Hey guys, I spent way too long last night tinkering around with console commands getting this figured out, but I'm really happy with the results.

Behold, the Timethrottle! Basically it's a greatly enhanced (IMO) version of the slo-mo mod. Rather than a simple toggle between normal speed and extreme slow-motion, I set up the throttle so that you can step through various levels of slo-mo and even halt gametime entirely, using just the scroll wheel on your mouse. The wheel steps up/down through these states:

• normal time
• 60% speed
• 40%
• 20%
• 10%
• time stopped

When time is stopped you can mouselook around, but you cannot shoot portal beams until time is running again at some speed.

Additionally I've made a macro that binds your third mouse button (on my mouse I click the wheel itself) to toggle between first-person and third-person views, which really helps when you're coming out of a portal at an odd angle and you need to get your bearings. This toggle works anytime (not affected by slo-mo or freeze).

I uploaded it in the Tools section, because it's actually really useful for debugging your puzzles or taking screenshots of your maps. I hope you guys will agree. Link here:
http://forums.thinking.withportals.com/dload.php?action=file&file_id=64

To really make it user-friendly, though, I think it needs a bit more feedback. I don't want to display anything on screen though because it would ruin it as a screenshot-taking helper tool, so I'm thinking it needs sounds.

I was thinking something subtle, like soft beeps that got deeper the slower time ran. Sound as part of the user interface rather than sound effects per se (which might get annoying after extended use).

Any sound gurus out there want to take a whack and making sounds to go with this?

Sounds really cool, in fact a whole mod based around this idea could be excellent. Can't wait to try it out when i get home from work.

If you complete an official challenge with it does it say you cheated? It does with the other slow mo mod. you may want to check out how that one did the sound because it has it in there.

I was actually able to do Test Chamber 18 Advanced with it and it gave me credit for solving it. I am confused by this, because for the script to work "sv_cheats 1" has to be in it. It really should get flagged for cheating. I guess I should test it more...

I know how to put the sounds into the script, but I don't have any actual sound files to use. I have no experience manipulating audio. But if someone could give me a series of five or six beeps of different frequencies, it would be a snap to add them to the mod. Any takers?

T'is is da shit.

Nice Tool.

I could try later tonight but someone probably has done it by then.

Anyway, this sounds really good. Gonna try it out now.

I tried to use it on the challenges, but it flags it for cheating. It does make for excellent practice in hitting those hard fling+portal. Anyhow...

Is there anyway that this could be put into a map and enabled so that the cheater flag doesn't get triggered for any challenges you might put on the map?

Would this work for HL2?

I just tested it in Episode 2, and it works. Except the third-person toggle looks like crap. Rather than the Gordon model you'd see in deathmatch, if you go third-person in the SP game you see a gray-shaded dummy.

Of course, the mousewheel already serves a useful function in HL2, so you might want to change the key bindings to something else...

Maybe since the 1st/3rd person toggle looks like poop in HL2, I'll take that part out for the HL2 version of the script and make it so clicking mouse3 toggles the wheel function from weapon-select to time-throttle and back.

Still no one interested in providing some sound effects?

Yeah, there is no Gordon model since there is no reason to ever see it. The gray one is only used for collision detection.

If you want to use sound affects, just use the .wav files from the other version of this (the one that uses the 'v' key instead of the mouse). Just email the dude and get permission, or something. . .

Personally, I felt I didnt need so many levels of slow-speed as you have; just 1 level and 'freeze' is all I cared about. I thought 3rd person might be handy to get too. . .and I liked the sound in the other version. So I did this:
- bound 'v' key for slo-mo; 1st v gives me 25%, 2nd v gives me freeze; 3rd v toggles back to normal. All with sound.
- bound 'n' key to give 3rdperson toggle.

It'll do.

The funny thing is, I was noticing the other day how so many of the harder maps I cant do WITHOUT some form of slo-mo; the reaction-time is just too small, and I think people are starting to design WITH this kind of feature. Either it has simply become a must-have, or I am getting very slow in my old age. . .

The first version stepped down in increments of 10%, and that was definitely overkill. When I was testing that, it became clear that making a distinction between 60% speed and 50% (and 40% and so on) wasn't useful.

That's when I tried the current setup, which I like a lot more. First it has a big jump from normal speed to 60%, very noticeable, so you know when you're using the slo-mo and when you're not. Then I basically stepped down in bigger increments. The difference between 20% and 10% is useful, at least to me, so I put that smaller step in at the low end.

I'm still working on this. I definitely want to get sounds in, and I'm going to include a CFG file that "uninstalls" the cheat and a text doc that explains how to change the key bindings if you don't like them on the mousewheel. That will be the "official" release.

I don't know if people are making maps with slo-mo in mind or if they're just making really hard maps. I've been using the time throttle to test out different solutions while taking my poor atrophied FPS skills out of the equation. Then, if I find something that works, I turn it off and try to do the map legit, with the benefit of having a solution that at least I know is possible, if I can just pull it off.

Updated to version 0.9. This one prints some simple instructions/reminders to the console.
http://forums.thinking.withportals.com/dload.php?action=file&file_id=64

I posted some videos of the timethrottle in action to help stir up interest. (Sorry the video is so crappy... it lost a lot in youtube's transcoding.)
Multi-part fling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr4VohBI-eo
Messin' with turrets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPI7lkzlU0

Still to do before I will call it version 1.0:
1. Gotta add sounds. Can anyone help me out with this? I'm hopeless when it comes to audio, but I can explain exactly what I think it needs. Post here or PM me if you're interested.
2. I want to add a bit to the readme that explains how to change the key bindings to your liking, just in case not everyone is as thrilled as I am to be able to use the mousewheel for this.

It's a nice mod
It need sounds as you said and maybe you could add some video effects?

This looks awesome! It reminds me of the replay function in Halo 3.

How far can you move when you are outside of yuor body?

youme wrote:
How far can you move when you are outside of yuor body?

I'm not sure what you're asking, but I have two guesses.

Q1. How far away can the camera go from Chell?
A. It just snaps out to a set distance, unless there is a wall in the way. Once the camera is in thirdperson view, you can move the mouse to pitch/yaw the view (tilt it on two axes), but not to zoom or pan. Hope that's clear(-ish).

Q2. For how much time can you stay in thirdperson view?
A. Indefinitely. Clicking mouse3 toggles it back and forth whenever you want. It's independent of the slow-mo controls. You can totally run around in thirdperson and shoot portals, but it's difficult to see where you're aiming because the camera always points directly through Chell's head. (BTW I have it turn off the crosshair when it goes to 3P, and turn it back on when you switch back to 1P, but even with the crosshair on it's really hard to aim "through" Chell's head in 3P.)

Posted a video that should make this clear: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve-5uz6xVgU

I was going for the first one, would it be possible to detach the camera completely from chell so you can pause time and zoom off somewhere else to see what is going on over there?

That may be possible, but it will certainly take a lot more research. I messed around with most of the obviously camera-related console commands, and none of them seems to disassociate camera position and player position entirely. In other words, you can get a lot of different perspectives of where the player's at, but the camera seems to be anchored there.

There's another camera command "camortho" that "Switches to orthographic camera." When I tried to play around with that, there were some unexpected results. It seems to change the way the world is rendered, not just the camera position. It's like being trapped in a non-Euclidean kaleidascope. But maybe with the proper settings it could be useful. ?

I seem to remember yuo cant see your selfon a tv screen in portal, I figured you would be able to, seeing as you can see yourself through portals and all. Anyone able to prove/disprove my poor memory?

Crooked Paul wrote:
There's another camera command "camortho" that "Switches to orthographic camera." When I tried to play around with that, there were some unexpected results. It seems to change the way the world is rendered, not just the camera position.

Orthographic projection is a kind of non-perspective-correct projection, where the depth coordinate (Z) is usually discarded entirely. Look at how the side views work in Hammer; those are orthographic projections. Note how things that are further away don't appear to shrink. It's very useful for when you need to line things up along an axis, such as in a CAD application or, indeed, Hammer.