Spring RTS Engine

How difficult would it be to add a rewind feature (negative speed?) to replays? either that or the ability to jump back a set number of seconds/minutes?

afaik it is impossible with the current system. The current system saves the events (orders?) of the game and simulates them, therefore you cannot find point 78, without having 77(76 ect..) so you must go in a forward motion. Rewinding requires going back to point 1 and going back to where you rewinded to IE. might as well restart the replay.

correct me if im wrong tho

Wonder if it possibly to "save" replays thou?

This would be a nice feature, too often i'll be watching a replay in 2x speed or whatever and miss something interesting and have to restart the replay, as well as if something cool is happening on two places on the map at once.

would make it alot easier to produce videos

I think it would be nice for the reasons others mentioned above, and also in situations where you want to track multiple players or areas to see what's happening simultaneously. Right now the best way to fudge it is to slow it down a lot or pause it and go back and forth often, but that's kind of distracting.

How about since we got a time clock
Feature add so we could type in console while waiting replays .jumpto 10:30 to go @ full speed to 10minutes 30 seconds & pause there.
Would be nice in replays could post an interesting one & give overview and relevate times

isn't this an MTR, if not, then it seriously should be. Rewinding replays and skipping to certain points are two of the best features Spring never had.

Everyone else wrote:I want to be able to rewind ect...

I hate to burst the bubble... but then your going to have to find a way to store a rewindable replay that doesnt make them 50 gigs a pop. Possible? probobly. Would most likey require a redo on the entire replay system.. somthing im sure no one wants to do...

Not saying its a bad idea, but sure MRT but dont expect anything in the next.. um while.. or two hehe

a thought though, how large (size wise) would a file be that stored the location of every entitty(unit/projectile) in play as well as birth/death events per frame? I am asuming huuuuuge but worth a shot =P

maybe it would be possible to "simulate" the action until a certain time without graphics.
like you press a key and only the radar is updated?
/e
I think Zero Hour does this, when pressing F (fast forward), then only every 10th frame or so is drawn.

a thought though, how large (size wise) would a file be that stored the location of every entitty(unit/projectile) in play as well as birth/death events per frame? I am asuming huuuuuge but worth a shot =P

What if a cache file were to be made with all the above information for the currently playing replay file? It would then be possible to rewind to any given point in the cache file without having to calculate all the projectile/unit positions in real time. After the replay is finished being viewed the cache file could be deleted.

There could also be some parameters to limit the "buffer" to a certain size so the replay cache file doesn't get too big. Once the file gets bigger than the buffer the beginning of the cache file can begin to be emptied. If any of you have ever used Tivo you may understand what I am talking about.

This is one of many, many reasons why 100%-complete multiplayer savegame feature would be incredibly handy.

Consider, with a full savegame, you could do the following:
1) resync - just auto-pause and pass the savegame to the non-syncing player.
2) have late joiners - works the same as a resync.
3) add chapters to a replay so you can go ahead/back.
4) save a multiplayer game to continue later.

adding chapters might be a good idea... so you have different startpoints. those chapters are saved every 10 mins or something?

thats a more interesting and feasible idea.

Couldn't it just have a recorder recording it, and the actual replays we have now?

there is a video recorder integrated into spring... I DARE you to use it for a whole game... no sound though, and it lags a lot

its one of the higher Fx keys (F9, F10, F11, F12)

Now I remember it...

I think it was like Q W E or R

Somewhere around there...

adding chapters might be a good idea... so you have different startpoints. those chapters are saved every 10 mins or something?

QFE
this is a good and feasible idea, you could save where units are at 10 minute intervals lowering the size of the replay. it would still take up a fair chunk of space i think but DEFINATELY worth looking at IMO.
Doing this would put us ahead of many recent RTS games =)