Live Main Menu Maps

[joshuafhiggins]

Description

Similar to Half-Life 2 Episodes, in the background of the main menu you can replace the images of the maps with areas of maps being rendered in real time. This would pair really well with the live player model. In the Source SDK, if you build an episodic mod you get this feature and I believe its also in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 so maybe its just in the source code somewhere.

Checklist

• [X] None of the open or closed issues document this idea.
• [X] This is a new idea, not a bug.
• [X] This idea does not seriously affect game balance.
• [ ] This idea is for the code of the game, not for textures, sounds, or other resources.
• [X] This is not an idea for new game content (e.g. new weapons, maps, sounds).
• [ ] This is obviously an improvement, not something that people commonly disagree on.

• [ ] This idea has been implemented in vanilla TF2.
• [ ] There is proof that this idea is well liked (e.g. a history of use of a similar mod in a competitive league).
• [ ] This idea has been implemented in a mod.
• [ ] This feature has existed in the vanilla game but was removed.
• [ ] This idea is for internal procedures or tooling (e.g. improving the build process, supporting new systems).

Screenshots

Alternatives

1. Allowing for videos instead of images as backgrounds like in Team Fortress 2 Classic

[melvyn2]

This already exists as map_background.

[mastercoms]

Chapter backgrounds are already implemented in TF2 but are disabled on PC due to load times.

[treacherousfiend]

This has existed since HL2 in all source engine games (to my knowledge), TF2 just doesn't boot with one. like said above, map_background does this same thing, not that there is too much for you to watch in TF2 maps

[Yttrium-tYcLief]

To add on - map_background is fairly well-documented on the Valve Developer Wiki. It describes how to set up a camera and viewtarget in the map itself. Theoretically, anyone could create a TF2 map (or series of TF2 maps) with these entities and load them using map_background.

In the orange box console versions of TF2, there actually is a live background. This map is present in the live version of TF2, simply called background01. It's a cropped version of Dustbowl and can be seen below (in the console version):

Anyway, all you need is map_background to run on startup, and a HUD that properly supports it. Very few do, but they can be designed this way.

We likely will not be working on something like this as a part of TC2, but it is something you could do yourself with a script and custom HUD in the live game.

[mastercoms]

I'd like to keep this open for the alternative (bik map backgrounds).