preyneyv's Replay Manager

A way to get a much nicer-looking instant replay working in free open source software.

This is a spin-off of FFConcat Replay Manager that takes a completely different approach to rendering the replays. Where the previous one relied on ffconcat to create the stitched-together replay video, this uses a browser source that pieces the videos together in real-time. This eliminates the stuttering between clips in the previous one while also adding a simple cross-fade transition.

Some of these screenshots are slightly incorrect or have FFCRM branding. I will fix it eventually, but bear with me for now.

Note: I wrote this program for a very specific use-case I had, but I thought it might be beneficial to other people in a similar situation to mine. I mention this to make it clear that this project will NOT be actively maintained. You are free, however, to fork it and do with it what you please.

Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee the software will work 100% of the time. In my own testing, it has worked fine to the point that I am comfortable offering it as a tool to the community. However, I do not take any responsibility of any kind for anything that goes wrong due to the usage of this software. Refer to LICENSE for the full disclaimer.

I've written the reasoning for the existence of pRM and FFCRM (I need a better abbreviation) at the bottom of the FFRCM Readme if you're interested in more background.

Instructions

Setup

In OBS Studio's Settings

1. Output > Replay Buffer
   Enable the Replay Buffer and set the replay time to the desired length.
   
2. Output > Recording
   Ensure the recording path is on an SSD, since we will be reading from and writing to it very frequently and time-sensitively.
   
3. Hotkeys
   Set up a hotkey for "Save Replay Buffer". This is your "something cool just happened" button, so make sure it isn't a button you normally use.
   
4. Advanced
   Set your Replay Buffer Filename Prefix to something. This can literally be anything, but it helps if it's something simple like "Replay". We will need this later.
   

In preyneyv's Replay Manager

Note that pRM will remember your settings and pre-fill them for you the next time you open it.

(The following screenshot is incorrect.)

• Session Directory
  Where all your recordings are stored. This is the same as what is listed as the recording path in your OBS settings.
• Client Port
  The port number for the web server. 3000 works well for most people. If you have something else running on 3000, just pick another open port.
• Filter Pattern (RegEx)
  How to isolate clips from full recordings. If you're not familiar with RegEx, just use <replay buffer prefix>.* here. So if my Replay Buffer Prefix was Replay, I would use Replay.*. Note that this is case-sensitive.
• Tags
  Up to 5 tags you can use to easily select the clips you want to stream. These should be comma-separated. For example, P1,P2,P3. Space is optional. Short tag names are recommended.

Click Start when you are done with the configuration. You might get a prompt asking for network access permission. You need to grant this to let OBS connect to the viewer.

Final Configuration

1. Create a new scene for the replay. (Probably call it "Replay".)
2. In pRM, click Copy Viewer URL.
3. Add a Browser Source and configure it as follows.
   
   • URL Paste the URL that was copied by pRM.
   • Width and Height are the dimensions of the replay window. Normally, these should just be the dimensions of your OBS canvas.
   • Control audio... should be enabled. This lets you independently control the volume of the replay and it shows up as a separate audio device in the Audio Mixer.
   • Shutdown source... should be disabled. This messes with some internal stuff on the viewer's end.
   • Refresh browser... should be enabled. This way, every time you switch to the replay scene, it will fetch the latest clip playlist instead of using a cached one.

And with that, setup is over!

Usage

Note: Although this is copied over from the previous repository, it still works pretty much exactly the same.

pRM will continuously watch the provided Session Directory for new clips. Whenever something interesting happens, press your "Save Replay Buffer" shortcut to create a new clip. You should see it pop up at the bottom of pRM's clip list.

At any point, you can return to the configuration by clicking the application's title. Note that this will unhide all clips again when you return.

Clicking a row will toggle its selection. Once you have selected all the clips you would like to show, click Enqueue to update the playlist. Note that this will NOT change the OBS scenes for you. You still have to do that yourself. It will only update the playlist file so that the next time the replay scene is pulled up, the new clips are shown. You can also click Clear to clear the current selection.

You can hide clips that you no longer want to see by clicking the Hide button on each row. You can also hide all clips that are currently visible by clicking Hide All. Neither of these actions will delete the clips from your disk. They will simply hide them from the interface. One case where you might want to do this is when you proceed between matches. You no longer need to see the highlights of the previous match, so clearing the list would make it easier to select clips. You can reveal all hidden clips by clicking Show All. There is currently no way to reveal a single hidden clip.

You can tag the new clip with any of the tags defined in configuration by clicking their respective bubbles to toggle them. Tagging allows for easier selection of the clips using the Select filters at the top left.

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Built by @preyneyv in 2021.