Learning The Basics (Version 1.7a)

Let’s start with a clientside recorded demo. The very first thing you need to do after the demo has loaded is hit ESC two (2) times. It has to be 2 times because once brings up the Demo Control bar. You need to hit ESC again to remove the bar, so hit it 2 times right away. You can NOT key bind this, you have to physically hit the ESC key on your keyboard 2 times for Rc to activate, it will not work any other way.

With this action you activate RypelCam (Rc)

Press J/ j for more advanced features still.

Pressing each key again removes what it brought on screen. Take the time to read them and familiarize yourself with each feature, experiment with the settings until you get used to what each command does. Let's move onto understanding how you move around the map with Rc.

With Rc activated pause the demo with the Pause Key on your keyboard (Don’t use a console command or something else to pause a demo. Always use the Pause key).

The text tells you the current spectatorspeed which you can change with Numpad 1 and Numpad 2. So let’s try that out. To move use your mouse, use your wasd keys and space / shift for up/down.

Notice that you can move around the map, even though the demo is paused. If you try to move around in a circle, something stops you from doing a full circle. This happens when the white mouse cursor reaches the end of the screen. To go on with your turn you have to move the cursor into the middle of the screen. You can position it with your mouse when your not moving. So let go of the wasd keys and move your mouse cursor to the middle of the screen.

[x2 = Hit That Key Two Times]

Hit Esc x2

Then K

Open up the Console using the '~' Hit BackSpace x2 and type in "fixedfps 30" followed by enter.

Next move the Rc to the point where you want to start your Camera sequence and press Numpad 5 to create a "CamPoint" or a keypoint so to speak. Move a bit back (s) and you should see the shape of the CamPoint you just created.

A CamPoint not only represents a marker as in a physical location marker it is also a time signature and a photographic positioning. Which means it can only happen there at that point & time and the camera can only be looking exactly there when recording. So the actual shape of the CamPoint identifies direction and photographic placement / framing of the camera, internally it marks the point in both time and space at which this event will occur.

Now place 3 more CamPoints and you should get something like this;

Four (4) CamPoints is the minimum for a Rc sequence. When you have 4 CamPoints a line of white dots automatically draws itself onscreen connecting the CamPoints. That tells you the CamPath is now ready to be saved and it also indicates the path the Rc will take between the CamPoints.

You save your CamPath with 'B and you reload it using M. Only reload your last saved CamPath after restarting the demo or the game. It is saved in UT2004/saves/RCam_Package.uvx

Hit Numpad 3 to travel along the CamPath you just laid/constructed. Numpad 1 and Numpad 2 as well as keys 1 to 9 can again be used to change the speed, just like they can be used to adjust the spectatorcam speed. But so long as you’re in CamView (Viewing/traveling the CamPath), changing speed will only affect the Rc and not the spectatorspeed.

You don’t have to use these keys to adjust the speed during recording. That can be controlled by Rc while recording. We will discuss this a bit later.

Add another CamPoint and then hit 'M'. You will see that your new CamPoint has disappeared because you tried to load the CamPath before you actually saved that last point, so it is discarded. Numpad 5 only places a CamPoint at your current location, you need to save it as part of your CamPath using B before you can use it as part of that CamPath.

With Numpad 9 you can hide/remove the CamPath so that you can start recording without it being in the way.

With Numpad 4 you can remove a CamPoint. Hit Numpad 4 and your last CamPoint is removed/erased. With Numpad 4 you can undo your whole CamPath. It is the only way to erase a CamPath besides reloading an old one.

Now go back to the speccam with K, fly to the new position for the CamPoint and hit Z. This finishes the repositioning of a CamPoint.

You can also select a CamPoint with Numpad '+' / Numpad '-' and hit Numpad 7. This starts rotating the CamPoint to the left. Hit Numpad 7  again to stop the rotation. You can do the same with Numpad 8 to rotate to the right. To see the result hit Numpad 3.

With Numpad 7 and Numpad 8 you can also change the field of view (FOV).

Select a CamPoint and hit O then use Numpad 7 and Numpad 8 as before and hit Numpad 3 to see the result. Hitting O again will switch the Numpad 7 / Numpad 8 mode back to changing rotation.

Timedpaths

As mentioned before it is possible to have Rc control the speed at which it moves through a scene when it is recording. We call this a 'timedpath' it has two values, '0' for off and '1' for on. With correct placement it allows you to synchronize your camera movement throughout a scene to specific action happening within that scene. Let's have at look at how it works.