I've had this talk with a lot of people in the past, some including casters, stream producers and players. And I really do not get why using cheat feed is not the norm. I've only heard one negative thing about using it and it is "The game gets predictable and boring because the camera swaps to the player that is about to go huge and everyone knows it". So what? What's the point of casting high level TF2 if you're going to miss 80% of the high level plays. That's what gets you invested into watching a cast in the first place. The casual viewer and even the not so casual viewer is not going to keep watching if the camera work is boring and misses all the big plays that are clearly seen on the kill feed. I feel like there are no real downsides to doing it other than it being slighly more work for the camera man.
I think the fear of a predictable game also misunderstands the viewing experience of a match. If the game is exciting enough to keep the average viewer engaged in the game, they're not going to be watching with a disassociated eye, taking note of when the producer switches to a pov. If the switch between players is seamless, and flows well, the viewer won't be aware of predictable producing.
Predictable casting is when the producer isn't paying attention to what's happening inbetween the huge plays. If the viewer becomes aware of confused/bad spectating, they will more easily notice the predictable switches onto povs. Cheat feed isn't the issue with predictable casting, it's inattentive and lazy production.
I think the attitude of producing shouldn't be to merely capture huge plays, but also to aim for engaging the viewer as much as possible, with the huge plays being a bonus on top of that.
Predictable casting is when the producer isn't paying attention to what's happening [b]inbetween[/b] the huge plays. If the viewer becomes aware of confused/bad spectating, they will more easily notice the predictable switches onto povs. Cheat feed isn't the issue with predictable casting, it's inattentive and lazy production.
I think the attitude of producing shouldn't be to merely capture huge plays, but also to aim for engaging the viewer as much as possible, with the huge plays being a bonus on top of that.
one of the problems which were in the community was lack of access to cheat feed as some orgs kept it for themselves only, most of them are closed source so you must be friends with them in order to use them
most of them because Arie's cheatfeed which code is 10 years old is still working and some time ago I did some effort in making it more accessible, so now you can self-host it thru Docker which makes it easy to set up anywhere you want including LAN use, which was one of my goals for poLANd.tf 2024 #winter
https://github.com/Arie/tf2_live_stats
I host my own instance but since the codebase is old and probably a bit insecure I don't share access to it publicly but it's super easy to make it work on your own
so now only producers need to make a change (if they want to, big if)
most of them because Arie's cheatfeed which code is 10 years old is still working and some time ago I did some effort in making it more accessible, so now you can self-host it thru Docker which makes it easy to set up anywhere you want including LAN use, which was one of my goals for poLANd.tf 2024 #winter
https://github.com/Arie/tf2_live_stats
I host my own instance but since the codebase is old and probably a bit insecure I don't share access to it publicly but it's super easy to make it work on your own
so now only producers need to make a change (if they want to, big if)
LupusAnd I really do not get why using cheat feed is not the norm.
What high level eu tf2 casts do you think don't use cheatfeed that need it?
What high level eu tf2 casts do you think don't use cheatfeed that need it?
As an observer, every cheatfeed solution I have used required me to keep track of two screens at the same time, which is not optimal because observing TF2 requires you to pay close attention of what happening in fights. If you want to observe well, you have to make split-second decisions on who to observe in team fights, otherwise you will miss important parts of the fight (that don't show up on the cheatfeed). With the cheatfeed, you may be able to show more big plays, but the game overall will become harder to follow for the viewer because the observer is distracted.
The best solution to this problem is the approach we had in RCADIA, which is that the technical director just keeps an eye on the cheatfeed and tells the observer if something big is coming up. That way the observer is fully focused on the game but can still capture all the big plays. However, this requires two people to pull off, so obviously it's not feasible for online production for the most part.
The best solution to this problem is the approach we had in RCADIA, which is that the technical director just keeps an eye on the cheatfeed and tells the observer if something big is coming up. That way the observer is fully focused on the game but can still capture all the big plays. However, this requires two people to pull off, so obviously it's not feasible for online production for the most part.
ondkajaThe best solution to this problem is the approach we had in RCADIA, which is that the technical director just keeps an eye on the cheatfeed and tells the observer if something big is coming up. That way the observer is fully focused on the game but can still capture all the big plays. However, this requires two people to pull off, so obviously it's not feasible for online production for the most part.
I don’t have much knowledge regarding how the cheatfeed works, but wouldn’t it be possible to make the cues audible instead? Have a tts bot in mumble using private chat for the observer or something?
The best solution to this problem is the approach we had in RCADIA, which is that the technical director just keeps an eye on the cheatfeed and tells the observer if something big is coming up. That way the observer is fully focused on the game but can still capture all the big plays. However, this requires two people to pull off, so obviously it's not feasible for online production for the most part.[/quote]
I don’t have much knowledge regarding how the cheatfeed works, but wouldn’t it be possible to make the cues audible instead? Have a tts bot in mumble using private chat for the observer or something?
adyskyI don’t have much knowledge regarding how the cheatfeed works, but wouldn’t it be possible to make the cues audible instead? Have a tts bot in mumble using private chat for the observer or something?
Its all based on the logaddress function in Source Engine. When you specify an IP and port, the TF2 server will send a constant feed of all activity as a line of log data to that IP. The cheat feed tools that exist ingest that feed, parse it and spit it back out on a web page to be viewed in a nice format.
To do something with audio cues, you would need to have an additional tool that reads that data and connects with mumble etc.
I don’t have much knowledge regarding how the cheatfeed works, but wouldn’t it be possible to make the cues audible instead? Have a tts bot in mumble using private chat for the observer or something?[/quote]
Its all based on the logaddress function in Source Engine. When you specify an IP and port, the TF2 server will send a constant feed of all activity as a line of log data to that IP. The cheat feed tools that exist ingest that feed, parse it and spit it back out on a web page to be viewed in a nice format.
To do something with audio cues, you would need to have an additional tool that reads that data and connects with mumble etc.