Battlefield Recorder Guide by DirtySock6378

After fighting with the Recorder for a few days, i finally managed to figure it out with the help of these and other forums. The Guide EA Games gave us is a piece of garbage. Its confusing to say the least. So i thought i would post my own guide. I'll make it as simple as possible. And on a side note: A demo or a demo file is another name for a BF2 Recorder file.

First of all you must know all off the keys necessary to use this Recorder.

Q – opens the Playback Rose. Move the mouse to highlight the desired playback option and press the Left Mouse Button to select. Options available here that are not bound to separate keys include "Restart" and "Quit".
T – opens the Camera Rose. Choose the camera option or cycle through the available players.
1 – Pause the playback (also available in the Playback Rose).
2 – Playback recorded session at normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
3 – Playback recorded session at 5% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
4 – Playback recorded session at 25% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
5 – Playback recorded session at 50% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
6 – Playback recorded session at normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
7 – Playback recorded session at 150% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
8 – Playback recorded session at 300% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
Spacebar – cycle between players.
Right Mouse Button – cycle between free camera and player camera.
Mouse wheel – zoom camera in and out when locked onto a player.
W, A, S, D, Ctrl and Shift – move free camera around map, forward, left, backwards, right, down and up.
Mouse look – aim free camera.

This step allows you to record your camera movements in the game.

1.Download ftp://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/misc/demo.cmd and place this in both of these folders.
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2

2.Create a demos folder in the following location.
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2

3.Place all the demos that you wish to render into this folder. Your demos can be found in the following location.
C:\Documents and Settings\"yourname"\My Documents\Battlefield 2 Demo\Profiles\Default\demos
(I recommend rendering one demo file at a time so that its less confusing)

4. Open your command prompt. (This can be done by pressing start, run, and typing cmd. You may also be able to find your command prompt in your windows accessories folder.)

5.In your command prompt, type the directory to your BF2 Demo.
Example: cd c:\program files\EA Games\Battlefield 2 Demo

6.Now a line of text should appear that states yoru BF2 Directory.
Example: C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo>
Type in the following command: demo.cmd +c "name of demo"
Example: demo.cmd +c demo8

Your game will start up and you should also recieve a message in your command prompt that states: Playing back demo and recording camera...
After you get past your game loading screen, you will enter a loading game screen. Once the game is done loading, click join game. You are now in your video. Any movements of the camera that you make now are being recorded.
It is STRONGLY recommended that you continure recording until the video ends. My video froze at the end and i pressed control+alt+delete and closed Battlefield out and my video works fine. Just be carefull on this step.

Playing back your video with the pre-recorded camera movements

1.In your C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2\demos folder you will now find a BF2CAM file. This file is your video with the pre-recorded camera movements.

2.Now go back to your Command Prompt and type in the following:
demo.cmd "name of demo" "name of cam file" -def
Example: demo.cmd demo8 mydemocam -def

Your game will once again start up and bring you to a game loading screen. Click join game and you will begin watching your pre-recorded camera movements. Your command prompt should also read: Playing back demo with recorded camera...
I do not know how necessary this step is however it is helpfull in finding out how your camera movements look once they are all put together.

Converting to AVI

1. In your command prompt type the following command:
demo.cmd +r "name of demo" "name of cam file"
Example: demo.cmd +r demo8 mydemocam

Your game will once again open. Just do as you did in the previous steps. Your command prompt will also read: Rending AVI...

2.Once the game loading bar is complete press ALT+TAB to minimize the game. A small box will have appeared. This is your choice of encoders. It is recommended that you use the DivX encoder. Click your choice, than press ok.

3.Open the game window back up (it should be minimized at the bottom of your screen) and click join game.
NOTE: You MUST leave the game and the video running on your screen until the video is over. If you minimize your game and try to bring your window back up during this encoding process, your game will close out and your AVI file will be corrupt.

4.If you choose to stop rendering before the end of the demo, press R.

Adding Sound

Your AVI file will not have sound in it. This step will help you to create a sound file to add to your video.

1.Type in the following command in your command prompt
demo.cmd +s "name of demo file" "name of cam file"
Example: demo.cmd +s demo8 mydemocam

Your game will once again load. Just do as you did in the previous steps. However, once you click join game, no video will play. You will begin to hear sound from your video.

*I have yet to complete this step. What I have considered doing is recorind the sound with fraps, than using fraps to create sound file. I may then be able to combine the sound and the AVI file in a video editting program such as Video Edit Magic.