[TIP] orienting info_observer_point entities

Jive Turkey

L3: Member
Jan 22, 2008
120
32
Adding info_observer_point entities to your map is a good way to show off the visuals you're really proud of and gives the map a certain polish. However, orienting them just right can be a trial as there is no real visual way to do so within Hammer (that I know of) beyond tweaking the handles and hoping for the best.

What I found I could do is first run my map in game and fly around in spectator mode. I move myself to the specific position and orient to the proper facing near all the areas I would like to place an info_observer, then use getpos in the console to dump my current position and orientation. Repeating this command for all the spots I'd like, I finally use condump to dump all this console information to a text file. I'm left with a list of points and orientations that I can then use to properly place and orient my cameras in Hammer. You can also use this method to test different fov settings which you could then carry over to the info_observer_point parameters.
 

DJive

Cake or Death?
aa
Dec 20, 2007
1,465
741
i never knew you could get positions of where you are, thats freaking cool. I always tried to match it best i could lol.
 

Altaco

L420: High Member
Jul 3, 2008
484
120
Just use the "point at" tool in the angle settings for the entity.
 

Jive Turkey

L3: Member
Jan 22, 2008
120
32
It's true you can use "point at" but you're still just eyeballin' it. There's no way in hammer to assume the exact perspective of the observer to really see what it's looking at and I often found the in-game shot would be off even a little and miss some prop or detail that I wanted in the frame. This is the only way I know of to really get the perfect framing.

It would actually be nice for another reason if you could somehow save camera positions in Hammer. I'd like to setup a static camera and take periodic screenshots from the exact same position/perspective to serve as a pseudo time-lapse of the map's development. I could have sworn you could do this but apparently I was thinking of gtkRadiant or something.
 

kwagner

L2: Junior Member
Feb 28, 2009
92
6
I at first thought this is what 'camera view' was for. :(

What I'd really like is to be able to set up a view in Hammers 3d window, and then click a button that would insert an info_observer entity right there, viewing on that sight line.

However, since I didn't write Hammer, and I'm not about to learn how to change it, I won't complain much. It's not TOO hard to just eyeball the things into place.
 
Dec 25, 2007
566
439
That's a great tip! I'd not known about the condump command before.

It would actually be nice for another reason if you could somehow save camera positions in Hammer. I'd like to setup a static camera and take periodic screenshots from the exact same position/perspective to serve as a pseudo time-lapse of the map's development. I could have sworn you could do this but apparently I was thinking of gtkRadiant or something.

point_devshot_camera can do this, together with the -makedevshots command line parameter; (quoting from the second link):

Place your point_devshot_camera's wherever you want them. Their name represents a folder they create to inside your screenshots folder. So if you want say screenshots of one area, you would name all the cameras in that area something like "area1" and for another area, all the cameras there would be named "area2"

Once you've rotated and placed them to your liking, go to compile. In the box that says additional parameters/launch options (No idea what it's called for sure) add -makedevshots inside that box, and compile your map.

Wait a little bit and don't move. Eventually it'll start taking screenshots as fast as it builds cubemaps. Then it will exit. Go to your screenshots folder, and check out your pictures.

...

While the method you suggested didn't work for me, it gave me the right hint. I modified the launch option line like this:

-dev -console -allowdebug +map mymap -makedevshots

and it worked!

Note that the screenshots will be stored in a mapname subdirectory of your screenshots directory; using the camera name gives you additional subdirectories below this.

Also, in TF2 the first camera I place always seems to get a screenshot of the maplist menu (that you see on joining the map) instead of the map; so I guess just put your first camera anywhere and give it a name 'junk' :)
 
Last edited: