4.0

TAS Editor 2

This is a new version of the BXT TAS editor, rebuilt from the ground up with big usability improvements and bug fixes. Watch the video introduction and getting started: https://youtu.be/zi3pw9iS1sk.

Highlights include:

• Undo/redo system which is unlimited and persistent: even after restarting your game, you can undo all the way back to the start of the TAS.
• Branches for easy comparison of different routes.
• Manual HLTAS editing through bridged file synchronized with the in-game editor in real time.
• Integration with the TAS optimizer.
• You can always edit the entire script, not just the part after the playback stop.
• No save command: all changes are automatically saved to disk as soon as you do them in-game.

TAS editor 2 commands and console variables are called bxt_tas_studio to avoid the naming collision with the BXT TAS editor. Hence, the alternative name is TAS Studio.

Video Recording with Motion Blur

Set bxt_cap_sampling_exposure to a value above 0 and up to 1 to enable motion blur. It works the same way as in HLAE and hl-capture, but very fast thanks to GPU acceleration with Vulkan.

Other Changes

• Added bxt_play_folder by @khanghugo in #53
• Improved demo length limit in the demo playback commands by @khanghugo in #59
• Made video recording fast when alt-tabbed by @khanghugo in #51
• Added bxt_scoreboard_remove by @khanghugo in #61
• Added bxt_cap_separate_start which records every demo into a separate video by @khanghugo in #58
• Added bxt_viewmodel_remove by @khanghugo in #52
• Added bxt_viewmodel_sway by @khanghugo in #64
• Improved CS 1.6 support in the TAS optimizer by @khanghugo in #50
• Added support for Cry of Fear by @SmileyAG in #48
• Added more patterns by @SmileyAG and @khanghugo in #63, #69
• Added bxt_remote_forbid to prevent the game from serving as a remote optimizer or TAS Studio client by @YaLTeR
• Minor improvements and fixes to video recording by @YaLTeR

New Contributors

• @khanghugo made their first contribution in #50

Full Changelog: 3.1...4.0

3.1

Fixed video capture crash with loud sounds (the glitched gauss charge sound when you pass a changelevel on Steam) by @hobokenn in #47.

3.0

Thanks to @hobokenn, @SmileyAG and @mxpph for helping with this release!

TAS Brute-Force Optimizer

Added a brute-force optimizer for TASing. It works by randomly adjusting a part of the TAS and keeping better results. The optimizer can use prediction (fast but inaccurate), or multiple game instances to run the TAS.

Video explaining how to use the optimizer: https://youtu.be/ECuRruY3XLw

Documentation

All functionality, console commands, and variables are now documented. Read the documentation on the wiki page or in-game with the bxt_help command.

Other Changes

• Added bxt_cap_slowdown for recording slowed-down video without audio distortion, similar to how playdemo slowdown works.
• Added bxt_disable_loading_text to disable drawing of the LOADING line.
• Removed the TAS sound RNG fix module: it was implemented in Bunnymod XT where it belongs better.
• bxt_force_fov no longer allows values below 1.
• Replaced the profiling functionality from rust_hawktracer to tracing. Profiling is now present in all builds; start Half-Life with the BXT_RS_PROFILE environment variable set to enable it. bxt-rs will then output a trace.json file in the Half-Life folder, which you can view in Perfetto or in chrome://tracing.
• Vulkan debugging is now present in all builds and can be enabled by starting Half-Life with the BXT_RS_VULKAN_DEBUG environment variable set.
• Removed debug information from release builds as it was significantly increasing binary sizes, while not being all that useful.

2.0

Thanks to @hobokenn and @SmileyAG for helping with this release.

• Regular bxt-rs now works seamlessly with Bunnymod XT. Removed bxt-compatibility builds as they are no longer needed.
• Added video recording support for pre-SDL (4554) and some WON (1600) engines.
• Added the ability to bxt_cap_start output.wav to only record audio.
• Fixed video recording crash when using -nosound.
• Added a fix for bxt_play_run sometimes exiting to the main menu in the middle of playing demos recorded with Bunnymod XT.
• Added bxt_tas_recording_start and bxt_tas_recording_stop which record real-time gameplay into a .hltas. This mostly works fine, but longer recordings, especially ones that depend on the RNG, will eventually desync.
• Added a fix for non-deterministic sound RNG during TAS playback (already added it to Bunnymod XT too).
• Added a fix for non-deterministic un-stuck time during TAS playback.
• Renamed bxt_taslog to bxt_tas_log to avoid a conflict with Bunnymod XT.
• Added non-shared RNG state dumping to bxt_tas_log.
• Added _bxt_rng_set to set the non-shared RNG state. Mainly useful for debugging as some initialization based on the non-shared RNG happens at engine start, which setting the non-shared RNG state at runtime doesn't help with.
• Added support for more engine versions for the rest of the functionality.

1.0

First release.

Thanks @hobokenn, @chinese-soup, @SmileyAG, @Margen67 for helping out with development.