Zoomable/rotatable 3rd Person camera

[WSIMike]

Hey all..

Just a quickie here..

I\'ve been playing a variety of different 3D 3rd person games lately, and it\'s occured to me that pretty much all of them have two functions that I notice glaringly missing in PS at this time (fully understanding that it\'s pre-alpha.. no judgements being made.. just a suggestion by way of observation)...

First.. the camera system currently is a bit awkward. having to switch between camera mode and character movement mode feels a little odd.

I\'ve noticed that in pretty much all the games I\'ve played, they seem to follow one of two very familiar systems..

First:
The mouse controls the camera\'s view which in turn is using the character themself as the \"pivot point\" around which to rotate. Imagine the camera being attached to your character by a stick that could be extended out or retracted in (zoom in and out via mouse-wheel, etc).. when you turn your character, you\'re turning the camera with them, thus always keeping the camera behind you.. allowing you to zoom out and see alot of what\'s around you, or - say for a battle - to zoom way in and see the action close-up.

Also would be vertical axis movement... At which case the camera is still using the player as its pivot-point, but now allows you to bring the camera down to the ground to look up, or higher up to look more straight-down on everything...

Second:
Or... Alternately.. have it where the player movement is via the arrow keys, or WSAD if people choose that (configurable? :-).. but the mouse controls the camera separately from the player\'s movement. so you could, say, be running through an open field moving forward but be rotating your camera around to see what\'s around you, or target an item or creature with the mouse and left click to swiftly engage them...

Mouse look in this way, I\'ve noticed is usually accomplished by holding down the right mouse button, or perhaps the middle mouse-button/wheel...

So.. those are two systems that might beconsidered that I\'ve seen tend to work very well, feel very intuitive and have are tried and true methods.. so no one\'s having to reinvent the wheel.

Thanks!

[Icefalcon]

Personally I like the first system in games, and it would be great if PS was like that, though who knows what the mouse will do when we have combat...

[Kiva]

Excuse me WSIMike, but did it ever occur to you to press M, while ingame? Both of those features are already implemented in MB, you know.

The first one requires that you manually turn the camera so it looks from behind you, but otherwise it\'s able to zoom in and out as much as you want, and rotate as well.

[Icefalcon]

Ah I think he is explaining it a little different than what we got right now, i think he is saying that you move forward and backward with the keyboard and turn/look up with the mouse.

[Axsyrus]

You press M to get in camera mode, then user right mouse button to rotate and press both mouse buttons to zoom out..

i think he is saying that you move forward and backward with the keyboard and turn/look up with the mouse.

You always move forward/backward using the keyboard, you can even change the keys in keys.xml, press \\ to go into mouselook mode so you can turn using the mouse too.

[Icefalcon]

No at the same time, you know like in FPS games.

[Davis]

Well, if you\'re in 3rd-person mode, can\'t you put it on mouselook and autorun to control with the mouse? I do believe mouselook turns your character.

[Wedge]

If you have mouselook on it will control exactly like a fps setup.  The camera stuff is really all just for testing basics right now, there are more proper setups in CB I think.

[WSIMike]

Well how about that :-)

The mouse-look does work in navigating. Well, don\'t I feel dumb! :-). I just went in and gave it a try.

I guess because it\'s in pre-alpha, I\'m assuming that what\'s there is what\'s there... didn\'t think to try moving.

Okay, then I would have to say that, perhaps, the second setup would work better.. where you\'re navigating with the keys, but have the mouse cursor free to target and click on things... Having no cursor without having to first stop running and hitting a key sorta breaks the \"flow\", or \"immersion\", if you will....

Again, I\'m sure any system that\'s put in place as a \"final\" version will be fine... just might take some getting used to is all.

Anyway... thanks for the clarification.. having the mouse-driven nav is already a huge help :-)

[Icefalcon]

Originally posted by Davis
Well, if you\'re in 3rd-person mode, can\'t you put it on mouselook and autorun to control with the mouse? I do believe mouselook turns your character.

omg, your right, I never knew that, never tried. Haha, you learn something new every day

[aarobber]

The camera system for CB has been completely redesigned from the ground up, so it will behave very differently from the one found in MB.