This is just a little summary about TF2's awesome demo feature (the same for most Source games).
This allows you to record demos of your first person view in-game with no noticeable detriment to your frame rate or system performance. Unlike FRAPS, the demo files use a system which seems to track camera paths similar to Battle Recorder, so you can get pretty accurate data about your gameplay. As far as I know, you can also record demos from spectator view, so the same applies for free cam recordings.
Detailed documentation can be found on the Valve Developer Wiki at
Demo Recording Tools and
Demo Video Creation, but I'll provide a summary here.
To start recording a demo, type into your console:
Where demoname is the filename for the demo you wish to record. This demo will be saved in:
Code:
DRIVE:\\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\[yourname]\team fortress 2\tf\
Where [yourname] is your Steam login name and DRIVE is the drive letter where your programs are installed.
To stop recording your demo, type into the console:
To play back a demo, you can also use the console, but the Demo UI is much easier to use. You can bring up the Demo UI by hitting Shift+F2 or typing into the console:
The rest of the UI is pretty self-explanatory, where you can load a demo file from any location and adjust playback speeds and settings. To load a demo from the console without the UI, you can type:
You will find that the console will automatically give you file options for existing files in the directory if you start typing their name. Hitting the down arrow when the options pop up will allow you to auto-fill the filename faster. Again, the UI is much faster for this anyway.
NOTE: We have noticed that some demos don't seem to play right automatically. If the screen is black, but the UI shows the demo has started, just use the Goto: button to enter a random frame later in the movie. So, enter tick 100 and click Goto: The movie will actually reload from the start again, but this time it will do so properly. You can also use Goto: to skip to the action in a demo with extraneous data at the start.
You can find more demo-related console commands in the massive
Console Command List. Many of them are preceded with "demo_", so you can find them in
Console commands starting with the letter "D". Of course, some are hidden elsewhere, so the
Demo Recording Tools should tell you most of what you need to know.
Please add anything you may have discovered about demos yourself.