Difference between revisions of "ETTV:Viewer's Guide"

Revision as of 04:28, 4 April 2007

ETTV Viewer's Guide

Introduction

ETTV is a modification that allows anybody to spectate Enemy Territory matches without actually being on the server the teams are playing on. The purpose is so that you have have thousands of people all able to watch an exciting match live, without being able to interfere or otherwise cause problems with the match.

The ETTV modification is supplied within the ETPro modification, you do not need any further modification unless you intend to run an ETTV Server.

Watching ETTV

Simply connect to an ETTV server like any other Enemy Territory server. Once you are connected it will look and feel very much like you are in spectator mode on any normal server.

There are some issues which occur frequently enough to make it worth noting here, however.

• ETTV servers frequently do not allow clients (that's you/your game) to auto-download any missing files. You should try to ensure you have the correct patch, modification and custom map versions before you join. This is usually, but not necessarily the latest official version. If you do not have the correct versions you may be unable to join, or disconnected at some point during viewing.

• Do not be concerned about interfering with the match, you cant. The ETTV server you join is essentially playing a live demo of the match which is actually being played on another server. You can spectate freely and talk crap with the other viewers on the same ETTV server, thats it. Chat from ETTV viewers is distinguished from chat in the match by the red "ETTV" preceding it.

• Connecting via IP address (command-line or console) is identical to any other Enemy Territory server. If you've been given the IP address of an ETTV server and are wondering what to do with it, open the console (usually by pressing the key under ESCape, often the ~ or ` key) and use the following command (including the forwardslash) - /connect ip.add.ress:port

(for example: /connect 62.75.178.112:27962)

Additional Controls

• cycle between everybody on the server (who shows up on the scoresheet)

fire <Left Mouse button>

• cycle following only objective carriers

Prone + (fire / altweapon) <X + LeftMouse>

• cycle following only spectators / shoutcasters

Zoom + (fire / altweapon) <B + LeftMouse>

• Jump directly to following a player in view

Press activate while pointing crosshair at player

• return to free floating mode.

Press jump or activate <Spacebar>

Generally Useful Tips

• Chats from other ETTV spectators can be hidden with the console command /tvchat off, and re-enabled with /tvchat on. All chat done on ETTV won't be seen on the game server (luckily). If certain chatters start to irritate you, you can easily ignore specific people with the /ignore command and can use the /unignore command to show their chat messages again.

• To spectate a specific player through their eyes, open console and put in the command /players, and notice the player number. Now just /follow x. If you're new to Enemy Territory, you might find it most entertaining to follow a shoutcaster, if there is one.

• Viewing ETTV in a window can be convenient while you find other IP's, talk in IRC, or access WinAmp, for example. To do this, you can go to the options screen and set a resolution which is smaller than your desktop screen resolution, and then select windowed mode. Alternatively, enter /r_mode 3 into console, and then hit ALT+Enter.

• Normal cvar restrictions dont apply when viewing demos, nor do they (usually) when viewing ETTV. This is OK because you're not playing against anyone. Several leagues remove the foliage (all the grassy stuff) on Radar because it hurts performance and, some say, isnt good for competitive gaming. As an ETTV viewer you can remove it via console: /r_drawfoliage 0. To further incrase performance you can remove wolffog (an effect which "adds" fog to the map, sometimes restricting the viewing distance [e.g. Railgun]) by setting r_wolffog 0. You might want to ensure that is reset to 1 before you join a normal gameserver however.

• ETTV is generally not live; normally a few minute long delay is added so competing teams cannot have another member watching and sending participants advantagous information.

Shoutcasts

A shoutcast is essentially a match commentary, broadcast over something akin to internet radio. The shoutcaster is usually someone heavily involved with the ET community and listening to the shoutcast greatly enhances the entertainment value of ETTV.

A shoutcast is completely seperate from ETTV however, to listen to a shoutcast you will need to open the URL with a suitable program - WinAmp being one of many such programs. The shoutcast URL is often available at the same place you found the ETTV details for the match you want to watch.

Like ETTV, shoutcasts are usually not totally live - normally a few minutes delay is added so competing teams cannot have another member watching or listening in and sending participants advantagous information. Typically ETTV has a longer delay than the shoutcast does, so the result is ETTV and shoutcast are out of sync.

Fortunately it isnt the other way around, because you can pause WinAmp to syncronise the two. Simply listen for some event in the shoutcast (often shoutcaster will read out the time on the clock for this purpose, or you can listen for event's like 'FIGHT!' or 'dynamite planted') and immediately hit pause. When the event occurs in ETTV, hit play again. This can be easier if you view ETTV in windowed mode, also if you make a mistake and pause WinAmp for too long, reconnect to the shoutcast URL.

Replaying ETTV demos on a local Windows server

If you have ETTV Demo files (*.tv84), you can watch them locally on your windows machine. in order to do so, you will need a ETTV-Server. Download the latest version (currently: http://bani.anime.net/banimod/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6529) and proceed with the following steps:

• Extract all files except tvgame.mp.i386.(so|dll) into your "Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory" root directory (not etmain).
• The tvgame.mp.i386.(so|dll) file goes into the etpro directory.
• Put the *.tv_84 files in your etpro\demos directory
• Create a shortcut to ETTV.exe (Right click in explorer windows, "new..." -> "Shortcut").
• Change the program call in the shortcut (Right click, "Properties") to: '"path\ettv.exe" +set fs_game etpro +set ettv_autoplay 1 +demo demo0000'

When you double click on the shortcut, ETTV should come up displaying a console and starting the playback. Note that the demo files are required to be named like demo0000.tv_84, demo0001.tv_84, etc. in order to work like this. The server will autoplay all demos in successive order. You can now start your ET and connect to your local server (choose "Internet Play", then "connect to IP" 127.0.0.1.

Known Issues

You have to install the complete etpro package for servers - the pk3 file that clients have is not enough.

You may encounter MAX_GAMESTATE_CHARS while playing back demos. To prevent this, make sure only the .pk3 files actually required to play the demo are installed, and make sure things like serverinfo cvars, motds etc are as short as possible. If you still encounter this after taking these steps, posting on the ETTV forum is suggested.

This short How-To was written on request for gamestv.org, they are hereby permitted to use this text on their own site.

External Links

• GamesTV.org is an ETTV listings site.
• Radio iTG's schedule is a source of shoutcasts.
• Gamestah is a source of Australian shoutcasts.