I really hate playing an awesome game and be left thinking: "Man, I wish I had a demo of THAT game."

This plugin's purpose is to issue the 'record' and 'stop' commands on your client when a round begins and ends. The plugin will save the demo to a file whose name is indicative of the time/map of the round. For example, one of the rounds I played on ns_caged last night has the filename '20040504232206-ns_caged.dem' because it was played on 05/04/2004 (20040504) and started at 11:22:06 PM (232206) on ns_caged. Times are based on the timezone of the server (our server is in Rhode Island and therefore is in the EST timezone).

You are in total control of whether or not the plugin issues the record/stop commands on your client. This plugin will not record demos of games without your permission. The demo itself is different from no other, all that's different is that the server is automating the commands (and the name of the demo - see above) instead of your typing them in. All demos are stored on your machine, not on the server.

If you wish, the plugin will also automate the turning on and off of voice_loopback, which allows your demo to capture your voice when you speak. Yes, you'll hear your voice when you speak, which can take some getting used to, but it's the only way for HL to record your voice, which can nicely round out what the viewer of the demo later hears when it comes to team voicecomms.

Also, the plugin can be used to manually start and stop demos. You can use it to manually stop an automatically-started demo. Or you can use it to simply manually start and then manually stop a demo (for instance, if you DON'T have it configured to automatically record rounds you play). In this case, the only real advantage to using the plugin instead of simply using the record/stop commands is that the plugin will create a time/map filename for the demo automatically (see above). Also, these manual commands could be helpful if the plugin ever does something you didn't want it to do (after all, it IS beta). Also, as a last resort, you can always stop a demo that has started by using the 'stop' HL console command (this should never be necessary, but that's what "beta" means....).

If you have the plugin enabled for yourself, it will, when a round ends, automatically end a demo that you started manually. This happens only if you enter a round after it begins, in which case you manually start the demo (perhaps with a bind like "jointeamone;wait;amx_demo start").

Here is what you'll see when you type 'amx_demo' in the console for the first time:

Code:

======================================
AMX Auto Demo (a very, very beta plugin)
: The 'amx_demo' command manages the automatic recording of NS rounds.
-------------
Commands:
help/? - display this message
on     - enable automatic 'record' command at round start
off    - enable automatic 'stop' command at round end
vlyes  - enable voice loopback during demo recordings
vlno   - do not enable voice loopback during demo recordings
start  - manually start recording a demo
stop   - manually stop recording a demo
-------------
	Currently recording: <none>
	Auto recording     : off
	Auto voice_loopback: not enabled
======================================

If you type 'amx_demo on' in your console, it will enable automatic demo recordings (which will begin with the following round). If you type 'amx_demo off' in your console, it will disable automatic demo recordings. You get the idea. The same goes for voice_loopback. 'amx_demo vlyes' causes the plugin to set voice_loopback to '1' during recordings (and voice_loopback to '0' when the recording finishes), 'amx_demo vlno' causes the plugin to never change how you have voice_loopback set.

By default, the plugin does nothing. Every player wishing to use it must execute 'amx_demo on' at the very least, and 'amx_demo vlyes' if they want voice_loopback managed. If you issue no commands, you'll never even know the plugin is there. No demos will be recorded. Any player for whom a demo is being automated is notified when the recording begins and ends, including the name of the file to which the demo was saved.

An example of my 'amx_demo' output while I was recording the ns_caged demo from last night, without voice_loopback being managed:

Code:

======================================
AMX Auto Demo (a very, very beta plugin)
: The 'amx_demo' command manages the automatic recording of NS rounds.
-------------
Commands:
help/? - display this message
on     - enable automatic 'record' command at round start
off    - enable automatic 'stop' command at round end
vlyes  - enable voice loopback during demo recordings
vlno   - do not enable voice loopback during demo recordings
start  - manually start recording a demo
stop   - manually stop recording a demo
-------------
	Currently recording: 20040504232206-ns_caged.dem
	Auto recording     : on
	Auto voice_loopback: not enabled
======================================