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You saw those TV monitors in Half-life 2, and when you looked in the editor, you couldn?t work out how to make them. The help button wasn?t much help either as it describes how you need a property on a material that you cant find. Because of this, I have decided to write a tut on it.

The Entity Setup



First of all, we need three entities: a point_camera (point based), an info_camera_link (point based) and a func_wall (brush based).

Secondly, set up your scene. Dont worry about the TV texture yet, I'll get to that part. In my map, i have put the G-man as my scene:



First of all, I need to set up the camera. Orientate the camera as you want, and input the following values into the point_camera:



name : gman_cam

You can leave the rest as default.

Now our TV. A texture that supports cameras is dev_tvmonitor1a. apply this to your tv screen. The net step is to give the func_wall a name. this entity is purely a reference for the info_camera_link so it can display an image.

name : gman_tv

The last step is our info_camera_link.



This will link the point_camera to the func_wall. fill this information into it:

Entity Whose Material Uses _rt_... : gman_tv
Camera name : gman_cam

you should end up with something like this:



There is however one issue with this in singleplayer, you cannot see the player, to save polygons.



ah, the map, you probably want the example map, here ya go:
Clicky


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Discussion
[author]
Posted by Dred_furst on Tue Dec 21st 2004 at 11:06am

Try checking none of the entities have red target and name fields, also use the parent field to move things with other things,
0 starsPosted by kdhunt2000 on Sun Dec 19th 2004 at 10:35pm

Ok, I have a question. I read this tutorial. I made a camera and a tv screen exactly like on this tutorial. I am mapping for hl2dm btw... Anyway, I just didnt use the g man. Now in my game I dont show up in the camera. Is there anyway to fix this? I've seen it done on the mpa building blocks _ final. I know for a fact it must be possible. Also, I have a very newbish quesiton. (plz dont kill me) How do I tie enitities such as a point_camera to a solid so that whenever I move the (lets say) solid camera (the actual physical one) the point eneitity moves flawlessly with it?
0 starsPosted by kingtoke on Wed Dec 15th 2004 at 10:33pm

Ok i finally got the camera to work in CSS - you need to add in the data files from HL2.

but my screens screwed up, the texture is aligned in the middle (the left part of the acreen is the right and vice versa- fitting the texture zooms it in on a tiny section of the screen and re-aligning it seems to be a very long game of trial and error - is their an easier way of ensureing that the screen lines up with the brush?
0 starsPosted by Guessmyname on Fri Dec 10th 2004 at 6:02pm

I can't find point_camera in HL2DM!
Where is it?

Besides that excellent tut
0 starsPosted by parakeet on Mon Dec 6th 2004 at 9:34pm

I cant wait to get hl2!!! = /
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