Making a Working Camera System
Within this tutorial, I will show how to setup the entites needed to create a working camera system for use in TFC maps. It is assumed you have some mapping experience, if not, please read up on some general help files for mapping first.
Step 1: First we need to create a small room to setup and test our camera system. Don't forget to add a much needed light and starting point. Our map will look like this. (The types of textures used is totally up to you)
Step 2: Now that the room is made, it's time to add two entra things before the entites. One will be the viewing screen and the other a button to activate the camera. Here you can use any texture you want for the screen and button. Now we need to make the button brush into a working button. Click on the button brush then while it's highlighted, click on "to entity" and choose func_button. Now click on the button and choose properties. Here are the attributes we will set.
targetted object |
cam |
This is the name we will use for the camera entity. |
delay before reset |
10 |
Time in secs. before the button becomes active again. |
Next, click on the flags tab and click on "Don't Move". This will keep the button from moving when activated. This is what our map now looks like.
Step 3: Now we add the meat of this tutorial. (NOTE: I have added a camera prefab to this test map for looks, but it's not needed to make the camera system work.) We will now add the two entites that make the camera work. The first one is trigger_camera. This entity is used for where you want the player to look "from". I have added it just in front of the camera for this test. The following are the attributes to set.
target |
spot |
This is the name of where this entity will look to. |
name |
cam |
This is the name of this entity. It's also the name we set in the func_button to target. |
hold time |
10 |
This is the amount of time the player will look through the camera. |
Now if you click on the flags tab in this entity, you will find the following settings. "Follow Player" and "Freeze Player". Follow Player will make the camera view that the player is seeing, follow a player who walks past the camera. The Freeze Player will make the player looking through the camera to freeze in place. He/she will not be able to move while in this view. For this tutorial, checkmark the Follow Player.
Step 4: And finally the last entity that we need is called info_target. This will be the spot the player looks at from the camera. Place this entity where you want the player to "Look" at. In the test map, I placed it close to the button. There is only one attribute for this entity which is name. Here you place the name that you placed in the target field of the trigger_camera , which is (spot). Now our finished map looks like this.
Review: So let's review this. You need three entites for the camera system to work. A trigger to activate the camera (Button or Trigger_once (multiple), trigger_camera for the player to look "From", and a info_target for the player to look "At". It's that easy. Now when you run the test map, activate the camera by the button and watch yourself walk around the room. :)