$ TO MAKE VIDEO DEMONSTRATION!!! I HAVE NO MONEY AT ALL!!! Excuse me, again. THAT'S UNFAIR!!! I don't know WTF is happend with me... Gringo perm 19:34, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sorry, but this does discriminate people based on hardware. This is a necessary evil in order to maintain a consistent quality. :( — Wind 19:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'll try to repair my old 32' TV on next weekend and, maybe, will make videos for another weapons. Gringo perm 19:50, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

This Vid should show the Kamikaze Taunt both with and without the Lumbricus Lid to show how it affects both the Taunt's Volume, and the kill icon in the kill feed. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 22:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh no, YOU I do not forget...

Hey Guys, I'm just about to have a go at The Sandvich Demonstration. Just warming up Fraps now so...yeah, I guess I'm reserving The Sandvich. I've read the plan so I know what to do (Assuming I can pull it off). Lancer anti-tank Rocket 10:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Aspect ratio is off, (black borders cutting off the video) Shock394 18:37, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah I don't know why/how to resolve that. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 19:02, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorted 'n' Uploaded. Here you go! Lancer anti-tank Rocket 14:17, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry but this is still not 16:9 D: (has black borders around it), the framerate is low, it's not HD, and it is not antialiased. — Wind 19:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

How the hell do I fix said problems? I ain't done crap like this before... Lancer anti-tank Rocket 20:42, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Anti-aliasing and ratio are settings in options->video. Make sure that your ratio is at least 1280x720. The frame rate? Well...that's a matter of squeezing more power out of your computer. If push comes to shove, you can take a demo at really low settings, then use fraps on a playback of that (at high settings). Armisael 20:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I never knew what anti-aliasing did and I didn't spot Aspect Ratio. My Monitor Supports 1280X1024 (Native Resolution) so it should have no problem with that. Framerate I can't seem to boost, don't know about getting HD, but thanks for the Info. I'll see what I can do... Lancer anti-tank Rocket 20:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Videos must be 16:9, so pick "16:9" under the "Aspect ratio" menu (in TF2's video options) and pick any resolution that is equal or larger than 1280x720. As for the framerate, type cl_showfps 1 in console to have an idea of what framerate you're getting, then start the recording. Fraps will "take away" frames from you (so if your card gets 45 fps, and you set Fraps to record at 30 fps, you will only see 15 fps, and Fraps will record the 30 other ones). The objective is to have 30 frames recorded or more every second. If you can't seem to reach that, then you probably have to use the source recorder and merge videos to include the backpack view... Which is quite a bit harder. — Wind 00:16, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, the source recorder does display the backpack view if you go into into it. I have no idea if this is new, and if it is, when it was implemented, but I did use it in my battalion's backup and backburner videos. Armisael 03:17, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Hold on, what's the optimal anti-aliasing variable to use? Lancer anti-tank Rocket 13:31, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

2x is the minimum required, higher is better — Wind 15:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Alright, I've done a second take, but Youtube's saying it'll take roughly 1.5 - 2K Minutes to upload, lol. But unlike my other ones, this actually heeds the technical stuff such as aspect ratio, anti-aliasing (Since I was unsure what amount, I did 4x and now I can see that was a bit excessive) and I think I got it in HD, which may explain why it's taking so long. Frame Rates is something for you to look at when YT finishes, however. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 21:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, you can already get a rough idea of the framerate by simply playing the video on your computer and comparing its feeling of smoothness to one of the uplaoded video demonstrations (which, truth to be told, is actually how I measure framerate) — Wind 22:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you post a link to that video? Just to see if it is good enough regarding technical requirements — Wind 22:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Weird, it's saying I can't upload 0 Byte Files, but I checked it in my Explorer, and it reports a 5 GB File. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 22:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

The uploader might consider it too big; compress it with a decent video codec. :3 --Spyoncé 22:13, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

What Compressor would you suggest? Lancer anti-tank Rocket 22:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

YouTube caps uploads at 2 GB, even using their "advanced uploader" which claims to go unlimited but it does cut yoru upload at 2 GB anyway (learned that the hard way). Anyway, there's no way your video is 5 GB if you encoded it using x264vfw — Wind 22:13, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I found the option to compress at x264 then, or at least the right option...Doggone it! Fraps, Sony Vegas, and I can't pull off something like this? This is gettin' embarrassing... Lancer anti-tank Rocket 22:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

It's in in Template -> Custom -> Video -> Configure in Vegas — Wind 23:02, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Got it! Thanks for the Patience. Re-rendering with this Codec, then I'll have a go at re-uploading or finding some way to show you. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 23:13, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, it Uploaded the Video in like 10 Minutes (Shock 'n' Horror, YT has never done dat for me! Remind me to use that Codec more often). However, it then said they are now processing the Video...2 Hours later, it still is. And you can't view the Vid 'til it's done Processing. Am I cursed? Lancer anti-tank Rocket 00:33, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

It finally finished Processing. Take 2! Lancer anti-tank Rocket 01:07, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is still not 16:9 (has black bars on top and bottom) and looks stretched (as if it were recorded at 16:9, shrinked to a shorter size, then scaled up again to 1080p, then slapped black bars on). Framerate is also not as smooth as it should be (except from 0:36 to 0:39 for some reason) D: — Wind 03:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I did set the Aspect Ratio to 16:9 in-game as suggested, and the Resolution was 1280X720 as well. I don't understand how I can select the settings as requested and it still doesn't meet the standards. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 11:15, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem is probably in Vegas's settings, not in the recording. Look at the project property or in the custom profile for the video size setting, and adjust it to the same size as the recording (1280x720) — Wind 13:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I hope this solves the problem now, we're running out of spaces with these Colons. I might do a take on something else or whatever. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 15:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Take 3! Lancer anti-tank Rocket 21:47, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Question: If this Vid does get accepted, where else do I upload it to? Lancer anti-tank Rocket 18:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Nope, still has problems :( This time I'll also go into the content problems:

• Biggest problem is low framerate; it seems to get better as the video progresses, but the first 30 seconds are quite hard to watch. I again encourage you to compare the smoothness of the video against one of the uploaded demos to see the difference
• Video seems upscaled to 1080p. No need to do this, it increases filesize without increasing the quality
• No antialiasing (or perhaps this is an artifact resulting from upscaling the video)
• Hovered "Sandvich" twice in backpack view
• Can't really see what is happening from 0:25 to 0:31 due to all the props being in the way blocking the view
• 0:35: Where does that sandvich come from? Should show the heavy being killed
• Should show Scout getting more health from it
• Should show that you can pick up your own sandvich for a quick 150 HP
• Show that medkits give back Sandvich; maybe this will need to be shown on another map if medkits spawned by ent_create don't do this

I'd work on fixing the first 3 problems first before doing a whole other take with all the other problems fixed. Just make a small video where those 3 are fixed~ If using Fraps, stop all other applications, save your demos on a fast (non-busy) partition, record at 30 fps, run the game in non-windowed 1280x720 (even if it looks ugly on your screen). If that doesn't fix it, you'll probably have to resort to using Source Recorder and merging with the backpack view — Wind 19:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand framerates. it seems the higher I set it on Fraps, the better the framerates, but you make it sound like it should be the opposite. Upscale I don't remember doing. Maybe it was sub-conciously done. As for the double hover, that was where my Mouse Spasmed. *Perfect* time to do that. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 21:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, if you recorded at 1280x720, and YouTube shows a 1080p video (1920x1080), then the video has been scaled up at some point... As for Fraps, Fraps's framerate settings is the number it takes away from your game. If your game can render 45 frames per second and you set Fraps to 30 fps, the recording will be 30 frames per second and you will only see (on your screen) 45-30 = 15 frames per second. So higher Fraps framerate means smoother recording but harder-to-perform because your visible framerate is lowered. The issue isn't there though, it's simply that this video doesn't have 30 frames per second. This is either due to your game not being able to render enough frames in the first place (in which case using Fraps is pretty hopeless), or if Fraps cannot write the video file to disk quickly enough. Disks are the slowest piece of hardware in a computer, and more frames per second for Fraps means more data to write to disk per second, which, if your disk is too slow, means too many lost frames because they can't be written on the disk in time. — Wind 21:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Backburner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCfD-MVMz-k - look at this! Gringo perm 10:56, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Very nice! Nice work showing the Backburner critting from behind. Just a couple petty things I would've added: The Backburner having no Compression Blast (Soldier's Rockets will work) and said Backburner shown doing slightly more damage than the Flamethrower. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 11:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

For this purpose there is a Flamethrower Demonstration. Gringo perm 14:01, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It is a good weapon demonstration but has the wrong aspect ratio :( In the meantime, Armisael has done his own Backburner video, so I think it'll be used. — Wind 19:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

*WALL*. I think, when I'll buy new monitor, all demonstration videos will be allready created =((( Hmm... Wait a sec, I have an old 32' TV with DVI cable jack. It have a resolution 1280*720... I'll try to switch on and connect it to my computer, when I'll have free time. Gringo perm 19:40, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't be silly, at the rate VALVe is going, there may be more stuff to demonstrate than what's on the list right now. I'm sure you'll find something. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 14:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Not so smart with your Brains OUTSIDE your head are ya?

I just came up with a suggestion for the Razorback Video. What you could do is hide RED Spy behind the Player and empty his Revolver Ammo so he's using his Knife. Then have BLU Sniper pick off RED Pyro and RED Soldier, then RED Spy breaks his Razorback (via Bot Commands). BLU Sniper spins round and dispatches RED Spy before finishing with RED Medic. It might also be a good idea to have a shot from RED Spy's Point of View as to show the Knife being disabled and RED Spy being unable to do anything until his Knife cools down. It's a random plan I just thought of for the Vid. Whaddya say? Lancer anti-tank Rocket 16:45, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, there already is a Razorback demonstration (the only problem with it is the aspect ratio). It uses a third-person view to show the sniper, and a picture-in-picture thing to show the spy's first-person perspective. I don't think the Sniper should be "busy" with other targets, as it distracts attention from the main purpose of the demonstration: the Razorback. However, I agree that it should contain the sniper's first-person perspective while scoped in, to show that it makes the Sniper unscope. — Wind 19:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Crit-a-cola

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijmdr7jFSLw --The preceding unsigned comment was added by Innolarp (talk) • (contribs)

Not bad, but there are things to modify.

• Technical prolems: It is letterboxed (has black bars on all sides), and the in-game audio is low compared to the music
• Music isn't long enough; pick a longer song. It's okay if it's longer than the video, as long as you add a fadeout at the end
• Since damage is based on distance, you're actually doing less damage to the Soldier with the Crit-a-Cola than to the Pyro without the Crit-a-Cola. To fix this, shoot both once, drink, then shoot both again.
• The Crit-a-Cola also makes the wearer take mini-crit instead of regular shots. The video needs to show this, preferably using a split-screen of showing the damage you get from a rocket while under the effect and while not under the effect

— Wind 02:10, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

 Agree - about music: use cp_steel music, becasue it's the longeas training_*.mp3, and it's easy to cut it in audio redactor. Gringo perm 09:39, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

thanks i'll do that Please make use of the Show preview button. It gives you a preview of the edit you make, allowing you to perfect it before you save the page.

Buildings

So, what's the plan with these? How are we going to show their backpack pages (are we at all)?

The way I see it, the videos should show the following:

• Build time (unwrenched)
• Health at each level
• Upgrading
• Hauling buildings/move speed
• Damage at each level (sentries; perhaps just put it in the player box and let it kill everything? Is the mini tall enough for that?)
• Heal rate/metal recharge rate at each level (dispenser only)
• Recharge rate at each level (teleport)
• Telefragging, in all it's glory (teleport, obv.)

Any others? - Armisael 19:02, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure the Combat Mini-Sentry Gun is big enough for that. You may hafta Mount it on the Desk/Boxes for it to kill something. It should be small enough to fit on there. Though maybe the Mini-Sentry should fall into the Gunslinger Demonstration seeing as they cannot be used without it. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 21:34, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I think putting it in the player box is a bad idea, as it prevents showing sentry rotation speed properly. The Gunslinger demonstration already contains the Mini-Sentry stuff (can't be upgraded etc), but it still deserves a place in a demonstration video (perhaps merged with the Sentry Gun one, unless it gets too long). Should also show the Wrangler too, cause that's part of Sentry functionality. Should show Sentry jumping perhaps... Some people have been asking for that one on the youtube comments.

I'm not sure how to demonstrate building health without doing silly comparison (like killing a Soldier and a sentry gun side by side wit the same weaponry) or using a custom HUD that shows them. — Wind 22:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Considering how buildings are usually destroyed in normal gameplay, maybe the obvious thing to show would be how many rockets or stickies are enough to destroy them on every upgrade level and how much time it takes for a sapper to drain their health completely? Also it seems logical to make three videos (sentry, dispenser, teleporters) instead of one, or else it will be too long. :3 Maybe you can use this time to more thoroughly demonstrate some non-obvious features, such as:

• Critical hits being ineffective on buildings.
• Your teammates being able to pass through sentries and dispensers while yourself and the enemies (spies in particular) can't, this makes you able to jump onto them and\or use them as stepping stones.
• Sentry rotation speed being slow enough so that most classes can outrun it at point blank.
• Level 3 dispensers (not sure about the earier levels) providing enough health to stay underwater withtout drowning and enough metal for heavies and pyros to fire continuosly without running out of ammo.

Not sure if those are really worth demonstrating, just some suggestions. :3 - Zhnigo 22:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Sandvich

About that sandvich demo I reserved earlier. Originally I planned it like this:

• A heavy gets damaged by a soldier from full health to ~4 hp, eats his sadvich, and picks up a medkit to show that the sandvich recharges
• A heavy drops his sandvich for a damaged friendly heavy
• A damaged heavy kills an enemy sandvich-wielding heavy and picks up his sandvich for 50 hp (who said 150? dropped enemy sandviches heal 50 hp)
• A damaged scout does the same for 75 hp

But then I ran into some problems. Long story short, it turns out I can't both spawn medkits and control bots at the same time (has to do with dedicated servers and plugins), so in part 1 I can't be shot at by the bot and pick up the medkit simultaneously. The solution would be either to start part 1 at 1 hp without the enemy soldier, or to spawn the medkit in part 2 and pick it up after tossing a sandvich to a teammate. Which one is more preferrable? Also, should I show the sandvich taunt, and if so, when? - Zhnigo 23:31, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a Candy Cane? Killing a bot with it in a suitable location before starting the recording should do the trick. I'm wondering about the taunt, though - as it's identical to eating the Sandvich, how would you make it obvious? By the way, dropping the Sandvich for a friendly Medic instead of a Heavy would set a nice example for new players (Zank you!). — nVis (talk) 23:52, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Stuff~

• It really needs to show that you can eat your own dropped sandvich, because it is a viable tactic and is often way more practical than full nomming
• Show that you don't lose your sandvich if you're already at full health
• Taunt at the end, which will nom the sandvich regularly, yes, but Valve is lazy like that. It can also be merged with the above: taunting at full health won't lose the sandvich
• Don't drop a sandvich for a friendly heavy, it makes it look like only heavies can use it. Drop it to some other class, preferably a Medic because that's the most common choice. Might also wanna set that Medic on fire to show that it acts like a healthpack and extinguishes the fire
• Previous attempts at the demo showed the sandvich being thrown directly at the other person, without touching the ground. The demo needs to show that the sandvich can stay on the ground for a while (3 seconds is enough)

That's all I can think of right now — Wind 04:28, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Even if you do find a suitable spot to kill a Bot, the body tends to stay until either the ragdoll limit is reached or that Bot dies again. Even then, you may have taken so long the bonus disappears. I learnt that when shooting Take 2 just after giving a BLU Sniper a Sandvich (Wasn't on Fire though, might need a re-take if it's that big a problem) that had been lying around for a bit. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 09:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

P.S., If it turns out to be THAT big a problem, we could do a colab with me working Incognito (Backstage stuff an' crap), seeing as I'm working on this one too, and have not 1, but 2 Candy Canes. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 09:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to tell you - I already tried the candy cane, and the medkits spawned by it do not refill the sandvich gauge. Look's like it's the same bug as with the medkits droppes in medieval mode. Thanks for the aforementioned advices, namely about igniting the medic on fire and picking up own dropped sandvich, I'll do that. - Zhnigo 15:37, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

If you need to spawn healthkits, I have a config that can do that for you. It's one that I scripted to help me in my videos, hope you find it useful. http://pastebin.com/f3JhawHY i-ghost 11:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, you're a lifesaver. :3 - Zhnigo 12:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Here's the sandvich demo, first version. A sincere thank you to i-ghost and an angry glance to those wiki editors who didn't fell it necessary for the ent_create command to be included into the wiki list of console commands.

Buffalos

Shouldn't the Buffalo Steak Sandvich's video be redone showing the new plate model? The old video doesn't even shows that you can throw it. -- OluapPlayer _(t) 13:19, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Affimartive. It needs to especially show how the Steak has healing properties if "served" as opposed to the Mini-Crit, + Speed, etc. properties. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 13:27, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

 Support Heck yeah.avi — Wind 22:00, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Sentry gun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUoEaspacds

There are obviously some problems here. It doesn't show how much metal it costs to reload rockets at all, and the backpack view is rather aimless. Comments, please. -Armisael 17:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The Backpack view is needed to show that you don't need any special weapons to create the Sentry Gun. As for Ammo, you should try and show how much Metal it costs to replace one of each. So showing how Much Metal it costs to reload one shell and again to show how much for one Rocket Salvo. It might be a good idea to do this with the Wrangler off-stage, so record using the Wrangler to fire one shell (Only one) and then you hitting the Sentry Gun to replace said shell. Then again, but with 1 Rocket Salvo to show how much metal that costs.

It might be necessary to trim out the parts where the Wrangler (And its Shield effect) can be seen before rendering. Make sure to use a LV 3 Sentry Gun for both of these. Common misconception is to use a lower-level Sentry Gun with the Shell experiment 'cause it can use those, but the Wrench will use 25 Metal to try and upgrade it as well as replace the Shell. You get the idea, I hope. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 17:56, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Natascha/Buff Banner(redone)

Natascha got reserved two weeks ago but nothings come up yet so I decided to re-do it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cz-VofzJTo
http://www.mediafire.com/?n1uvxc1h77gu9ra - if its good to go. ~Garticuno♥_(talk) 09:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Also tried re-doing the Buff Banner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qHdwcgKrNY ~Garticuno♥_(talk) 11:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Natascha video needs to show that now, slowdown is based on distance. So you should do multiple takes for slowdown. Buff Banner is good but it'd be nice if it had more teammates in it, so that you can more easily show that they all get the buff. I know the current one doesn't do that, but it'd be nice still. Oh, and you also need to tell us how you make your videos so smooth :o — Wind 19:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Okee-dokee, tried again at the buff banner. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfBar6iKDSw And my videos are so smooth because my computer can record w/ fraps at 150fps and I then render it into 60 :>. ~Garticuno♥_(talk) 02:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

That can't be right, because YouTube re-cuts it to 30 frames per second in the end D: Do you merge frames to 30 fps? Anyway, Buff Banner taunt needs to show the flag like the Battalion's Backup demo does. Just taunt a bit earlier~ — Wind 05:47, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Alright, tried again. Got the flag in for about 2 seconds with everything I had to demonstrate(I hope thats enough ;_;). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf89szS1Czc And ya, youtube scales down to 30 fps but all that matters is the source footage. 150fps rendered to 60 will have the rendered version show what 150fps would look like at 60fps without actually looking like 60fps, if that makes sense, and so on. That's how it works(I think). ~Garticuno♥_(talk) 08:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Is good, please upload~ — Wind 15:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I am coming for you, again!

After looking back on the other Demonstrations, I noticed some things out of placed or missing some stuff that would be useful in demonstration. For example, the KGB's could do with demonstrating the Crit Buff after the kill rather than just flashing the other Weapons for half a second. Also, Music was rather out of place, such as starting late (Notably in Fists of Steel and Wrench), though this isn't as big a problem. Irregardless, it might be a good idea to go over and polish the already performed Weapon Demonstrations. Before resuming work on the others. Better to do a full-assed job with half the work done than a half-assed job with all the work done. Lancer anti-tank Rocket 20:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The music starting late is okay as long as it's only the backpack view that doesn't have any music. In the Fists of Steel and Wrangler case, the demo is ~1:03 long, while the longest training music is about a minute long, so it's normal that it starts a bit late. You're right about the KBG, and the backpack view isn't even correct (cursor isn't on the weapon slot when the video starts) — Wind 20:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

To fully demonstrate the KGB's crit boost you'll have to spawn 5 bots and kill them all in a row, isn't that too crowded? :3 Namely, first goes the regular KGB kill, then a crit-boosted KGB kill, a critical shotgun kill, another regular KGB kill for one more boost and finally a minigun kill. You could probably bring this number down to 4 bots by firing the critical shotgun only once and at a healthier class like the heavy, but still. I'd ask Wind or Natemchkin on the opinion on that one. - Zhnigo 23:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Work Dammit!

Whats going on with this? Im getting crap quality and 640 x 356 from wegame, I cant change it either. I'm recording directly from the game and am on highest settings for tf2. Someone wanna help me figure out whats going on? Much Appreciation amigo. Also camtasia is being a bit and giving me crap quality :/Tryer 22:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Some general suggestions

I see that a large amount of users keep making the same mistakes, so I thought that it would be appropriate to outline these moments right on the project page to avoid further repetition:

• You can make only the desired bot instead of all the bots fire his weapon by using the bot_forcefireweapon (weapon name) commmand.
• You can spawn health kits and ammo boxes by using the ent_create (entity name, such as item_ammopack_small or item_healthkit_full) command.
• You shouldn't rotate the model in the loadout screen when the recording is already running. I believe people keep makig this mistake because there's a phrase "Rotate the loadout preview to show off the weapon" in the instructions to the preparation for the recording.
• Lastly, this is a bit of a stretch, but the behaviour of some weapons is affected by water. I'm alien to map-making, but if someone could expand the tr_target_weaponref map to include a small water basin, that would solve this problem without resorting to using other maps with water for the demonstration. The added length of the map with the basin would also be useful for demonstrating the sandman's maximum stun range. Just lenghtening the map and adding a body of water while keeping everything else untouched doesn't sound too hard, but then again, I have no experience in mapmaking, so I'm in no position to judge. :3