Reading Computer Screens in Game

[IrocJeff]

You ever pass a terminal in some Imperial Base and wonder what the heck is on the screen? I always do when I play games. I wish I could access some information while playing. Fear not, I found an easy way to do it that involves NO scripting. 

 

All you need is a trigger multiple, a misc_Camera entity, and an info_null to point the misc_Camera at. You'll also need a texture to act as the computer screen, so, create one in the Gimp or something. I made mine 512 x 512

 

1) Create a small room with any texture and a light source. Make a brush and texture it with your computer screen texture you made and put it against one wall.

 

2) Now, put a misc_Camera and an info_null in this room. Target the camera to the info_null. The info null is the direction the camera will point at. 

 

3) Somewhere where you have a computer or whatever, put a trigger multiple. I set mine up with player only, use button, and direction since he'll be facing the terminal when it is in use. Target the trigger_multiple to the camera.

 

4) try to put the misc_camera and info_null on the same plane even with the middle of your text brush for starters and compile. Depending on how far off you are you can adjust the either the camera or the text brush or both if you choose to get the distance right. I like moving the text brush, myself.

 

Here is what you'll end up with. 

 

 

 

The above is just a test on a white background. You can see the camera effect from the game over it so it kinda looks a bit like a computer screen. Pretty much anything you can make on an image you can use for this which is pretty cool.

 

Enjoy it.  

 

 

 

[therfiles]

Very neat! Quick question: couldn't something similar be achieved by just adding the camera shader to the image and then applying that to the terminal screen? You can then use func_wall (or is it func_fields?) to toggle them on or off.

[IrocJeff]

I have no idea if it would work or not since i'm not too good when it comes to shaders. That shader manual looks like Java did in college, and I had to cheat to get through that class   B)

 

There seems to be more than one way to do much of this stuff which is pretty neat. 

[NumberWan]

It is also possible to make announcements via holovids with this method. E.g. a droid presenting some news or vital information.

 

The only drawback - if you create a mod in several languages, it might be difficult to make translation for this one (so that changing language, would change this menu as well respectively).

[IrocJeff]

Here is an in-game shot of a finished message from my first level. Any terminal in my project that has the Kejim/Screen image the player will be able to access. 

 

I created a temple-like area  that has absolutely nothing to do with my story at all, but, I found a way to make sense of it using this idea. This e-mail implies that the Rodians are working for someone else. I used a Star Wars name generator for the Rodian Names.