Since we've started hosting Battlefield 2 demos, I keep getting asked, "How do I play this demo?" Rather than just telling you how to play them, I thought I would give you a much broader overview on demos in Battlefield 2 and what you can do with them. This is a guide to recording, playing, and doing some more advanced stuff with Battlefield 2 demos.

Now, before you can view a Battlefield 2 demo, you'll need to have one that you have downloaded or one that you have recorded yourself. We'll start off with how to record a demo in Battlefield 2.

Recording a Demo

There are two console commands you'll need to know when it comes to recording demos and they are:

demo.recordDemo demoname - where demoname is replaced with whatever you wish to call your demo
demo.stopRecording - which will stop the demo recording

In order to use these commands you'll need to bring down the console by hitting the tilde (~) key. When you record a demo, it will be placed in your \Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2\Demos folder and have the extension of bf2demo.

Viewing a Demo

Now that we have our demo recorded, we obviously want to watch it or send it to other to watch. So here comes the section that most of you are probably interested in. Here is how to play the demos in Battlefield 2:

1. Place the demo in your \My Documents\Battlefield 2\Profiles\default\demos folder.
2. Start Battlefield 2 and click on the Community Tab.
3. Make sure you are in the Battle Recorder tab and your demo should be listed on the right-hand side. Simply highlight the demo you wish to view and click Play Demo on the bottom right.

Now for some controls while viewing your demo:

Q – opens the Playback Rose. Move the mouse to highlight the desired playback option and press the Left Mouse Button to select. Options available here that are not bound to separate keys include "Restart" and "Quit".
T – opens the Camera Rose. Choose the camera option or cycle through the available players.
1 – Pause the playback (also available in the Playback Rose).
2 – Playback recorded session at normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
3 – Playback recorded session at 5% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
4 – Playback recorded session at 25% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
5 – Playback recorded session at 50% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
6 – Playback recorded session at normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
7 – Playback recorded session at 150% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
8 – Playback recorded session at 300% of normal speed (also available in the Playback Rose).
Spacebar – cycle between players.
Right Mouse Button – cycle between free camera and player camera.
Mouse wheel – zoom camera in and out when locked onto a player.
W, A, S, D, Ctrl and Shift – move free camera around map, forward, left, backwards, right, down and up.
Mouse look – aim free camera.

Recording a Camera Path

Now let's move on to some more advanced stuff. This is more for people who are looking to make videos with their demos. The following directions will allow you to record a path through a demo, basically letting you control where the camera goes. If a demo is played back with a Battlefield 2 Camera file, the viewer will be forced to view the entire demo through that camera path.

1. You'll need to download the demo.cmd file in order to render the demo. Place this file in both of the folders listed below.

C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo
C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2

2. You'll also need to create a new demos folder, if you haven't already done so, in \Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2. Your resulting path should be: Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2 Demo\mods\bf2\demos\.

3. Place all the demos that you want to record camera paths for in this newly created folder.

4. Now comes the tricky part. We'll have to use a command line to start the rendering and recording of the demo. You can open a command prompt by clicking on Start -> Run, typing "cmd" (without the quotes), and clicking OK. You may also be able to access a command prompt in your Start -> Programs -> Accessories.

5. Now you need to navigate to your Battlefield 2 directory. You can do this by typing: cd c:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2. If you have Battlefield 2 installed on a different drive letter than C, just replace it at the beginning of the path.

6. One last step to start the demo recording. Type: demo.cmd +c demoname. Where demoname is the name of the demo you want to create the camera path for. Battlefield 2 will load and you'll go into the game loading screen. After you click on Join Game, all your movements will be recorded to the camera path file.

Viewing a Demo with a Camera Path

Now you're asking yourself, how do I view my newly created demo with my newly created camera path? This is as easy as killing someone with the grenade launcher.

1. Check your c:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\mods\bf2\demos folder for the newly created BF2CAM file. Make a note of the name as you'll need it in Step 2.

2. Open a command prompt again and navigate back to your c:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\ folder. Type the following to start viewing your recorded camera movements: demo.cmd demoname camfile -def. Where demoname is the name of the demo you recorded your camera movements from and camfile is the name of your BF2CAM file.

Rendering a Demo into an AVI File

Now once you've watched it to make sure that it looks good and everything, you can convert it to an AVI file so that anyone can view it. This can be done in just a few steps.

1. Open a command prompt and navigate to c:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\. Type in the following to start the process: demo.cmd +r demoname camfile. Where demoname is the name of the demo that you want to convert and camfile is the name of the BF2CAM file.

2. After the game has loaded, do not click the Join Game button yet. First hit Alt+TAB to switch out of the game and you'll notice a new box has appeared. You'll have a choice of encoders to use for your AVI file, select one and click OK.

3. Now maximize the game by clicking on it on your taskbar and click Join Game. Your demo will now start to be rendered to an AVI as it plays. If you want to end the render at any time just his the R key.

Rendering Sound from a Demo

You'll have to do one more thing to your AVI if you want to have sound in it. If you're just making a music video then you really don't need to do this next step. To create a sound file from the in-game sound, follow the following steps:

1. Open a command prompt and navigate to c:\Program Files\EA Games\Battlefield 2\. Type the following to start the recording: demo.cmd +s demoname camfile. Where demoname is the name of the demo you want to record the sound from and camfile is the name of the BF2CAM file.

2. After your game loads, click on Join Game. You'll see no video but only hear sound. Your sound is being recorded to the sound file.

Now that you have the AVI file and the sound file, you can join them together with some video editing software that you'll have to get on your own. That's it for this guide, for now anyways. If you see any problems or anything that needs to be changed or added, send me an e-mail. I hope this helps everyone to at least view and record the demos to begin with.

I have created this guide by looking at several pages on TotalBF2. Here is the main page that I used as my source:

http://forums.totalbf2.com/showthread.php?t=6835.

BattleLauncher

There is a program out there called BattleLauncher that will allow you to view demos, record CAM files, render AVI files, and render the sound files through a GUI. You can go to the official site for the download link. This program simplifies all of the above steps, except for recording a demo in the first place.