Camera plugin for GTKR 1.2.10

[DiaZ]

Hello again , does anybody have a link to a manual or know how to use this plugin? It’s crashing constantly, probably because I’m doing everything wrong… and it’s one of the things I’ve been wanting to see for a long time, messing with the .camera files manually was quite a pain in the *** …

[RR2DO2]

Heya - when exactly does it crash? Could you file a bugreport to http://zerowing.idsoftware.com/bugzilla/index.cgi ?

As far as documentation goes, the original wolfradiant comes with some, but it’s quite minimalistic. I really should write up a quick howto on the gtkradiant version of it

• Arnout ‘RR2DO2’

[Ghast]

A “how to” would be sooo peachy! Yes, please!

[demonspawn]

Here is a post I made on Kos’s web site and a link to the camera doc.
First thanks goes to Karloff of “Night at the Opera” fame for helping me understand it.

To do cameras it is highly recommended that you have the following:
GtkRadiant 1.2.10 installed as it has the camera tool in it.

and the camera manual found here

http://members.shaw.ca/demonspawn/Camera%20Def%20Editing%20for%20DOOM.zip

A note on camera use
Cameras should always be used to enhance the story, if used incorrectly they can have an adverse effect on the players experience within your map and may even remove them from the immersive experience that you have created completely.
Cameras are tools not toys, use them sparingly and effectively to maximize their impact on the users experience.
In short, cameras are used to “show and tell”; show the user something they need to know and tell them story content that they wouldn’t normally know.

Ok now that you have the tools lets play
The difference between the intro_camera (the camera that plays when your map starts) and a cut_camera (a camera that plays during game-play) is how they are triggered.

Intro_camera
is called directly from your AI script from a trigger that is placed inside of the “playerstart”
EX
playerstart

{
mu_fade 0 1000
mu_queue sound/music/x_atmos
trigger player intro1
}
The third line directs the script to go to the “player” portion of the AI script and trigger “intro1”
So directly under the playerstart we have a script called “intro1”
EX
// — Start Camera section —

trigger intro1
{
startcam OEE_intro
}

The “startcam” command directs the engine to find the camera script called “OEE_intro” and play it.
The camera scripts are found in the “camera” folder and must be included in you PK3 file. I’ll get into the different types of cameras in a minute.

Cut_camera
The cut_camera must be triggered by an in-game event, therefore its initial trigger will come from your mymap.script file most likely from a trigger volume (walk through the doorway and the cut_camera is triggered). Because of how cameras should be used, their would also be other game events that were also triggered at the same time as the camera, such as:

Guards moving into the area…
Bomb ticking down…
Captain of the guard giving orders…
Sweet looking wench unbuttoning her blouse…

O where was I… o-yea
so all of these elements would be triggered from the same trigger volume and would transpire at the same time.

Lets name this trigger volume “Cut_scene_trigger”, so its target would be Cut_scene_trigger.
EX located in your “mymap.script” file

Cut_scene_trigger

{
trigger main_trigger
{
trigger control stuff_to_happen
}
}

Here is the tricky part…
You have to make a script_mover to get the elements to function together
Make a cube with the “origin” texture and one with the “nodraw” texture side-by-side. Select them both and make it a script_mover.
The script_mover must have it’s “targetname” and it’s “scriptname” keys called the same thing. I have called them “control”

EX
control
{
trigger stuff_to_happen
{
alertentity bad_guys
}
}

And the most important part
You must have an entity, classname target_script_trigger with the following keyed values
targetname “Cut_scene_trigger”
scriptname “Cut_scene_trigger”
and target “main_trigger”

So your mymap.script file will look like this
//mymap.script file camera test

Cut_scene_trigger

{
trigger main_trigger
{
trigger control stuff_to_happen
}
}

control
{
trigger stuff_to_happen
{
alertentity bad_guys
}
}

The alertentity bad_guys is just a sample of what you would have happen in the cut_scene, it can be anything.

NEXT
Also in the mymap.AI script you would also have a script that would be triggered by the player walking through the volume that would start your camera cuts.

EX
trigger main_trigger

{
mu_fade 0 1000
startcam priestess_cam
mu_queue sound/music/c_chant
wait 15000
trigger control stuff_to_happen
wait 11000
startcam BJ_temp_intro_cam
wait 14000
startcam zombie_lightning_intro_cam
wait 11000
}

This section of script is located under the player portion of the mymap.ai script. What it does is call the different camera scripts as well as trigger other events in correlation with the camera cuts.

There you have it, Intro_cameras and in-game cut_cameras.

The Camera Tool in 1.2.10
The camera tool in Radiant was developed by RR2DO2 at SplashDamage
It has a few bugs but with a little explanation I can get you around them easily enough.

First get a pre-existing camera file (look at Night at the Opera from Kosloff he has made many), rename it what you want (mymap_intro.camera or mymap_cut_1.camera) and save it in your camera folder.
Start-up radiant 1.2.10 and go to “plugins” then select “camera”
Select “load camera” and a pull down menu will appear.
Get to the folder where your cameras are kept (main/camera) and select the camera file you wish to edit (mymap_intro.camera or mymap_cut_1.camera).

You will now see several blue lines in your map editing windows with a “start” and “end” points on them and maybe many points in-between.
This is your “camera path” (where your looking from) and your “interest path” (what your looking at)
Now go to “plugin” again and select “camera” then “camera inspector”
in there you will see an entry called “path and target editing”, if you select the dropdown arrow you will see 2 entries one is your camera path the other is your interest path.
Select either one to adjust its location in the world. Once selected go to the X,Y and Z windows to adjust where you want it.

That’s it, when you save the file make sure you remove the [.camera] extension from the file as the editor will add one to it which will give you a file with a .camera.camera extension. If you save it right Radiant will ask you if you want to replace the existing camera file, say yes and your done.

I hope this helps

Map on

[DiaZ]

Hell yea that did help, in fact it did help a lot, thank you so much. As I expected, it wasn’t bugs in the plugin, it was me not knowing what to do. Before this tool, I had to do cameras manually by looking at the coordinates of the points I want to use in the editor, now this is much more comfortable =)

[demonspawn]

No problem I’m glad I could help.

[kat]

…just to add to DS’s exhaustive post… from an editor point of view when ever you add a ‘point’ (tracking or what ever) it tends to appear in the editor at the 0,0,0 center grid reference. If you’re several thousand units away from dead center you can often find yourself wondering if anything actually happened as the spot doesn’t appear under the grid cursor (as I’ve been finding…!).

Nice one demonS btw…!

[demonspawn]

Thanks, and I bet you didn’t know that I wrote the whole thing while holding my breath