Question: multple security cameras - one security monitor

[Bikerdude]

In my wip I will have upto 10 security camera's, I have built a little security monitor and via a button, I would like to cycle/toggle the view between the camera's.

Amadeus suggested a 'trigger_sequencer', so I pointed the CameraGUI at this via cameraTarget arg and all that happens is the view is the 'trigger_sequencer' sees, which is obviously not what I want. The wiki dosent appear to have an article for this.

Any help or suggestions would be welcome.

[Wellingtoncrab]

I may be mistaken, but I could have sworn their was prefab in core for a camera with exactly this setup where the screen has buttons to switch between the different camera feeds.

[Bikerdude]

37 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

I may be mistaken, but I could have sworn their was prefab in core for a camera with exactly this setup where the screen has buttons to switch between the different camera feeds.

I thought so too, this wiki article (https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Security_Camera_(legacy)) has camerawiki.pk4, but that test map only has controls to turn to turn the camera on/off, sweep on/of, the light on/off and a 4 button call player but dosen't seem to do anything.

It also direction mentions having more than one camera, but it seems to inly refer to have more than one display, which isnt not what I am tryng to do -



Coming at this from another angle. We have a func_static, with the camerGUI textire. It has the arg "cameraTarget" "camera1" and I would like to change it to "camera2, 3, 4 upto 10 each time a button is pressed.

[Frost_Salamander]

I did this exact thing in The Lieutenant 3. Have a look at the map script it's all handled there. I think I used camera guis layered on top of each other and switched them on/off.

https://github.com/FrostSalamander/lt3/blob/main/maps/lt3.script

[Bikerdude]

19 hours ago, Frost_Salamander said:

I did this exact thing in The Lieutenant 3. Have a look at the map script it's all handled there. I think I used camera guis layered on top of each other and switched them on/off.

https://github.com/FrostSalamander/lt3/blob/main/maps/lt3.script

Noice! thank you.

[Bikerdude]

So am trying to make a multi-camera prefab for the core, based off @Frost_Salamander LT3 mission (he is aware). And I'm getting an error in the script - 

cameras.map cameras.script

[STRUNK]

5 hours ago, Bikerdude said:

And I'm getting an error in the script - 

Ik quickly asked Gemini, the free google AI:

 

This looks like a script for the Doom 3 / id Tech 4 engine (or a derivative mod like The Dark Mod), given the use of sys.getEntity, spawnarg terminology, and specific camera state integers.
There are two critical logical errors and one undefined variable bug in this script that will cause it to break or fail to compile.
Here are the fixes you need to make:
## 1. Define the Global or Local State Variable
In cycleCameras(), you use currentCamera to store the active camera number, but it is never declared. If multiple functions need it, it should be defined at the top of the script.
## 2. Fix the Camera Power-On Logic Loop
In toggleCameras(), when poweredOff is true, the script turns the camera entity on and checks if ( startsHidden(screen) ) { screen.hide(); }.

* The Bug: By default, when a map loads, hidden screens are already hidden. If you turn the system off and then back on, the script hides the screens that should be hidden, but it never calls screen.show() on the one screen that is supposed to be visible.
* The Result: Activating power turns the cameras on, but all screens remain black/hidden.

## 3. Fix the "All Screens Showing" Misconception
Your areAllScreensShowing() function assumes that when the cameras are powered on, screen.isHidden() will return false for all screens. In id Tech 4, using camera.On() or camera.Off() affects the camera feed entity, but it does not automatically alter the spatial .hide() or .show() status of the screen brush/model itself.
------------------------------
## Optimized & Corrected Script
Here is the corrected version of your script with the bugs fixed:

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SECURITY CAMERA CODE//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
string TARGET_CAMERAS = "target_callscriptfunction_camera_cycle";string TARGET_CAMERA_POWER = "target_callscriptfunction_camera_power";
// FIX 1: Declare the tracking variable globally so the engine registers itfloat currentCamera = 1; 
boolean startsHidden(entity e)
{
	return ( e.getIntKey("hide") == 1 );
}
boolean areCamerasOff()
{
	float i;
	entity cameraTarget = sys.getEntity(TARGET_CAMERAS);

	for(i = 0; i  numberOfCameras )
	{
		nextCamera = 1;
	}

	// Show the next screen in the sequence
	for(i = 0; i < numberOfCameras; i++)
	{
		screen = cameraTarget.getTarget(i);
		float sequence = screen.getIntKey("sequence");

		if (sequence == nextCamera)
		{
			screen.show();
			currentCamera = nextCamera; // Update tracking state
			return;
		}
	}
}

## What changed?

* Removed the problematic areAllScreensShowing() function entirely, streamlining cycleCameras().
* Added screen.show() to toggleCameras() so the primary screen actually renders when you turn the power back on.
* Added screen.hide() to the power-off sequence to guarantee absolutely zero performance draw while the system is offline.

What specific bug or behavior were you encountering when you ran this in your map?

It seems Gemini recognises even the scripting language, so I'm hopfull it could work, otherwise you start your own Gemini session if new errors pop up.

 

Edited July 24 by STRUNK

[Bikerdude]

Thank you fella, but I'm not a fan of anything LLM/ML related for a number of reasons. LLM's & ML in general hallucinates or just pulls shit out of its digitaly-ass way to much of any use imho. So I'll wait for @Frost_Salamander (the person who created the original script) or another community member.  

Edited July 24 by Bikerdude

[Frost_Salamander]

In the original script there are a bunch of variables declared at the top that are used in the camera functions. Did you copy those over too? 

[Bikerdude]

I beleive I did, but with @Baal help, I added "float currentCamera" to the script and now it all works - 

[Baal]

4 hours ago, STRUNK said:

Ik quickly asked Gemini, the free google AI:

 

This looks like a script for the Doom 3 / id Tech 4 engine (or a derivative mod like The Dark Mod), given the use of sys.getEntity, spawnarg terminology, and specific camera state integers.
There are two critical logical errors and one undefined variable bug in this script that will cause it to break or fail to compile.
Here are the fixes you need to make:
## 1. Define the Global or Local State Variable
In cycleCameras(), you use currentCamera to store the active camera number, but it is never declared. If multiple functions need it, it should be defined at the top of the script.
## 2. Fix the Camera Power-On Logic Loop
In toggleCameras(), when poweredOff is true, the script turns the camera entity on and checks if ( startsHidden(screen) ) { screen.hide(); }.

* The Bug: By default, when a map loads, hidden screens are already hidden. If you turn the system off and then back on, the script hides the screens that should be hidden, but it never calls screen.show() on the one screen that is supposed to be visible.
* The Result: Activating power turns the cameras on, but all screens remain black/hidden.

## 3. Fix the "All Screens Showing" Misconception
Your areAllScreensShowing() function assumes that when the cameras are powered on, screen.isHidden() will return false for all screens. In id Tech 4, using camera.On() or camera.Off() affects the camera feed entity, but it does not automatically alter the spatial .hide() or .show() status of the screen brush/model itself.
------------------------------
## Optimized & Corrected Script
Here is the corrected version of your script with the bugs fixed:

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SECURITY CAMERA CODE//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
string TARGET_CAMERAS = "target_callscriptfunction_camera_cycle";string TARGET_CAMERA_POWER = "target_callscriptfunction_camera_power";
// FIX 1: Declare the tracking variable globally so the engine registers itfloat currentCamera = 1; 
boolean startsHidden(entity e)
{
	return ( e.getIntKey("hide") == 1 );
}
boolean areCamerasOff()
{
	float i;
	entity cameraTarget = sys.getEntity(TARGET_CAMERAS);

	for(i = 0; i  numberOfCameras )
	{
		nextCamera = 1;
	}

	// Show the next screen in the sequence
	for(i = 0; i < numberOfCameras; i++)
	{
		screen = cameraTarget.getTarget(i);
		float sequence = screen.getIntKey("sequence");

		if (sequence == nextCamera)
		{
			screen.show();
			currentCamera = nextCamera; // Update tracking state
			return;
		}
	}
}

## What changed?

* Removed the problematic areAllScreensShowing() function entirely, streamlining cycleCameras().
* Added screen.show() to toggleCameras() so the primary screen actually renders when you turn the power back on.
* Added screen.hide() to the power-off sequence to guarantee absolutely zero performance draw while the system is offline.

What specific bug or behavior were you encountering when you ran this in your map?

It seems Gemini recognises even the scripting language, so I'm hopfull it could work, otherwise you start your own Gemini session if new errors pop up.

 

I only skimmed over that, but the AI did one thing I also did. I removed the same function; not sure if it's for the same reason, but I deemed it unnecessary, too. 

Edited July 24 by Baal