WT direct to video .avi export example (spliced)
0direct export from war thunder, compressed and spliced in craptasia. Total result file size is 17.75MB.
the blurring incase you didn't watch the how-to/showcase video, is because I opened the main menu. Direct to video export ignores the user interface, but does not ignore image blurring and depth of field and other related visual effects/PostFX.
This is a very handy feature for those running slow budget PCs. Read more below for more information if you want to skip the how-to video and additional important notes:
* In controls menu, search for "video" and bind a key combination to "replay video" - I haven't checked if they patched it out of live games, but make sure you don't accidentally press this key combination in a live match because things will get screwy.
* Functions almost identically to quake engine era .avi exports using /video command in that it will tell the renderer slow down or speed up to guarantee discrete timeframe steps in accordance to your timescale setting (WT exports at 30 fps, so the time delay between each frame is basically timescale*67msec regardless of how slow or fast your computer can render the game/video etc.) so basically, don't worry that the game will play sounds weirdly, that's intended.
* Unfortunately. the audio doesn't seem to export anymore or is broken, or may have never worked to begin with. But you know, then again this feature was basically available during a time period when video producers would literally add their own foley sounds or implement all the SFX manually by hand (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9qjccqlw3U )
* Video export is separated into 2GB chunks. As a result you'll likely have to merge them in a video editor afterwards. The positive thing about this is that if your last file corrupts, only the last file is gone. The 2GB limit is likely a remanent from the days of 32bit's ~3.5GB memory size limit. (Bonus fact, back in 2014, running the game on ultra low only used about 400 MB RAM. Also WT runs on a single core, so if you have a dual core processor, it's easier/better to just run FRAPS since FRAPS will happily use the spare core, while OBS will slow your game down considerably)
* Video size is very large because every frame is stored as images and is NOT interpolated like traditional .MP4 or .AVI videos, so the positive effect is that the video quality is almost lossless for very high quality image
* There is no true indexing so your video player will struggle to play it back in real time. The data is continuous from the first file to the last file.
* Video export will function as fast as your hard drive or cpu/gpu is able to render the game, whichever is slower.
* Does not record user interface elements
* Make sure you press the "Replay Video" button when you're finished!
* .avi video files will be found in the Screenshots folder in your installation directory.
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Example cases (intel t6400 cpu):
Demo in Dagor (War Thunder, 2014, ULQ, DirectX 8): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJCzTkjaXwE
(Total combined file size was about 36GB iirc but I could be wrong, 720x1280)
Demo in ioQuake3 engine (Tremulous 1.2 GPP, OpenGL 1.8.x/2.0.4) for comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G--C5hMl9Q
(Total file size was about 10GB iirc but I could be wrong, frames are stored as JPEG with .wav sound before being merfed into .avi file format)