Func_Msgboard: Tons Of Demos

Posted by Orbs on 2013/05/11 13:46:50

I have a bunch of demos, well actualy a lot. I would like to make viewable as a sequence.

I tried to use an autoexec with startdemos and then the whole list. This has 2 drawbacks first it doesnt seem to work in all engines 2nd it seems limited to a certain amount (my geuss is about 64) or mayeb there is another problem wich stops it.

any tips to get this done in a proper fashion? And else could i call a 2nd config file when that first has reached its limits?

#1 posted by Spirit on 2013/05/12 11:51:09

Check the releases of the SDA guys

#2 posted by mwh on 2013/05/12 12:25:04

With sufficient determination you can rewrite demos to execute "playdemo <next in sequence>" when they finish. I could have done this for you without really thinking, in 2006 :)

Guessing Here

#3 posted by Preach on 2013/05/12 14:22:37

Something like opening the demo with a hex editor, and appending an 09 byte, "playdemo demo2" in ascii, and a zero byte to close it out? Or are there things in the demo header you'd need to update, or a demo footer to avoid? I'm sure there were tools which could do that kind of thing without involving a hex editor...

Demo Structure

#4 posted by Mandel on 2013/05/12 16:53:10

There's no header apart from the cd track, and no footer to worry about either. A demo is all just blocks of messages.

I'm sure I can help you out somehow if you want me to, Orbs.

Demo Structure

#5 posted by Spike on 2013/05/12 19:36:48

An nq demo packet has framing of:
4byte length
3*4byte length (floats, just fill with 0s or something)
svc data, equal to the length value.

the svc data is 9(svc_stufftext) followed by your string command, followed by a new line char (ascii 10), followed by a 0 terminator.

note that if the previous packet was short and contains svc_disconnect(byte=2), then you'll need to remove that somehow.
QuakeWorld clients include such a command, followed with 'EndOfDemo', cos they're evil or something.

#6 posted by mwh on 2013/05/12 22:09:04

The easiest manual would be to use lmpc to convert the demos to text format, add or edit blocks as needed there and convert back.

To automate it, ask Mandel to write you a program :-)

#7 posted by Spirit on 2013/05/12 22:18:12

Thank you for mentioning lmpc, I have been looking for something like that!

Coin...

#8 posted by FifthElephant on 2013/05/12 23:24:34

Do you have any demos of the aussie player called Coin? That guy was amazing at trick jumps and stuff...

Demo Chaining Utility

#9 posted by Mandel on 2013/05/17 21:01:48

I made a demo chaining utility for this purpose, find it at (win32 command line binary):

http://mandelmassa.net/quake/demochain.zip

or source code at:

git clone http://github.com/mandelmassa/demochain

The way it works is, you create a script text file listing your demos, one demo (e.g. e1m3.dem) per line. The order you specify the lines in the text file is the order the demos will play back after processing.

Put the text file in the same directory as the demos.

Then open a command prompt, change directory to where the demos are, and run the program, supplying the script text file name as parameter.

The program will read the script file, open all included demos, and stufftext playdemo <the next demo> into the end of each demo.

It is not a robust piece of software but I hope it works. Since it changes the actual demo file content I recommend creating a backup copy of your demos before running the tool.

#10 posted by necros on 2013/05/18 04:34:17

in windows, open a command prompt, go to your id1 folder (or wherever your demos are) and type:
dir *.dem /b > demoList.txt
creates a textfile called demoList with all files ending in dem, one per line.

You must be logged in to post in this thread.