FAKK2 Editing

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What's New Entities Turtorials Scripting Advanced Techniques Technical Documents Links | This tutorial deals with how to create a camera and it's spline path as well as how to watch the camera follow the path after calling it in a script. Lets begin by binding your keys. You certainly don't have to bind to the same ones I did, but binding the important commands to your desired key will make your job so much easier. First, you are welcome to download tutorial02.zip, which includes the .map file, the .scr file, the .bsp file, and the .cam file. It also is zipped up with the directory paths so all you need to do is select your ROOT fakk2 dir which contains the fakk2.exe and unzip it. To bind your keys, access the console using your tilda key, (the one with the wavy line/sin wave). At the console, to bind your keys you type in this format: `bind <"your key"> <command> <argument>`
f1 | noclip
f2 | r_speeds 1
f3 | r_speeds 0
f4 | r_showtris 1
f5 | r_showtris 0
f6 | pushmenu camera
f7 | pushmenu leveldesign
f8 | editscript
f9 | quicksave
f10 | screenshot
f | fps 1
g | fps 0
home | cam add
end | cam delete
pgup | cam next
pgdn | cam prev
Once that is done, hopefully you have the tutorial02 files in the correct places and you can go try out the map by typing; `map tutorial02` in the console. Ok, in the following tutorial I will cover everything you need to know to create your own camera path and such, however I will not guide you through it. Work off of the files I have given you instead. The Inner Workings: The way the whole camera system works is that you need to have a camera entity, a spline path entity, path entities and a script in the background that is executing all the commands. The path entities are the points in 3D space that when chained together make up a complete spline path. The editor does all the chaining of paths for you, but in case you are interested, for a camera to move from one node to the next, the first node needs to target the second nodes targetname. So the nodes have a targetname as well as a target. Once the camera reaches that node, it will check for a target from the node, if found, the camera will move to the next node which has the matching targetname. The Interface: To bring up the camera editor either press the button you bound to the "pushmenu camera" command or type "pushmenu camera" in the console. To exit the editor, hit ESC. The top row contains: Current Node, which is a numerical number that tells you which node is currently selected within the splinepath. Thread: Not sure yet, but I figure you can specify a thread to activate when the camera reaches the selected node. Watch: Not sure yet, but I figure you can specify an entity of any type for the camera to watch when it reaches the selected node. Path: Not sure yet. Node: Not sure yet. Origin: Don't worry about this, it's handled for you by the editor Target: Specify which node to chain to next within the spline path. Fadetime: Not entirely sure yet if it's for each node or not and how to specify fade in / fade out. Play: Plays the current camera path, you'll see the results through the cameras lens Loop: Specify whether when the camera reaches the last node if it will travel back to the first node and begin again. Stop: Stops playing the camera path FOV: Set the Field of View for the selected node Speed: Set the speed for the selected node. It's not very straight forward, look in the camera documentation on how this really works. Main Window: This is where the action happens. When in the game view, you can control your character as usual. It is recommended you turn on noclip to fly around and it's easier to place cameras this way. You can get back to the editor by hitting the tilda key which will bring back your mouse. I think the camera documentation speaks of a simpler solution rather than bringing up the console and closing it each time you want to get your mouse cursor back. Yaw: This rotates the node direction left or right Pitch: This rotates the node direction up or down Roll: This rotates the node direction on it's side Update Node: You use this when you have a node selected and have modified it's Yaw, Pitch, and/or Roll. If you don't click on update node, it will not save the changes you made to the nodes properties. While it saved the properties, I never saw the changes until I green arrow buttons. Outer Left and Right Arrows: These allow you to travel to each node in the path using the cameras view. This helps you do a step by step progression of the spline path. The inner left and right arrows simply cycle through the nodes belonging to the spline path. Add: Add a new node based on the players head position in the game view Delete: Delete the selected node Replace: This allows you to reposition a poorly placed node. Simply select the node by cycling through them, and in the game window, position your player to where you want the camera to be moved to. Then gain control of your mouse again and click on the replace button. You will see the selected node move to where you have positioned the players head. Hide and Show: This will hide/show the current spline path. If you are expecting to see a spline path make sure the gray box says "visible" Not sure what the first 2 check boxes are for, but the third one allows you to switch between first and third person view. For positioning cams it's best to use first person view since it's more or less looking through the cameras lens. Left and right blue arrows: Using these will cycle through the various spline paths you may have for a level. You can easily create multiple spline paths for a level and then work on them individually. When cycling through, the editor will show you which spline path you have selected. Note: the spline paths must be loaded first. Current Path: simply a box to specify a name for your spline path if you wish to save, load or rename it. Rename, New, Load, Save: Self explanatory. Steps involved to create a camera that follows a path from scratch: First off, create the level, :) Second, activate the camera editor and click on the NEW button in the lower right corner. Specify a new name in the current path box then click on save. In the console should be a message that it saved the Cam file successfully. Begin using the tools and options I described above to create your spline path of nodes. When you are done, click on save again. You can actually open up the Cam file in a text editor and see exactly what it takes to make the spline paths. I'm glad we have the editor instead, :) The final step is to write a script that will load and play the camera path when you want it to. The script file I included in the zip is commented really well so you should be able to understand it from there. Just remember, the camera entity you spawn can be any name you want. You don't add an entity in the level editor or camera entity. It's entirely through the script. Ok, any problems, questions, suggestions, etc you know how to contact me. -BrushBaron