Want to do NPCs in L4D2?

[DasMaddi]

So if you've played a fair share of custom campaigns for Left 4 Dead 2, some of them have NPCs.

Which in the end, are prop_dynamics with animations and broken eye shaders.

Well here I am to introduce you to L4D2's "commentary_dummy" entity!

What this entity "does" is drops a bot/NPC into the map. It's never used except for the commentary modes in the official L4D2 maps.

You select which model you want to use (Let's use Nick), select the animation you want that model to idle in (Let's pick Idle_Aiming_PumpShotgun) and let's have it hold a shotgun in its hands.

and let's set it to stare at players. (In L4D2 + 1 survivors' case, it just moves their eyes to follow you. Actual HL2 civilians move their heads)

And voila!

You now have a working in-game NPC. It essentially acts like the L4D survivors in map 3 of The Passing; they can't move by themselves and are grounded to one area.

It's essentially a brand-new and far better way to do NPCs in L4D2 now. Here's a video with shitty narration i did explaining all of it:

[video=youtube;ek9e1sRW9fo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek9e1sRW9fo[/video]

Theoretically, you can use any model with any animations. I haven't extensively tested this entity, and the wiki has next to no information on it.

Now's the downsides:

-You can't have it fire weapons. (Can be fixed with a workaround by parenting an env_weaponfire entity to the model)
-Any model that isn't one of the L4D/2 survivors doesn't support the weapon attachment points that the L4D weapons use, so they won't appear on the arms of the model. (No workaround present.)
-Mouth movement, while theoretically possible, is impractical.
-L4D2 survivors don't move their heads to face you, just their eyes.
-The entity itself doesn't have much in the way of I/O in Hammer.

For more complex stuff, you'll want to go back to using prop_dynamics, like hostile NPCs that try to kill the players.

But this was just a nifty tutorial/info guide I made up in a second. Sorry if it lacks any details!