Wired camera

[Muobman]

Hey, i really think that someone needs to develop a wire camera (if possible) because they are sorely needed on online servers, as sometimes two people both want a camera outputting to a screen. I am no good with lua, so I don't know if this could be done, but is it possible to develop one? Hope you can help;

Muobman

[Muobman]

Woah, sorry about the double topic, use this one please.

[DuFace]

As far as I know this will be impossible until the release of Portal. As it stands the restriction to only allow one active RT camera is imposed by Source not GMod but I think the Source upgrade to coincide with Portal allows multiple render targets. If a system like this could be implemented in the future then wire could only really be used for selecting the input as it would be inefficient to continually send texture data down a wire.

[Norseman]

Actually, it doesn't seem like it should be very hard for two people to use the same camera. If you can set one person's view to one camera, why can't you set another person's view to the same camera? And making a camera system wire operated shouldn't be difficult. You'd need to handle conflicts about which camera is active, probably by making the most recently called camera the active one. You'd also need to be able to specify which player is getting their camera view changed, either through a target finder or pod controller which gives player information. And you'd need to ensure that it couldn't be used maliciously, so you'd need a little checkbox to allow your friend's contraptions to set your camera, and a text box to put in the names or steamIDs of those friends. It's a few small hurdles, but it could definitely be handy, if, for example, you built a TV guided missile that you want your friend to guide from a plane you're flying, or anything like that.

As for RT cameras wire could offer a small improvement: a system to switch between several RT cameras. You'd still be limited to one RT camera at a time, but you wouldn't need to spawn a new RT camera every time you want to change the view.

[DuFace]

Actually, it doesn't seem like it should be very hard for two people to use the same camera. If you can set one person's view to one camera, why can't you set another person's view to the same camera? And making a camera system wire operated shouldn't be difficult. You'd need to handle conflicts about which camera is active, probably by making the most recently called camera the active one. You'd also need to be able to specify which player is getting their camera view changed, either through a target finder or pod controller which gives player information. And you'd need to ensure that it couldn't be used maliciously, so you'd need a little checkbox to allow your friend's contraptions to set your camera, and a text box to put in the names or steamIDs of those friends. It's a few small hurdles, but it could definitely be handy, if, for example, you built a TV guided missile that you want your friend to guide from a plane you're flying, or anything like that.[/b]

I may be wrong but I think this is already possible. If I were to spawn a camera and assign it some numpad key and then used a standard button to wrap that key, I think your view would change if you pressed it. I'm not sure what would happen if I then pressed the button though; I don't know if I'd steal the view from you.

As for controlling view changes with wire, it is already doable. Spawn your cameras where you want them and use wire Numpad Outputs as the output of your circuit.

As for RT cameras wire could offer a small improvement: a system to switch between several RT cameras. You'd still be limited to one RT camera at a time, but you wouldn't need to spawn a new RT camera every time you want to change the view.[/b]

You can have multiple RT cameras already by changing the numpad key assignment in the spawn menu.

[kymagic]

I think the Source upgrade to coincide with Portal allows multiple render targets.[/b]

It most probably can. When you shoot a portal, you can see through both sides of the protal. This is effectively two RT cameras.

[Hyrsky]

This isn't really wiremod, wiremod is about working with numbers that comes from different components, not taking a camera and connecting to a screen. And as far as I know you'll be asking for some trouble if you are trying to run multiple RT cameras at the same time[/b]