Title    : DocWilco's DeathMatch Camera
Filename : dmcam10.zip
Version  : 1.1
Date     : 11 Sep 1996
Author   : Rogier R. Mulhuijzen
Email    : drwilco@xs4all.nl
IRC      : DocWilco (#Quake)
           

Type of Mod
-----------
Quake C  : yes
Sound    : no
MDL      : no
BSP      : no (It uses viewpoints defined by the designer as intermission
               viewpoints)

Source Included :  yes


* What's new to 1.1

- Source is now included. All the changed bits are marked with a start and
  end comment. dmcam.qc is a new file.
- Selection algorithm is changed. It now checks whether a player isn't hidden
  by a wall. And the amount of players in view has top priority, average
  distance comes later.
- When no players are in view, the view is switched every 3 seconds.

* Introduction

I was organising a Quake-competition for a Cybernight when I got the idea
of using QuakeC to turn one client into a automated camera. That way I 
could hook up a computer to a LCD-projector so other people could have a
TV view of what's going on.


* Installation

Put the progs.dat in a sub-dir of the server's quake-directory (dmcam for
example).


* How to use the patch

Start up the server with -game <dmcam's dir>. If you called the dir "dmcam"
you would type:

quake -game dmcam

A dedicated server for 16 players on map e1m1 would be:

quake -game dmcam -dedicated 16 +map e1m1

Next, change the name of the client you want to use as the camera into
"CamClient". When that client connects it is automaticaly turned into the
camera.


* How it works

Built into the quake levels are intermission camera points. These are used
for the backdrop when the end-of-level-scores are displayed. When a client
called "CamClient" connects, it is turned into a camera that checks which
intermission viewpoint has the most players in view. Because it cannot
detect whether a player is hidden by a wall, it looks at the average dist-
ance to all the players that are in view. The view with the most players
and the shortest average distance is then selected.
When no players are in any of the views, the view is changed every 3
seconds. So by keeping out of view you can check out all the camera
positions in a level.


* Designing levels for use with DMCam

Just put some intermission viewpoints (classname = "info_intermission) on
cool places.
I haven't played with level editors/designers yet, but you might need the
following info:

/*QUAKED info_intermission (1 0.5 0.5) (-16 -16 -16) (16 16 16)
This is the camera point for the intermission.
Use mangle instead of angle, so you can set pitch or roll as well as yaw.  'pitch roll yaw'
*/


* Known bugs

- "CamClient" shows up in the frags list.
- Levels without any intermission viewpoints get the first entry point as
  viewpoint and just stay there. I consider this a bug in the level, not in
  my patch actually =)


* Copyright and Distribution Permissions

Authors MAY use these modifications as a basis for other
publically available work, after all, I did.

You may distribute this Quake modification in any free electronic format
as long as this description file remains intact and unmodified and is
retained along with all of the files in the archive.

You may not publish or distribute this Quake modification in a non-free
form without the permission of the author.