This game is activating my webcam. Why?

[DenKar]

On my second day of playing TTP, I noticed my webcam active.
Seemed really weird, but game was so good that I forgot about it, and the cam was pointing to the ceiling anyway.
But the next time I started the game, I was paying attention and yes, the webcam gets activated as soon as this game launches.
Tested other games and no, no one else behaves like this.
Am I missing something or what? This is so funny...

[Solais]

ELOHIM is watching you!

[DenKar]

LULZ

[checkers_of_shalmone]

Bring a picture of Milton's eye to the camera and maybe you'll get a response that could be evidence that the entire world is a simulation!

[AlenL]

Huh? This is not something we put in there. It could be a sideeffect of something else. Can you please post your Talos.log file?

[Stupendous Man]

Didn't you know? This game is nothing more than an experiment to see if gamers are conscious or just simple machines!
If frogs can be people, can gamers also?

[DenKar]

I don't think there's anything important inside, but here it goes: http://pastebin.com/KmQHDWSG

Thanks to the dev for giving a look to this thread.

Apart of the funny issue, considering the game's plot -as the previous jokes have exactly demonstrated it-, it's very weird how the program activates the webcam when it's loading, and deactivates it as soon as it's closed. :/

[NoMercy Rider]

That is really odd, perhaps it would be helpful to list the model of your webcam. Is there software that boots up along with your webcam? If so, what is the software? Maybe it would be worthwhile to try updating the drivers on your webcam if they aren't currently up to date.

Makes you wonder what in the world is causing the webcam to turn on.

[checkers_of_shalmone]

Originally posted by Stupendous Man:

Didn't you know? This game is nothing more than an experiment to see if gamers are conscious or just simple machines!
If frogs can be people, can gamers also?

And does urine have the power to pull things? If so, we have more things to classify as "pee pull"!

[AlenL]

Well, I was thinking I would see the camera's microphone being activated by the engine (the engine code is shared with Serious Sam, so it still has code to initialize microphone at start, for multiplayer chat). That might cause the camera to think it is active. But according to your log, it seems like that is not happening. Shrug. :/

[DenKar]

Thanks, dev. That is the explanation.

I remembered that there are two mics in my system. Actually, it's not that I forgot about the second one. It's just that the -always connected- headset mic is the default recording device, so I never bothered disabling the webcam mic.

This probably had been easier to detect if the log file included details about the mics, but it only shows this: "Error getting mixer source line info for microphone. Will not be able to control microphone.". Adding more weirdness to the situation, BTW, because according to what we see, the mic is being controlled by the program. :/

Anyway, it's still a rare behavior of the engine. Other games with multiplayer chat don't touch the secondary mic. And if they did, it should not be active until a real multiplayer session. Maybe for a few seconds during initialization, but every time?

Well, mystery solved!

[AlenL]

It's because (in multiplayer options, which are not present in this game), there's a slider to change microphone volume. We are trying to access that using the old WaveIn API, as that seems to be the most reliable solution. Though it seems to behave weirdly in case of multiple mics.

[Chazz the Elder]

Sorry to be bumping this month-old thread, but... I note that I have this same issue, on my Logitech camera. And I will mention that Portal 2 turns the camera on also as it loads, but then turns it off as soon as you start actually playing. Haven't played any co-op on P2 since I got the camera, so I don't know if that's what it's doing... don't know if the camera (mic) will remain live if I start a P2 multiplayer session instead of single.

It is a little odd to have a game where there is a creator-figure lighting up my camera, though...

[mikekap99]

I know I'm bumping a really old thread now, but this is still an issue. It's more creepy than anything else, feels like Big Brother is watching.

[KRON]

Well, i guess it's a good thing that i don't have webcam always plugged in))

[AlenL]

Ok, I've filed this as issue #42626. Will see if we can reproduce and fix it.