Replay

For a help guide on using the Replay tool, see Help:Replay Editor.

The Replay tool is a feature introduced on May 5, 2011 in the Replay Update. The Replay tool enables players to record and edit video footage of gameplay in Team Fortress 2 and edit it directly from the game client. The feature was initially added to the Team Fortress 2 Beta on March 9, 2011, but was added to the full game on May 5 as the main focus of the Replay Update.

On servers that enable the feature, video replays of a player's life are recorded and saved directly onto the server. After a player dies, they can choose to download these recordings for editing within the game. The editing features enable scenes to be cut from different angles and include a variety of options including field of view and motion blur. After editing, the Replay tool allows for cut videos to be uploaded directly to Template:W.

With the introduction of the Replay tool and the Replay Update, the First Annual Saxxy Awards were announced as a contest to encourage players to create and upload videos recorded with the tool, as well as eight Replay achievements which have been added to the game.

Recording

To record replays, the player must connect to a server that has enabled the feature. A server that supports video replays can be identified by the filmstrip icon () next to the server's name in the browser list. Note that replays cannot be recorded on listen servers (i.e. local servers accessed from the 'Create Server' option in the main menu).

After the player has died, the recording can be downloaded by pressing F6 (default) or using the console command save_replay. A dialog window will appear to confirm the name of the video (by default, it will contain the map name, the date and time of the recording) and once confirmed, the recording will begin to download directly from the server. After the download has completed, the player can access the recording from the 'Replays' screen accessed from the main menu.

Replay menu

The Replay menu can be accessed from the button in the main menu. The screen shows all saved replays and movies. Each replay is accompanied by statistics related to that particular life, such as the class played, the player's score and kill count and the map featured in the video. Replays can also be searched with the search function in the menu.

Individual replays can be viewed and edited by clicking on the 'Watch / Edit' button. This loads the replay file and enables the Replay tool's editing functions for use. From the menu, the player can also save a selected replay to a movie file (for encoding options in greater detail, see Help:Replay Editor).

Replays can be deleted at any time by the player. Replays, before being encoded into movie files, exist in the Source Engine demo format (with the file extension .dem) under the directory /team fortress 2/tf/replay/client/replays. The main limitation of replays in this format is that they are likely to become unreadable in the event of a game update. As such, before exiting the game the player is warned by a dialog message to save existing replays as movie files instead.

Editing

For further editing help, see the guide at Help:Replay Editor.

The Replay tool's editing functions can be accessed by opening the replay and pressing Space (default). The editing HUD contains play, pause, rewind and fast-forward functions and the first-person, third-person and free camera viewing angle options. Class icons in the bottom-left corner also allow for quick identification of the whereabouts of particular players at the selected time in the video.

Editing with the Replay tool is done in takes. Each 'take' is a selection of video defined by in and out points. The player can set the in and out points (or 'start' and 'end' points) with the buttons on either side of the Play button. The three viewing angle options (first-person, third-person and free camera) can be manipulated at any time to alter the position of the camera by selecting their respective icons in bottom-right corner.

The sequence of the video between the two points including the angles can be saved as a take by clicking the icon in the top-left corner and selecting 'Save'.

Saving

Whole replays or previously-edited takes can be rendered from replay files (.dem) into movie files. In the Replay menu, the player can select the 'Save to Movie' button to bring up the Save options dialog. The filename, resolution and video quality settings can be selected in the dialog, and filesize and time to render estimates are also provided based on the current settings. Checking the 'Show Advanced Options' box displays further options including video codec, render quality, motion blur quality and an 'Enable Glow Effect' checkbox.

The save feature supports rendering of replay files with two codecs (Template:W and Template:W) with 5 preset resolutions (480p, 720p, 1080p, Web and iPhone). Alternatively, the replay file can also be saved to raw files in the form of a .tga sequence and an accompanying .wav file. This method renders each frame in the video to an individual .tga file at maximum quality and renders the audio for the scene to a .wav file. The sequence and the audio file can then be encoded together using a video processing program such as VirtualDub (see Help:Replay Editor for further detail).

Rendered movie files are saved to the /team fortress 2/tf/replay/client/rendered directory. After rendering, the video can also be uploaded directly from inside the game.

Uploading

Replay movie files can be uploaded directly to YouTube from inside the game. Inside the Replay menu, selecting a rendered movie files appearing in the 'Saved Movies' list and pressing the 'YouTube It' button will launch YouTube inside the Steam browser and prompt the player to login. The player can then edit the video's title and description while the video uploads.

Server command variables

See also: Server

replay_add_fake_replays Adds a set of fake replays replay_allow_camera_man default: 1 Auto director allows spectators to become camera man replay_allow_static_shots default: 1 Auto director uses fixed level cameras for shots replay_block_dump_interval default: 10 The server will write partial replay files at this interval when recording. replay_buffersize default: 32 Maximum size for the replay memory buffer. replay_cache_client_ragdolls default: 0 Record ragdolls on the client during. replay_deathcammaxverticaloffset default: 150 Vertical offset for player death camera replay_debug default: 0 Replay debug info. replay_delay default: 30 Replay broadcast delay in seconds replay_deleteclientreplays Deletes all replays from client replay history, as well as all files associated with each replay. replay_demolifespan default: 1 The number of days before cleaning up replay demos. Modifying this number will not affect the lifespan of existing replays. replay_docleanup Deletes stale session data from the fileserver. 'replay_docleanup force' will remove all replay session data. replay_dofileserver_cleanup_on_start default: 1 Cleanup any stale replay data (both locally and on fileserver) at startup. replay_dopublishtest Do a replay publish test using the current setup. replay_dosanitycheck Run a sanity check on replay server setup. replay_editor_fov_mousewheel_invert default: 0 Invert FOV zoom/unzoom on mousewheel in the replay editor. replay_editor_fov_mousewheel_multiplier default: 5 The multiplier on mousewheel input for adjusting camera FOV in the replay editor. replay_enable default: 0 Enable Replay recording on server replay_enableeventbasedscreenshots default: 0 If disabled, only take a screenshot when a replay is saved. If enabled, take up to replay_maxscreenshotsperreplay screenshots, replay_enablerenderpreview default: 1 Enable preview during replay render. replay_fileserver_host default: 0 The hostname of the Web server hosting replays. This can be an IP or a hostname, e.g. '1.2.3.4' or 'www.myserver.com' replay_fileserver_offload_enable default: 0 If enabled, offload session blocks to a secondary machine using the replay_offload_* convars. replay_fileserver_offload_hostname default: 0 Hostname for FTP server where session blocks will be offloaded. replay_fileserver_offload_login default: 0 Login for session block offloading. replay_fileserver_offload_maxuploads default: 1 The maximum number of concurrent uploads allowed. replay_fileserver_offload_password default: 0 Login for session block offloading. replay_fileserver_offload_port default: 21 Port number for FTP server where session blocks will be offloaded. replay_fileserver_offload_protocol default: 0 Must be 'ftp' replay_fileserver_offload_remotepath default: 0 Remote path where blocks will be stored on the FTP server for session block offloading. replay_fileserver_path default: 0 If your replays are stored at 'http://123.123.123.123:4567/tf/replays', replay_fileserver_path should be set to '/tf/replays' replay_fileserver_port default: 80 The port for the Web server hosting replays. For example, if your replays are stored at 'http://123.123.123.123:4567/tf/replay replay_fileserver_protocol default: 0 Can be 'http' or 'https' replay_flushinterval default: 15 Replay system will flush to disk a maximum of every replay_flushinterval seconds. replay_forcereconstruct default: 0 Force the reconstruction of replays each time. replay_hidebrowser Hides replay browser replay_ignorereplayticks default: 0 replay_local_fileserver_path default: 0 The file server local path. For example, 'c:\MyWebServer\htdocs\replays' or '/MyWebServer/htdocs/replays'. replay_maxconcurrentdownloads default: 3 The maximum number of concurrent downloads allowed.

replay_maxscreenshotsperreplay default: 8 The maximum number of screenshots that can be taken for any given replay. replay_mintimebetweenscreenshots default: 5 The minimum time (in seconds) that must pass between screenshots being taken. replay_msgduration_connectrecording default: 8 Duration for the message that pops up when you connect to a server already recording replays. replay_msgduration_error default: 6 Duration for replays available message. replay_msgduration_misc default: 5 Duration for misc replays messages (server errors and such). replay_msgduration_replaysavailable default: 6 Duration for replays available message. replay_msgduration_startrecord default: 6 Duration for start record message. replay_msgduration_stoprecord default: 6 Duration for stop record message. replay_playerdeathscreenshotdelay default: 2 Amount of time to wait after player is killed before taking a screenshot replay_port default: 27040 Host Replay port replay_postdeathrecordtime default: 5 The amount of time (seconds) to be recorded after you die for a given replay. replay_postwinreminderduration default: 5 The number of seconds to show a Replay reminder, post-win/lose. replay_printclientreplays Prints out all client replay info replay_printsessioninfo Print session info replay_quitmsg_dontaskagain default: 0 The replay system will ask you to render your replays on quit, unless this cvar is 1. replay_ragdoll_dbg default: 0 Display replay ragdoll debugging information. replay_record Starts Replay demo recording. replay_reloadbrowser Reloads replay data and display replay browser replay_removeclientreplay Remove the replay at the given index. replay_renderpause Pause Replay rendering. replay_rendersetting_encodingquality default: 100 Render quality: the higher the quality, the larger the resulting movie file size. replay_rendersetting_exportraw default: 0 Export raw TGA frames and a .wav file, instead of encoding a .mov file. replay_rendersetting_motionblur_can_toggle default: 0 replay_rendersetting_motionblurenabled default: 1 Motion blur enabled/disabled. replay_rendersetting_motionblurquality default: 0 Motion blur quality. replay_rendersetting_quitwhendone default: 0 Quit after rendering is completed. replay_rendersetting_renderglow default: 0 Glow effect enabled/disabled. replay_renderunpause Unpause Replay rendering. replay_screenshotkilldelay default: 0 Delay before taking a screenshot when you kill someone, in seconds. replay_screenshotresolution default: 0 0 for low-res screenshots (width=512), 1 for hi-res (width=1024) replay_screenshotsenabled default: 1 Take screenshots for the replay browser during gameplay? replay_screenshotsentrykilldelay default: 0 Delay before taking a screenshot when you kill someone, in seconds. replay_sentrycammaxverticaloffset default: 10 Vertical offset from a sentry on sentry kill replay_sentrycamoffset_frontback default: -50 Front/back offset for sentry POV screenshot replay_sentrycamoffset_leftright default: -25 Left/right offset for sentry POV screenshot replay_sentrycamoffset_updown default: 22 Up/down offset for sentry POV screenshot replay_sessioninfo_updatefrequency default: 5 If a replay has not been downloaded, the replay browser will update the status of a given replay on the server based on this cv replay_snapshotrate default: 16 Snapshots broadcasted per second replay_stoprecord Stop Replay demo recording. replay_test_take_save_dlg Open replay save take dlg

Related achievements

That's a Wrap Save your very first replay. We Can Fix It In Post While watching a replay, press space bar to enter the editor. Time For Your Close-Up, Mr. Hale Render a replay into a movie. Star of My Own Show Spend some time editing a replay. Reward: Director's Vision

Home Movie Achieve 100 YouTube™ views for your movie. Local Cinema Star Achieve 1000 YouTube™ views for your movie. Reward: Frontline Field Recorder Indie Film Sensation Achieve 10,000 YouTube™ views for your movie. Blockbuster Achieve 100,000 YouTube™ views for your movie.

Update history

March 9, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• Added Replay system that allows you to edit and publish movies of your play experiences (full Mac support in the next few days)

March 10, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• Show all resolutions available when setting up a replay to render
• Added the ability to specify an output directory from the command line. Running a server with the optional parameter ‘–replayserverdir <dir name>’ will output all replay data to ‘tf/replay/<dir name>’. For anyone running multiple servers out of the same directory, you’ll want to specify a different output directory for each server. This will avoid collisions and potential issues running replay. Look for confirmation on startup – you should see something like this:
  • Using custom replay dir name: "replay/<dir name>"
• For admins who have their server(s) configured to server replay data out of a local Web server: the ‘replay_local_fileserver_path’ bug is now fixed. Even if replay_local_fileserver_path pointed to a valid directory, the server would lie and say the directory was invalid.

March 11, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• Fixed ‘save all’ crash in replay browser
• Fixed ‘save movies now, then quit’ crash

March 18, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• Movies upload to YouTube now contain a ‘match’ tag, which includes a unique ID for the round during which the replay was saved
• Added check-box on the advanced settings dialog to enable/disable the glow effect while rendering replays (default is disabled)
• Bug and crash fixes

March 21, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• Added "replay_printsessioninfo <full path>" command for server admins to monitor session files, aid in debugging problems

March 23, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• UI now saves the "last directory" used for exporting a movie
• Added a specific error message when trying to upload a movie to YouTube that cannot be found
• Fixed a bug where replay recording would stop after feigning death

March 24, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• Fixed audio and video sync issues
• Fixed a crash when replay filenames exceeded a certain length
• Fixed start-up issues related to library files

April 26, 2011 Patch (Beta)

• Fixed audio sync issues on the Mac

May 5, 2011 Patch (Replay Update)

• Added the Replay feature: http://www.teamfortress.com/replayupdate
  • Known issue with Mac replay rendering being blurry will be fixed in the next update
• Added 8 new Replay achievements and 2 achievement items

May 6, 2011 Patch

• Fixed a bug that caused Mac replay renders to be blurry

May 9, 2011 Patch

• Replay publishing system will try to do a rename for local HTTP mode but will manually copy and delete the file if the rename fails, which can happen if the source and destination are on different volumes.

See also

• Help:Replay Editor

External links

• How do I create a Team Fortress 2 replay? – Steam Support