Cinematics are crucial in every CSGO showcase video, and they can make it look way better too. With this guide, you will learn how to make some good-looking and smooth cinematics. A good example of a good cinematic is PGL. This organization uses a method to get some amazing shots in their tournaments. Disclaimer: this simple method will only work on GOTV demos.

Let's jump straight into it!

WHAT YOU NEED

First, you will need something essential before starting to make the cinematic:

- A demo file: These are the files that record every competitive match in CSGO. To download it, you must go to "Spectate Tab" in CSGO menu, then click "My Matches" and select one of them. Then, click download and you will have it in your CSGO game directory and, of course, in "Spectate" Menu, under "Downloaded Matches" tab.

- A capture software: You can use whatever software you want to record the cinematics.

You can toggle all your video options to high or very-high, so your cinematics will look better, but only if your PC can handle it.

If you have all of this, then you can continue to the next step!

TWEAKING CSGO CONSOLE

Dont worry! It's easy. When you have decided which map you want to create the cinematic, download it like I said before. Then, start the demo! In this guide, I'm going to use an Inferno demo to make the cinematic.

When you have started the demo, you must open the game console. If you don't have it activated, you can do so by pressing Escape key, then Options, then go to Keyboard and [..] , scroll down and select your desired key to activate the console. If you had already activated the console, open it and put the following commands:

- sv_cheats 1 - Just in case :)

- cl_drawhud 0 - It will disable the HUD. When you toggle the command, press Escape twice, so the HUD will disappear. To toggle the HUD again, open console and write: cl_drawhud 1

And now, the trickiest part. Here you will need to bind some of your keys to get some nice camera shots. If you don't know what is binding, and want to know about it, I recommend you to go check out this amazing explanatory article, which will be quite helpful: CSGO Keybinding: Getting Started.

The commands I'm going to use to bind the keys are the following:

- bind "i" "+moveup" - Camera movement up.

- bind "j" "+left" - Camera movement to the left.

- bind "k" "+movedown" - Camera movement down.

- bind "l" "+right" - Camera movement to the right.

I have chosen these keys because they are the easiest for me to make smooth movements with the camera. You can, of course, use whatever key you want. Keybinding is optional, but highly recommendable to get some amazing shots.

Apart from these commands, there are some other that are optional, like:

- fog_override 1 - This will disable the fog on the map, "most of" the fog.

- sv_skyname_vertigoblue_hdr - This will replace the actual skybox.

If you did all of the tweaks above, press Spacebar two times, this will unlock Free Mode, so you can move around in the map.

Now, you can start making cinematics!

FINAL STEP

This is the final and easiest step. Here, you must open the Demo User interface, also known as "demoui". This is a little window with all the needed tools to control the demo. You can select what round or death you want to spectate, the speed of the demo and more. To open this tool, you can click Shift+F2 or open the console and type in 'demoui'.

There are other tools in the Demo User Interface, but we won't focus on them for now. Let's focus in the speed. If you lower the speed to, for example, 17%, everything will move slower, even your camera movement. And this is the best to get smooth shots.

There are other ways to get good-looking cinematics. A common one is to use HLAE (Half-Life Advanced Effects). This tool can make campaths, which are the "path" that the camera will follow to make the cinematic. It is a complex process, where you have to bind a lot of keys to make keyframes. If you are a beginner and want to get started in this kind of things, I recommend you to start with simple things, like I have showed you in this article.

Now, you are ready to go! Go ahead, let your creativity flow and make some good-looking cinematics!