Nice guide! You can also use ce_localplayer_track_spec_target 1 to set the localplayer target to whoever you are spectating automatically - however this does not always work properly so where it is more convenient, the method you mentioned is more reliable.

You can use "mirv_input camera" to move the camera while the demo is paused in order to set keyframes apparently, although I don't use HLAE and didn't use this method when I did so I do not know for sure.

This is most likely what happened, but it's worth noting VAC won't actually ban you unless you join a VAC secured server with something injected into your client.

If morale was cheating its very surprising considering VAC is easily bypassed by most good cheats. Plus I've never heard of anyone saying he'd been suspicious. If he does remember joining a server after running some client utility like the demo fixer or whatever then that can be identified as the cause.

edit: not the demo fixer as twiikuu rightly pointed out

Great guide! One thing worth mentioning is AVIRecorder. You can use AVIRecorder to avoid the pain of VirtualDub and it records audio as well. Plus if you don't want to deal with lawena's bullshit all the time you can use it exclusively, though you'll miss out on some things like the HUD (just copy this from lawena's folder tbh) and easy skybox replacement.

Another thing that people always ask me about is lawena seeing CastingEssentials as a HUD. If you want to use CE to get damage numbers + white killfeed in STV you'll need to remove the "resource" folder from it to avoid lawena seeing it as your HUD.

If you want there's other stuff like making sure cl_autoreload 1 is in your config to avoid that jittery reload animation, using snd_soundmixer Default_Mix to fix the sound problem on gullywash etc. but that's probably not in the scope of this guide.

congrats on getting the joke!

Hot Hand

Like Ascend I have known coyo since around 2017. We used to talk/argue about our issues a lot which, being 18 at the time, I thought was supportive, but others have helped me realise he was keeping me in a spot where I was dependent on him emotionally. When I eventually got out of this loop he went on to harass me using alts, post pictures of me everywhere etc. (hence my rather public lashing out at him)

I was slightly taken aback by how familiar kn's post sounded which is why I wanted to post this, despite not exactly being a saint myself. Disappointing though as I genuinely believed he'd matured over the years - he reached out to me again recently and I considered us friends at that point, but maybe he just ran out of victims so who knows. I can see from the thread others had it much worse than me - sorry to everyone.

cu@

I have been playing tf2 on 32:9 for about a year, and played on 21:9 for a couple of years before that as well. The FOV is higher - I like it on demo because I can watch traps on the corner of my screen and stuff while spamming. I also feel like I see soldiers that are about to bomb me more often, but that may just be placebo.

Oddly the FOV is restricted in a borderless window but not fullscreen. Seems like the client doesn't respect the value of sv_restrict_aspect_ratio_fov when the game is in fullscreen or something? This behaviour is the same in CS:GO as well. I still get the FOV increase in whatever server I play on though (admittedly haven't tried RGL config as I'm an EU player).

In terms of how it performs, I've never had any issues other than the above, and the game runs fine for me in 5120x1440.

This is what TF2 looks like on my monitor.

It is probably possible to use demos of any age given enough effort. The only guy that knows enough about demo files to debug things would be pazer though.

cu@

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Cfmc5LDmU

Obviously this is all subjective but imo Venus part 1 and Blaze are the best videos hands down. Although maybe it's just because I found those the most inspiring and "grew up" with them while I was learning to edit. There have been lots of tf2 editors throughout it's history but I've always felt Goo and Uil in particular have both got this really iconic nature that nobody has been able to replicate. This is true for Nick as well but obviously his iconic style is very different and further separated from the traditional idea of a fragvid.

Sorry for rambling, love these discussions though.

LOL genuinely the best team name I've heard in a while.

I know Mould has already commented but I will shed some light on the maps you mentioned as well. I did want to put the effort in to make them playable a while ago but these were my reasons for not doing it:

1. In most cases we had to decompile the maps to edit them, which messes with the collision and other things.
2. Those maps don't look nearly as good in game as they do in the video even with high settings.
3. In general we only edited the areas of the map that were in shot, so it was only ever half-done. I think I actually did the whole of product though, but I had to use viaduct pro RC7 because that's the only one that works in SFM.

I can only comment on what we did a while ago, and there are incredibly talented people working on those refresh projects so i don't doubt they could do something like this given the time, but hopefully that sheds some light on many of the difficulties we were having before.

i'd love to make a video for this if people record and submit demos. hopefully it'd be a nice dedication to yomps.