PC Can game save backups be used like theater mode?

[Double G]

I was watching a video where Guns Nerds & Steel said he uses game save backups to record additional 3rd person footage for his videos. 

In the video I pasted here, it looks like theater mode, where you can go back into a game, play the save back like a video and view anything from any angle.

Is that the case here, or am I missing something?

 

[Riamus]

The save wouldn't let you play it like a video.  The backup is the same as a normal save.  You can go back in time and replay it from the backup save but it isn't a video.  I'm sure there is more involved in what they are doing.  They probably use it when they see something happen that was good and that they know can happen again if they load the backup.  Then they use a video capture program with that.  Though, I can't think of much that can be looked back on and have happen in the same way, so not really sure why they'd use the backups.

 

[Double G]

You can go back in time and replay it from the backup save but it isn't a video.

It would be the saved telemetry data being played back in the game engine. That's what theater mode is like in Call of Duty. It saves a match and you can play it back from any perspective. It certainly looks like that's what's happening in this video. He's freezing time, reversing it, changing the speed, the camera angles, the weather...and it looks like he's doing it within the game with console commands. 

Maybe @Jugginator could shed some light on what's going on in the video?

 

[BFT2020]

What Tem is doing is using the backup to get some theatre shots for his content videos.  When he loads up the game, he detaches from the player character and gets video shots that way.  He also has another player character that he uses as another camera view during gameplay, you can see that pc when he tabs open and loots at stats.

7D2D doesn’t have that capability you are talking about in CoD.

 

[Double G]

When he loads up the game, he detaches from the player character and gets video shots that way.

So when he loads up the save the game is live then, meaning everything that happens from that point on is new action? 

Also, would you know how he's doing the freeze frame stuff, where he had the zombies frozen in midair and was able to move the camera around them?

 

[NekoPawtato]

Also, would you know how he's doing the freeze frame stuff, where he had the zombies frozen in midair and was able to move the camera around them?

num pad + and num pad - can speed/slow down stuff. If you hit num pad - enough times, it will freeze everything and you can detach camera and move around freely while everything is frozen

 

[Jugginator]

Yeah it's not as magic as it seems, bft/neko explained most of it. To detach the camera, it's F5 then p then [, reversing to put the camera back to normal. There's also a "cam" command that can be used to place camera waypoints you can load up.

 

[Syphon583]

So when he loads up the save the game is live then, meaning everything that happens from that point on is new action?

Yep, pretty much. What you are seeing in many of those cinematic shots are not what he actually sees when he plays the game. From what I understand, he plays and records through horde nights in first person as one normally might do, then he will load a backup save and detach the camera to get cinematic shots. The player-character is still in the game, but not doing anything and Tem is flying the camera around to get those sweet action shots. That being said, the action shouldn't be all that different and, unless he had a second person manually operating a different "camera" in real time, it's really the only way for him to get shots like that. I'm all for it- he's by far (IMHO) one of the best 7DTD creators out there. His product is pretty unique.

 

[Double G]

num pad + and num pad - can speed/slow down stuff. If you hit num pad - enough times, it will freeze everything and you can detach camera and move around freely while everything is frozen

Yeah it's not as magic as it seems, bft/neko explained most of it. To detach the camera, it's F5 then p then [, reversing to put the camera back to normal. There's also a "cam" command that can be used to place camera waypoints you can load up.

Awesome! Thank you both!

Also, would it be possible for a modder to create a way to store game data and have it be played back or would that be too complex?

 

[Jugginator]

Awesome! Thank you both!

Also, would it be possible for a modder to create a way to store game data and have it be played back or would that be too complex?

You're welcome. As far as that goes, it would be pretty complex and likely require a lot of code in .dlls, but I suppose anything is possible within limits of the engine. Our save files are pretty complex, call of duty/counter strike are static games as far as saves go, so they can afford to do that.

One last thing, detaching/reattaching the camera can leave it a little wonky, so if you do it and plan on continuing playing normally, I'd restart the game (to the main menu and back) after you're done.