Feature: A Photomode.

[Rip-Rip-Rip]

Which component should be improved?

Other

Describe your suggestion

I think a photo mode of some kind for taking screenshots could be a good. It can be used by mappers so they can easily take screenshots for their maps, and just by normal players to showcase funny moments or for fun. I think the game Teardown does it's photomode in a good way and it has inspired me in this suggestion with some of its features.

Movement: I think the movement could be similar to noclip, but with a silder or something for the flight speed (which already exists in the game through the use of a console command - so it could just change that value) so you can accurately line the camera up.

Potential features:

• An ability to pause time so, for example in sp_a1_intro1 where the bedroom is getting destroyed, you could take a picture of some of that destruction frozen in time.
• Different filters; Black and white, High contrast, Ultra vibrant, Sepia etc. A potential extension of this, although potentially too time consuming, could be having a small colour grading menu, where you can change the brightness, contrast, levels, HSL - could be similar to Source 2's post-processing editor. Additionally, there could be a slider for bloomscale and potentially an option to toggle mat_fullbright. Maybe also there could be a green screen/blue screen mode or a transparent image mode where you can select the objects you want to be included in the image.
• An SFM style camera system - this might be too much work to be worth it but i'll mention it anyway. This would let you change the amount of aperture and the focal length, allowing you to have nice shots with a desired amount of bokeh in the background. An additional setting for the amount of samples should also exist so those with lower-end computers can still use the feature.
• A option which allows your player character to be visible in the camera, in a somewhat similar vein to the PeTI editor, where you can quickly switch between your player and the editor, but your player would still be visible in the photomode camera.
• An object menu similar to GMOD but with less features to ensure ease of use which would let you spawn certain entities like companion cubes or cameras, etc and postition them.
• The ability to turn up graphics settings only for photo mode. For example the shadow resolution for projected texture light sources could be increase while in photomode, as a high framerate isn't too important as you're not playing the actual game or just the standard graphical setting could increase.Games like F122 on console only enable ray tracing while in photomode but not during gameplay for this reason. It could be an option in the graphics settings menu called "Increase graphical fidelity while in photomode" or something. Games like F122 on console only enable ray tracing while in photomode but not during gameplay for this reason.
• Different quality options, for example the resolution you want to take the screenshot at, or the graphics settings you want to use. Potentially also an option for different file types such as png, jpg etc.
• (This one is most likely a stretch but i'll mention it because why not...) An option to render the image as a photoshop file so the different colour grading settings you chose could be changed afterwards. This one might and probably is not possible but you never know lol.

How it would be accessed in-game: I think there should be a seperate button on the pause menu which would say "Photo Mode" or something and it would then take you into photo mode. Alternatively, it could be a separate option on the main menu similar to the challenge mode, where it would let you chose a certain map. After selecting the option it would load you into the map and there could be a hotkey (could be the same one as switching between editor view and game view in the PeTI editor), to put you into external camera mode. There would then be different options on the screen you can chose and you would be able to fly around and take screenshots.

[Equalizer5118]

I like those ideas. Heres my vision tho: A console command (e.g. photomode 1, behind sv_cheats 1) puts the player into noclip, hides the hud and the viewmodel, and brings up a panel with some tooltips. Scrolling will increase or decrease the fly speed, but holding shift and scrolling will increase or decrease the timescale. Left click hides the tooltips and takes a screenshot, right click does the same but doesnt take a screenshot. Middle mouse hides the tooltips and starts a demo recording, clicking it again stops the recording and will show a popup with the destination and name of the demo.

That's just my vision tho.

[TeamSpen210]

I believe the engine already has a console variable that allows you to noclip while in pause mode, so this would mainly be putting a nicer UI on top of that base functionality.

[Equalizer5118]

I tested that command a while ago in stock p2, but I don't think it worked.

[vrad-exe]

It could be neat to have a photo mode which doesn't need sv_cheats, maybe we add map entities to allow restricting the camera movement or turning it off entirely, but if cheats are on it ignores those