note: it does not matter what settings you record your Team Fortress 2 with, the final product is going to be high quality // explained further

First of all, make sure to enable your developerconsole
Go to options --> advanced --> tick - enable developer console



















The usual bind for console is the " ~ " key

It is completely optional when you start recording, however it is recommended to do it before your game, so you do not forget

How to do it:
open console ( ~ ) --> type in: record <NameOfYourChoise> ( without < & > )
after that, the game will start recording when the console is closed or when you join a game
in the console it should say:
"Recording to NameOfYourChoise.dem..."


After you are done recording your gameplay, open up your console and type in: stop
when done so, you should see something similar to this in the console:
"Completed demo, recording time <randomnumbers>, game frames <randomnumbers>."

( however don't get too excited just yet, your final video is not done)

First of all, check out this website and download Lawena Recording Tool[lawena.github.io](for those who want max quality video outcome)

After you download it, you might need to located two folders:
1) Your Team Fortress 2 folder Lawena uses it to find demos
2) Where you want to save your TGA* files

// TGA files are images that Lawena will divide your recording to, more information about it in a moment ( WARNING: make a separate folder for it, preferably in a disc that you have a lot of space at )
If you seem to be struggling to do it, you can find a tutorial in the official Lawena's website


When you start Lawena, you should be met with this window:


Now, you should select these options in order to get the best quality video:
Resolution: Your native resolution or higher
HUD: Optional, for best cinematic use - Kill notices only
Skybox: Optional
Viewmodels: On - for POV recordings, so when recording trough the persons eyes
Off - when recording with free camera and else / smoothing ( more about it later )
Viewmodel FOV: Optional, default is 70
Frame Output: TGA is highly recommended
JPG Quality: default

Additional Settings:
Enable Motion Blur: Optional, but better to add in post-processing
Disable Hit Sounds: Optional, but usually yes
Disable Voice Chat: Optional, but yes when not needed
Minimal HUD: Yes
Disable Combat Text: Yes
Disable Crosshair: No when recording trough persons eyes, yes when recording with free camera / smooth's
3D Player Model in HUD: No

Lawena controls
Here is an image of in-game binds when using Lawena ( some things lock after being pressed and cannot be undone without restarting Team Fortress 2 )

As you can see, it has quite a few binds, but they are explained quite well.
If some of the binds do not work, try writing sv_cheats 1 into the console before that using them.

The third-person camera binds are also described, however you can do it on your own by switching to third person ( - ) and moving your mouse, but it might cause ugly looking / not smooth final result.

Just go into a random .dem'o and experiment with it, it takes little to no time to understand how it works.

HOW TO START RECORDING
Start your desired .dem
Hit Shift+F2 on your keyboard

Now see the part where you can write in your numbers?
You should type in the tick that your frag/clip should start
( if you are unsure, playback the demo at a higher speed using the slider above and find it )
if you skip over the tick, you should go back by typing a lower tick number and pressing ' go to '
after you found your desired video starting point, quickly hit resume, press Shift+F2 to close the window and press ' P ' on your keyboard to start recording. WARNING: before hitting ' P ', make sure that your Movie Folder in Lawena isn't set to a place you want to flood with files ( first time I accidentally did it on my desktop... ). I highly suggest creating a separate folder for this.

After that, the game will look very slow, going frame by frame and the sound might be stuck in a loop or simply lag. Do not worry! At this point your game is creating hundreds/thousands of TGA files ( pictures ) in your selected folder.

After the slowly going process has passed the point where you want to end your clip, press ' P ' again to stop recording.

After you are done with this, you should find a .wav file and many TGA files ( or PNG, depending on what you chose before launching Lawena ). That means good things! The game has created many high quality pictures for you to combine together further using VirtualDub ( next segment ).

Your Movie folder is likely to take up gigabytes of space now, but don't worry, you will be able to get rid of it in a minute!

Now instead of writing the steps down, I will use a great tutorial that explains everything
(if you have questions, add me or write a comment)

enable anoations!

NOTE: if you try to smooth a demo, do not forget to disable viewmodels and crosshairs before launching Lawena! Also your smoothing might fail if the person who's POV you're using dies during the demo. On top of that if the person takes damage, it might be transfered to your smooth.

TIP: if you want a smooth of a part of a map, just go into an empty server and record a demo there ( simply don't move ) and then do the smoothing with that demo. This will ensure no interrupting during the final video.

If you didn't understand the tutorial or it miss-guided you, here are some alternatives:
TF2 Smoothing Tutorial by LuckyLuke
Team Fortress 2 Tutorial - How to Smooth a Source Demo by danilyas

Trust me, just because they are uploaded a long time ago, they are not outdated.

VirtualDub must be one of the most helpful programs out there

What it does is put all the thousands of TGA images that your game has created into a single smooth video.

Start off by downloading and installing VirtualDub
Download link[www.virtualdub.org]
Installation and setup guide

Afterwards, when you open it, it should look something like this:

Firstly, click on File --> Open Video File --> Choose any TGA file from the correct sequence ( if have multiple )
( make sure your folder is linked / if asked go to the folder which you set as your Movie Fodler in Lawena )

Now, go to the toolbar and hover over Audio, then press Audio From Another File and choose your audio file ( should be linked / if asked go to the folder which you set as your Movie Fodler in Lawena )

The next step would be for you to go to Video, then press Framerate

Tick this box

Then, Video -->Compression

Select ' Lagarith Lossless Codec '

If you cannot see the Lagarith Lossless Codec option, download and install it's library:
Lagarith Lossless Codec download[lags.leetcode.net]

Lastly, time to export! File --> Save as AVI ( or F7 )

In the new window, look at the bottom left corner and make sure this is ticked

Then choose your file name and make sure you're saving it as .AVI
Now the program might go slower, a new window will open with a bar, when the rendering is done, you can exit VirtualDub and you should see a file with a name you just chose in the category you saved it to. ( during rendering you could change the speed from normal to high / real-time for faster rendering )

WARNING: After rendering your file, DO NOT open your new .AVI file!
It's likely to be a huge file, which none of your media players will be able to play smoothly

To finish the process of your movie, you have one last step to do!

For the last part we will be using the H.264 encoder to drastically reduce your video file-size!

Yet again, start off by downloading and installing it:
Download link[www.h264encoder.com]

After that, when you launch the program, this window should come up

Video Source: select the .AVI file from the directory it's saved in
Output File: Feel free to change where it is being saved
Encoding Setting:
Full High Definition (1920 x 1080 ) for 1080p videos
Commonly Used High Definition ( 1280 x 720 ) for 720p videos
Aspect: No change

Then hit Encode and get ready to wait.
It may take a while. The program might freeze, seem unresponsive or like it's not doing anything at all, but don't worry, it's all just a process that is very intensive for your computer.

After it is done, congratulations, you have made your clip / movie!
Now play the new video ( make sure you don't accidentally select the uncompressed .AVI file )
If the video is working just as fine, you can delete all your TGA files from your Lawena's Movie Folder, as well as the large .AVI file that you have made using VirtualDub.

Honestly, do it, it will save you gigabytes of space


Now you are set to upload it to YouTube or any other video sharing website or edit it in post-processing programs such as Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas.

However if you will be rendering the videos in post-processing, make sure to select it's framerate to the one that your video is set to.

You can do it by doing the following:
Then hover over Details --> Frame rate

Thank you for reading trough my guide!
I hope it was very helpful and you managed to stick trough it.
If so, please post a link to your video in the comments or add me!


If any problems occur, post comments here or add me if I seem unresponsive here.
My profile


Movie making is a long and difficult to learn process, however doing it once from start to finish will give you all the knowledge you'll ever need ( in terms of Source Engine games ).

Here you can see my latest movie that I published!







Happy fragging,

- rainy kid





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