Top down camera

[stickler]

Hello,
A friend of mine and myself are working on a small game/demo that will require a top down perspective similar to games like Shadowgrounds or the Sigma game series. Even Gauntlet comes to mind. He's the coder, I do everything else.

The problem is the tutorials he did find were lacking (On the valve developer network). He's never coded for a game before so I figured the best place to get him started was interlopers. I searched the forums but only came up with a person doing a RTS game who even released the source, but sadly it's taken down now.

I know we could use another engine, but I particularly like source as I've used it forever. Another reason is COOP mode.

Basically, we're trying to get a top down view, the camera will swing/rotate view whichever way the crosshair/person is pointing to, similar to these screenshots:





Any tutorials/points in the right direction would be very helpful. Thank you.

[Surfa]

cam_idealpitch 90

[Zecrah]

Then turn up the distance dramatically for a top-down feel too.

[stickler]

cam_idealpitch 90

Then turn up the distance dramatically for a top-down feel too.

Wow, that easy?

Thanks for everyone's help. Now I feel kinda stupid for asking in the coding section and this could be done within an entity. Sorry!

I'm still going to need my coder to code in camera movements/crosshair and such to make it fluid, I'd assume. Anyways, thanks again guys.

[Zecrah]

They're not entities, they're console commands. Even easier xD. You'll have to restrict them some how so the player doesn't change them in the console though, but I don't think it's too diffiult.

[stickler]

They're not entities, they're console commands. Even easier xD. You'll have to restrict them some how so the player doesn't change them in the console though, but I don't think it's too diffiult.

Yeah, I was referring to that entity that you can use to do console commands in game via a trigger but I forgot the name. Maybe I was just drunk and imagined that..anyways. Until my team gets this figured out (he's new to source) we're at a standstill since I can't map and model until he gets the camera working right so the dimensions look correct.

[Gary]

Logic_auto > point_servercommand

[Zecrah]

Or add it to the config.cfg.

[Welsh Mullet]

Alien swarm code base?