EZ Replay Manager

Hi! Thanks for your message.

You can do the following: Either add this Animation component to the exceptions of plugins which are not automatically destroyed from the replay clones (the documentation says how this is done) or you will have to extend SavedState.cs and call the animations yourself at the times when you need them. I hope this helps. I don't think I will be able to help much further without looking into the scene.

In either case you should update the version because the most recent one is much more efficient and allows for new functions.

 

Hi softrare, I tried as you instructed but it doesn't help much. I've sent you an email with an example scene.
Please help me with it when you have time. Thank you very much !

 

Thanks I have seen it, you will hear from me as soon as possible!

 

I'm using the component to record the replay of a simulation environment for driving lessons. but after a few minutes, the memory consumption is extremely high, hindering the performance of the target machine. is there any way to reduce this consumption?

 

Hi! Thanks for your message.

What kind of device is the target machine?

In general you can always decrease the frames per second with which will be recorded, you do this by actually increasing the recordingInterval variable (in the EZReplayManger prefab). Of course if you increase it too much the fine animations/movements will stutter more and more. Also you should always use the latest update from the Asset Store which improves performance in comparison to older versions (if you didn't upgrade already).

Does this tip help you out? If not, please report back and we can take a look at your project specs for me to be able to give more advice.

 

The target machine is a PC, with i7 processor and 4gb ram memory. I need record a 30 minutes simulation session.

 

Also for such a relatively powerful machine 30 minutes is quite a lot, depending on how many objects are involved, how detailed the animations are and especially how much movement. You need to optimize where you can, i.e. only record objects which are really needed and tweak recordingInterval as explained earlier. In think with more RAM you will be more suited, but I think it is definitly optimizable for your situation.

 

Does it support to save as a .mp4 format file on Android and iOS?!
Ooops, follow the thread I just found your answering about my question. No.

However, I would like to know how does EZ Replay Manager record the plays of animation. Does it render each frame as a independent picture? or just record the change of each parameter such as axis transforming of x, y, z for example? Thanks for your answering

 

Indeed EZ Replay Manager does not export to .mp4.

With regards to your 2nd question: The frames are not rendered as independent picture, but indeed only the changes in the movement, rotation are (by default) recorded. If you wish you can record any property from any GameObject you'd like.

This approach makes in i.e. possible to replay a scene from a different camera angle than it was recorded. You can optionally also record the camera, which would result in the camera changing i.e. position while replaying (if camera movement changed while recording).

Also this approach makes it possible to limit the recorded data to only those GameObjects and properties which are really changing with time as the scene is recorded, and to avoid overhead. All static GameObjects/properties just stay also in replay, so that it seems as if they were also part of the recording.

 

Do you guys support save to file/reload yet?

 

Thanks for your message. Yes, EZ Replay Manager has this feature implemented since version 1.5 .

 

I just buy the EZ Replay Manager.
When i have import EZ Replay Manager and A* pathifinding project pro.
I get the error, due to you have define the Monitor class.

System.Threading.Monitor <<
EZReplay Manger Monitor.cs<<

I don;t know why it will call your class.
Because
A* Pathfinding already define
using System.threading;

I don;t know the program how to get link to your folder.

What should i do?

Thank you and sorry for my bad english

 

Hi! Thanks for your purchase and your message. I don't know if I fully understand the problem though.

The Monitorclass is only a helper class, for displaying some buttons, and building the demo scene so I think you can even remove it from the project. Does that help? EZReplayManager makes no use of System.threading.

If you have further problems I would advice you to send the whole scene (or a representative subset of it) to me, I will analyse the problem and try to fix it for you. Remotely it is very difficult to understand what is the problem.

Hope this helps!

 

The free version is online again, after it was temporarily disabled because of Asset Store regularities. We are sorry for any possible inconvenience.

 

I just attempted to try the free version with my project, and upon importing the package and assigning my recorded game objects, all of the standard Physics Materials used on my recorded game objects had their friction values reset to default. I had customized a number of these materials for specific uses in my scene, and resetting these materials to their default friction values rendered my game completely unplayable. I closed Unity, chose not to save, and upon reloading my project and scene, those values were still at their defaults.

For whatever reason, the values I had assigned to the friction parameters prior to trying this product were not saved with my project, and I couldn't remember my exact numbers from experimentation before, so I had to go back and tinker with the values to get my project playable again. I haven't noticed any other changes yet, and my project seems to be in the playable state that it was before, but I'm a bit apprehensive now.

Sorry if I missed some documentation about this--couldn't find it mentioned anywhere that this would affect those values. :-?

 

Very sorry to hear that. I, too, was unaware that those values would be overridden and even so on the project level. Do you use custom Physics materials, or the default ones (wood, ice, metal...)? I will have to do some experimentation. I am sure this behavior can be avoided. So it happened upon assigning your gameobjects, without even starting the scene and recording/replaying?

 

I customized 3 of the default materials (Ice, Rubber, Metal); didn't rename them or create customized copies or anything like that... just adjustments to the standard materials. I could try creating copies and renaming them and applying those custom materials to my object instead, as I think it only affected the standard preset physics materials in use on my recorded object.

Also, I apologize for the misleading wording--I actually wasn't aware that the values had been changed until I started the scene and noticed the game wasn't at all playable anymore--it took me a few minutes of snooping around thereafter to discover changed friction values were the culprit... it likely didn't revert the friction values to default when I assigned my game objects to be recorded, but rather when I began the scene and clicked Record.

Thanks for your prompt response!

 

Thank you very much for your feedback! So the replacement of your adjusted objects occured when you hit "record"? I would have guessed it would only occur after you hit "replay". Pls check this out, I will also experiment with this, and either come to solution or update the documentation. I am very glad you were able to find the friction values you had before.

 

I e-mailed myself a scene so I could test this from work and get back to you sooner.

As it turns out, all of the standard physic material (Bouncy, Ice, Metal, Rubber, Wood) values are being reset to their defaults immediately upon importing the package, before the scene is ever started, before any game objects are assigned for recording. Whether the materials are in use in the scene is irrelevant--as long as the material has one of the 5 standard names, it will be reset. I'm not sure if the full version exhibits this same behavior as I've only tried the demo. The good news is that only the standard materials are reset--copies of the standard materials that have been renamed are not affected, so users can create their own physic materials which won't be changed when the demo package is imported.

After giving it a shot with my custom materials in place, it works exactly as advertised and will be very useful when I decide on some video capture software and get a WIP thread started. Thanks for your work with this!

 

I think I now know what happened. In the package the physics materials (in the standard assets folder) are also being imported and yours, because you left the standard names, appearently overwritten. Again, sorry this happened to you. I will take measures so this will not happen again after the next update.

You are very welcome, I am glad the product is to your liking, if I can assist you further please just ask.

 

You're totally right--I must have skimmed right by them when looking over the imported contents, as I didn't notice them before, but sure enough, they're there. They can just be unchecked before importing. D'oh!

 

Hello, could you tell me if EZ replay manager could be used to make a ghost character within a playing game so that the player can race against previous attempts? Many thanks

 

Hi! Yes the package is absolutly capable of doing that, but it would need some tweaking. You could buy the full version and try it yourself or you could hire me to adjust the package to your needs. In that case you buy the full version, and send me the full project (of course only the things I neccessarily need to see for this functionality to work, and only as much as you would like to disclose). Hope this helps!

 

Fantastic, this is great news. it's quite a crucial aspect of the game and i've been unable to find a simple solution, Still working on other areas but will purchasing. Many Thanks

 

You're very welcome! For any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

 

Hi! Bought full version, now having fun. I need to replay dynamically created game objects, but using the replay file from a previously created game objects. I start a new game, create a new instance of the prefab, give the instance the same name I used to created replay in the previous game, load replay but couldn't play it. It seems that an object got another instanceid and replay manager couldn't find it. Is it possible to somehow use newly created object with the same name to replay? One solution I think is to serialize the object and deserialize it in the new game, haven't tried it yet.
Thank you!

 

If I understand you correctly, you want to record a gameobject doing certain things, then start a new game and you want to dynamically create a gameobject, that does precisly what was recorded earlier from a different gameobject with the same name in an earlier game session. Is that correct?

 

That's correct. I am doing kind of this:

object somePrefab = Resources.Load("SomePrefab");
GameObject someObject = Instantiate( somePrefab , Vector3.zero, Quaternion.identity) as GameObject;
someObject.name = "someObject";

EZReplayManager.markObject4recording( someObject );
EZReplayManager.record()
......
EZReplayManager.stop()

then I am playing
EZReplayManager.play(0)
and everything fine.
I could save the replay:
EZReplayManager.saveToFile(filename)

But if I destory an object
Destroy( someObject )
or start new game then again create the object
object somePrefab = Resources.Load("SomePrefab");
GameObject someObject = Instantiate( somePrefab , Vector3.zero, Quaternion.identity) as GameObject;
someObject.name = "someObject";
Now I'd like to load replay
EZReplayManager.loadFromFile(filename);
and play it with the created object.

 

What actually happens when you do that, can you describe the effect this has?

 

nothing happens.

Another issue. When I tried to save replay under iOS i got an error
_________________________
start saving

(Filename: /Applications/buildAgent/work/7535de4ca26c26ac/Runtime/ExportGenerated/iPhonePlayer-armv7/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 54)

ExecutionEngineException: Attempting to JIT compile method 'List`1__TypeMetadata:.ctor ()' while running with --aot-only.

at System.Reflection.MonoCMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
Rethrow as TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.
at System.Reflection.MonoCMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Reflection.MonoCMethod.Invoke (BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Reflection.ConstructorInfo.Invoke (System.Object[] parameters) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type, Boolean nonPublic) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Activator.CreateInstance (System.Type type) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.CreateMemberTypeMetadata (System.Type type) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.GetObjectData (System.Object obj, System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.TypeMetadata metadata, System.Object data) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.WriteObject (System.IO.BinaryWriter writer, Int64 id, System.Object obj) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.WriteObjectInstance (System.IO.BinaryWriter writer, System.Object obj, Boolean isValueObject) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.WriteQueuedObjects (System.IO.BinaryWriter writer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.ObjectWriter.WriteObjectGraph (System.IO.BinaryWriter writer, System.Object obj, System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.Header[] headers) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize (System.IO.Stream serializationStream, System.Object graph, System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.Header[] headers) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary.BinaryFormatter.Serialize (System.IO.Stream serializationStream, System.Object graph) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at EZReplayManager.SerializeObject (System.String filename, .Object2PropertiesMappingListWrapper objectToSerialize) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at EZReplayManager.saveToFile (System.String filename) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
at GameManager.Update () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

(Filename: Line: -1)
______________________
Although it works well under macos and it seems that in ios file actualy starts being created but then the error happens.
I googled and found this:
______________________
Most of the time you can run into this error in two common situations:
Your application makes use of some generic type that was missed during AOT compile. ( Usually some linq code inside First() etc. sometimes Sort() )
Your application uses reflection or other dynamically generated code.
You have imported library that you don’t know about and that library does not compatible with iOS in these means.
First one can easily be fixed. You can just stop using the generic type method and almost all generic methods can be rewritten or replaced with another solutions.
Second one is problematic and I think best to be avoided.
Third one, unfortunately you have to stop using that dll file. E.g. there’s a discussion here about using 3rd party dlls and using Events , they seem like found one workaround but it’s probably not thread safe at all. So you should use at your own risk.
For more information or solution tips about this you can search in StackOverflow, UnityForums…

 

Hi,

I bought this plugin to use it in a 2D game. I experimented with a few testscenes and your examples and came up with some problems and notes:

* The timing option can be set to integer values. I want to control the speed of the replay in a more accurate way. The speed-option of -1 is already too slow. I think a few people already requested a better granularity for the speed settings.

* The documentation says that the value for the min- and maxSliderValue is between -5 and +5. The value is actually set to -3 to +3 in the code. This is not a huge problem because one can change the values by themselves but it should be updated in the documentation. There is also a little bug when using the min value. In my test-scene I change the value form 0 all the steps down to -3. 0 works fine (too slow though;-)), -1 works, -2 works, but -3 is messed up (going fast again), so i guess there is a problem with a logical comparison (e.g. <= instead of < or such a thing).

* In the project I use ThinkScroller to realize a parallax-scrolling effect. The setup is as follows:
....The orthographic camera in the scene has a child called "Parallax Manager" (with a script called "Parallax.cs" attached to it)
....When using your plugin on this camera to record a motion, I get the following error: "Parallax Manager: There can only be one parallax manager per scene."
So the problem is that the ReplayManager clones the camera object and the child ("Parallax Manager") including all scripts (in this case "Parallax.cs").

* There might be even more problems because the "Parallax Manager" has a lot of childs, each of them being a "Parallax Layer" that handles different motion speeds. So in this case I might want to record each of the layers on their own. But how would I detach them from their parent object?!

* Another problem is that ThinkScroller uses UV-mapping to control the motion of the different layers. So there are two ways to record that behavior I can think of:
....Trying to get a setup working where there are exactly those objects active and working with scripts that I need to simulate the same visual motion as before.
....Trying to record the motion / shader stuff that goes on on the quads/planes of the ThinkScroller-layers.

I'm not sure how to solve this but to use your plugin I need precise control which object is cloned in what way. I need to be able to set exactly which scripts should be copied/cloned and which one should be discarded.

It would be amazing if you could check out ThinkScroller by yourself and create some sort of a test-scene.

* And there is another one^^
I'm using the Exploder plugin to destroy some objects (sprites/quads). The fragments created by Exploder are no prefabs or anything that could be computed before the recording or at design time. As far as know ReplayManager has problems to record things that can not be instantiated without a prefab?! Or is it possible to add the fragments to the container of "objects to be recorded" at runtime? But again those fragments might be destroyed at the time when the replay is being played back.

I'm looking forward to your help

 

Hello.
I want to press a button and change the mode to PLAY for LIVE.

if(Input.GetKeyDown("x"))
{
EZReplayManager.getCurrentMode() = EZReplayManager.MODE_LIVE();
}

It does not work. What I have to do.

 

Hi

I'm currently working on a cinematic replay system, and your system obviously appeared really interesting. I tried the free version first and it seems okay, but before purchasing the complete version, I have a few questions.

My first question is about the accuracy of the replay. Are you saving every transform and then using them for the replay ? If so, how many characters/objects can you handle ? and for how long ? For example, if i have 6 characters, would I be able to record a few minutes with a time step of 0.04s (25fps) ?

In my system, i have a first scene where the game is being played, and another one where it is being replayed (copy of the first scene where I removed most of the scripts and implemented my system). Will it be easy to record event in one scene and then play them in another ?
With the complete version, will I be able to save the replay in a file, and if so, how big would it be (considering the previous example) ?

I think that's about it for now.

Thanks in advance for answering.
Quentin.

 

Loading script assembly "Assets/EZReplayManager Demo/scripts/EZReplayManagerDemo.dll" failed!
FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'EZReplayManagerDemo, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies.


This is a problem , Can anyone help about this , I used a free version .
For testing point of view , but give this error ......
I have a problem in play , and in playmode , the scene never plays and gives an error.

 

Dear Customers,

Thank you very much for your questions. I must report that I was NOT as usual informed by the forum software about the fact that you asked questions here and it seems that this problem persists since 2 weeks, although I have clearly subscribed to this thread. I AM VERY SORRY! I will file a complaint with the Unity Team, because this cannot happen! I will answer your request as soon as possible! It seems that one of you has given the package a not-so-good rating, which is your good right, if I don't answer your questions. Please give me a little time to think about your problems with the package and, if you feel comfortable with it, consider changing your rating once we figuered out whats going on. My normal attitude is to answer ALL problems customers might have within a reasonable time. All of you will get answer within 24 hours, starting from this moment on. Thanks! I will also write you a PM once I answered your question to avoid this thread reporting bug hindering you to receive my answer.

Best regards,

Linus Ahlemeyer,
SoftRare

 

Ok, I understand, that is because what you are trying is not part of the set of features. Because you cannot replay on an object you created yourself. The engine will at this point always want to instantiate its own object.

This is odd, because in the full version there is no DLL. You probably tried the free version on iOS which indeed does not work because of the DLL. In the full version there is no hidden code, and so there is no need for DLL, and I didn't include it.

 

Hi,

This can be adjusted in the function setReplaySpeed(). The multiplicator and divisor variables are calculated for that.

I will look into this. Thanks!

On replay, on default all objects are being cloned and all scripts are being removed, except for a few hard coded ones. Those you can find in Object2PropertiesMapping.cs in function prepareObjectForReplay(). The way the replay plugin works now, there is indeed a little time window where the real object and the clone exist simultaneously. Maybe, after calling stop() (the recording), and before hitting replay, you should deactivate the camera yourself.

You can do that by not recording the parent object, but only the child itsself.

As said above every object is being cloned when you hit replay, and all scripts are being removed with few exceptions which can be found at the above mentioned position. Also you can add scripts to "ComponentsAndScriptsToKeepAtReplay". Then, those scripts are not being removed.

Where can I download the ThinkScroller? If it needs special knowlegde to set it up, I would prefer that you would send me a demo scene with a little example. This way, I save time. I will look into your problem and report back to you via PM or Email what can be done about it.

Yes, it is totally possible to mark objects as to be recorded at runtime. This is what is demonstrated in the 2nd example in the package.

Hope this helps!

 

This is done by making this call:

switchModeTo(MODE_LIVE);

 

This is not really an accuracy question but more of the performance I guess. The objects are not really saved but the link to them. What you describe should be absolutly possible. Note, that the performance in the full version is better than in the demo version because of an updated replay engine.

To record in one scene and replay in another I did not test to this point, to be honest, but I think this can also be tested with the free version. Please report back if you run into trouble.

Yes it is possible to record to a file. What you described can be 10MB or 100MB, depending on how much movement per second is involved. This has much more influence than the number of objects, which can be very high. If there is a lot of movement, all those values have to be saved, and they are saved in serialized objects and so this can expand the file size by quite a bit.

 

Hi! What operating system and export platform do you use?

 

No, I work with full version. The error happens when an object is serialized by BinaryFormatter:

BinaryFormatter bFormatter = new BinaryFormatter();
bFormatter.Serialize(stream, objectToSerialize);
stream.Close();

 

Ok thanks for letting me know. I will look into this.

But I don't understand what you said in this earlier post, you said:

As said, there is no DLL in the full version.

 

The demo link 1 opens a page that freezes and the second link is 404.

 

Hi! Thanks for your message.

Please try link 1 and link 2 again now.

It should not freeze, it certainly does not freeze at my computer, I use the latest version Firefox on a strong computer. Please try again and report back. If it does not get better, please use the free demo package from the Asset Store (link in signature). Both demo scenes are in there as well.

 

Working now. Simple question can it be used to make a killcam ? If yes would it be easy to set up ?

 

It is absolutly possible, but in the current state, you would yourself have to determine the moment when the plugin should start recording (i.e. automatically if someone aims the weapon on another player), then the recording starts, and you must yourself stop the recording (automatically, by script of course) when the other player is dead, then (again, by script) replay the scene (it's even possible to replay the scene from different angels). At the moment there is no "buffer" of some kind where you can just take the last 3 seconds from and replay those.

 

Just got it, really good. Hope you guys improve it, a "buffer" feature would be really cool.

Edit: I'm having problems, I'm recording the constructor walking in a plane, but when I play the replay it shows him walking in the air.

Image: http://i.imgur.com/fqMdUwB.png

Edit 2: Apparently the problem happens only if I put the plane in the EZ object list.

Edit 3: There are compatibility issues with A* Pathfinding, I get this errors

http://i.imgur.com/3loTopY.png

 

Hi!

If there are static objects which will not move or do anything, don't record them, those will be still there in replay mode.

Edit 3: There are compatibility issues with A* Pathfinding, I get this errors

http://i.imgur.com/3loTopY.png[/QUOTE]

I think this just has to do with there being a class called "Monitor" in the package, maybe A* path finding does also, I don't own this particular package. In the EZ Replay Manager package it is not important (only for the demo scene) so you might want to rename it (into anything) or even remove it. Please get back to me if there are more problems.

 

Hi I want to stop recording process by script any help

 

EZReplayManager.stop();