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Game Cameras Prone to Problems?

Posted by simoniker on from the let-me-see dept.

Moryath writes "Ever wonder how to quantify a game's camera, or why some videogame genres tend towards problems while others never see it mentioned? Glide Underground has some basic attempted quantification up in their Weekly Musings column for this week - they break possible game camera views down to six categories, and go over which are the most likely to have issues." Are there obvious steps that can be taken to improve some game cameras?

52 comments

  1. Agh, good ol' Oni by 88NoSoup4U88 · · Score: 1
    I remember playing Oni, an otherwise great game (well, it entertAINED ME ;) ) : but the camera angles could get really annoying, ifnot plain spilling the fun of the game.

    Sometimes it would 'see through' the wall(when standing with your back towards it) and you would unwillingly get valuable information of how many enemies were in the next room.

  2. Glide Underground by Computerguy5 · · Score: 1

    Wow, I can remember when I used to be a newsie for GU... ...back in 1999 This is the first mention of them I've heard since I left. Sad

    1. Re:Glide Underground by News+for+nerds · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's great to see a domain name with a dead product name in it is going on like this :) Maybe next time they should choose a name with broader appeal... In a similar vein, I've seen a website with "riva" in its name but don't recall where.

    2. Re:Glide Underground by deman1985 · · Score: 1

      I tried to convince them to keep the abbreviation but change the name a couple of times during my year or so there, since Glide wrapper appeal (and inherently the focus of the site) had already shifted, but alas.

      --
      KappaStone :: Constant Innovation
  3. missed point/ camera wish list by musikit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    please if a game developer is reading this one missed point about 3rd person cameras and a wish list for me is the following...

    when you change areas, or "zone" (MMOs) or anything that would require the screen going all black or all white or requiring a CD load (time where player usually releases all controls) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE place the camera in a position so pushing UP would not move the character out of the zone/change areas again/require an additional CD load time.

    too many times have i played games where UP entered the building and then got in the building and UP exited the building. so annoying.

    1. Re:missed point/ camera wish list by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 2, Insightful
      This is easily fixed by overlapping the zones somewhat. When you spawn in the new zone, have the spawn point be at least two seconds' worth of movement away from the zone border, and make the direction you need to go reasonably obvious.

      Of course, the best solution is to take a page from Naughty Dog's playbook and pretty much do away with load times entirely.

      --

      Obliteracy: Words with explosions

    2. Re:missed point/ camera wish list by cjmnews · · Score: 1

      To add to this wish list, related to the screen going black, is cut-scenes.

      When you force the player to stop fighting for a cut scene, then the enemies MUST also stop fighting. This was especially bad with the Pelenor Fields section of Lord of the Rings Return of the King on PS2, where the cut scene is played every few minutes and directs the player where to go next. The number of character deaths there in single player were countless. A lot of them caused by health loss during a cut-scene.

      --
      You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
    3. Re:missed point/ camera wish list by Reapy · · Score: 1

      Devil May Cry had a good solution to this. Holding down the control to the right would make your char run right. Sometimes the camera angle would swap, as you were running right down a hall, the angle would all of a sudden have you running to the left. If you kept the direction held to the right, the character would still keep running down the hall, to the left, on the swap. Once you let the controler sit in neutral, the directions returned to normal. This was a very nice feature.

    4. Re:missed point/ camera wish list by Reapy · · Score: 1

      I finally got the article to load and read it. Funny the author had issues with devil may cry. Whatever difficulties he had must be from lack of experience. I managed to play through games like alone in the dark and estatica, so perhaps it was just easier for me to deal with the fixed camera angles like that.

      Although you have to worry about off screen enemy hits, the camera angles like that really lend itself to a better atmosphere for the game.

    5. Re:missed point/ camera wish list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem comes in with using the analog controller - if you move the controller *just* enough for it to register as a change in position, Dante will start running relative to the camera. As long as you hold that stick rock-steady across camera transitions, you have no problem. If you're not holding the stick at full-tilt and your thumb jiggles a little, it can be very frustrating.

  4. Disagree by alphaseven · · Score: 1
    Cameras in games screw up in one of three ways. They can overcomplicate the game, they can become unfixed, or they can withold vital information at exactly the wrong time.

    FPS/Side View cameras have very little of this; by their very nature, they tend to give all the information available in a scene.

    I disagree, I've played a couple games that let you switch between first and third person perspectives (Theif III, The Suffering) and both were less frustrating in third person mode. The problem with first person is that you have less peripheral vision, you can't see what's around your character.

    Stealth games are a lot less frustrating in third person. Some people like the challenge and immersion of playing the game in first person but I like being able to see what's happening around my character.

    1. Re:Disagree by wookieemoose · · Score: 1
      OK, i know where your coming from as far as prefering third person for stealth games, it does help you see more of the area and possible enemies and the like, but personally i prefer using the first person when i can and mostly tilting the camera(when in third person) to see directly in front of me. This helps me see a lot of details and objects (or enemies) that would have been harder to catch in the the normal third person perspective.

      Even though the higher angles can reveal more around the player doesn't mean they reveal more important things around the player.

    2. Re:Disagree by KDR_11k · · Score: 1

      I agree on that, UT2004 with a third person camera mutator (yes, there's a built-in third person perspective, but you don't have a crosshair in that and can't aim up or down) somehow plays much better than in standard first person. Quake 3 was a bit harder since it wouldn't rotate further if you aimed higher or lower than +- 45, but in general third person helps with seeing things going on around you. Aiming at long distances can be an issue, especially since you can't see whether you really have a line of sight to the enemy and judging your exact aim position is harder, but these games focus on short range combat, long range aiming with non-zooming weapons is pretty rare (okay, any gun in Q3A can zoom...).
      So in conclusion I could say third person when the game is usually shortrange, first person if the game uses long range combat a lot.

      Now I just wish UT2004 had proper gamepad support, it sucks to not be able to tell it how many axises your controller has and how sensitive you'd like them to be...

      --
      Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
  5. Control affected by camera by Digital_Quartz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One critical area which wasn't mentioned is the problems involved with having a camera which affects your controls. For example, consider Onimusha, or Resident Evil, where pressing "up" makes your character run forward, vs. say Mario Sunshine where "up" makes your character run away from the camera.

    The first style of control can be done very well (although Resident Evil is obviously NOT an example of this :), and the second can have major problems.

    The big problems with the second one come from poor automatic camera controls; if the camera swings wildly or suddenly, your character suddenly starts running off in a different direction. Mario64 suffered from this a great deal; you'd be running along a beam, and the camera would pan around you. In order to stay on the beam, you'd have to continuously and slowly rotate the stick to counter the camera movement. Of course you may argue that the designer did this intentionally to make "walking along a beam" more challenging. There are plenty of examples of similar platform games where similar problems impede game enjoyment.

    The original 3D Spiderman game for the Dreamcast and PS1, and the Spiderman: The Movie game both tried to overcome this problem in a novel way; if you were pressing a direction, and the camera moved, spidy would just keep going in whatever direction he was going; the axes the controls operated on would not change until the button was released.

    The problems here is that there are situations where you'd, say, climb up a wall pressing up, have the camera swing around to a below-view, then try and run away from something. You'd go from "up" to "down", but since the camera had changed, your character would stop moving forward for a moment, then keep on going. The worst areas where were spidy got up near a corner. You'd press in a direction, he'd move onto a new surface that you didn't want him to, the camera would swing around 90 degrees to show the new surface, you'd press a different direction, and spidy would move in what felt like some random direction, usually onto another surface, swinging the camera around again. It felt very clumsy, and I recall being extremely frustrated with that game on several occasions.

    1. Re:Control affected by camera by Neon+Spiral+Injector · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I can't play Resident Evil because of the controls. But Shenmu has the same controls, yet I play it fine. The difference is in Shenmu the camera is almost always centered behind your back. So up does usually mean walk away from the camera, left turns left, and right turns right. Even down does a quick 180 like in RE. But because Resident Evil started with the prerendered backdrops they had fixed room cameras. Though one would think that a fixed camera like that would lead better to a camera-relative control scheme.

      I've played games where the stick direction was the direction of movement on screen relative to the camera. I remember thinking as the camera slowly panned and my thumb adjusted the angle of the stick, how odd such a compensation was, but how natural it felt. Now if the camera would have just snapped to a different angle I couldn't have delt with it.

      Phantasy Star Online wasn't too bad when it came to player controlled cameras. A quick flick of the left trigger would re-center the camera behind the charater's back. It became so natural feeling (perhaps because of how often I had to do it) that when I was playing another game later with a poor computer controlled camera I kept finding myself pulling the trigger trying to fix it.

    2. Re:Control affected by camera by jspoon · · Score: 1
      Yeah, I hated Mario 64 the few times I tried it. I like 3rd person games but in my opinion control should be absolute and not based on where the camera happens to be at the time. Maybe I would have gotten used to it eventually but it was just to confusing on a basic level for me. If I press up, my character should walk forward in a straight line no matter what the camera does.

      I played most of Oni, besides looking though walls the moving camera was fine for me. I prefer games such as Alice though, where the cam stays on behind, moving up and down, in and out as needed when you're close to objects or looking up, but always behaving in a way you can predict.

    3. Re:Control affected by camera by oskillator · · Score: 1
      The advantage of camera-relative motion is that it allows the player to instantly react to the situation and move in any direction. I have yet to play a joystick-controlled game using player-relative motion that didn't feel like I was driving a tank, regardless of the camera system. Therefore, in my opinion, player-relative motion -- with a joystick, mind you -- is an automatic lose, whereas camera-relative motion can be a win, if the camera is done well.

      Unfortunately, doing a good soft third person camera is a hard problem. It's really an AI problem, trying to guess what the player wants to see. Super Mario 64 did a decent job at this though there were some glaring flaws (I would definitely consider them flaws, not attempts to make the game more challenging). Super Mario Sunshine does a considerably better job, nearly flawless throughout the game, with one mind-bogglingly-bad exception in Pinna Park.

      When a mouse enters the picture, though, it's an entirely different story. You never hear complains from people playing mouse-controlled FPS games. On top of this, with a mouse, you can put the camera completely under the control of the player and not lose any playability. If you've played Splinter Cell or Thief 3 in third person mode, you know what I mean.

    4. Re:Control affected by camera by Aerion · · Score: 1

      One critical area which wasn't mentioned is the problems involved with having a camera which affects your controls. For example, consider Onimusha, or Resident Evil, where pressing "up" makes your character run forward, vs. say Mario Sunshine where "up" makes your character run away from the camera.

      I strongly prefer camera-relative movement to player-relative because you always know exactly which way your character is going to run when you press "up." If the camera moves a little as you're doing it, you need only to adjust a little. If the camera moves a lot as you're doing it, it's going to be disorienting no matter what style of control is used. Admittedly, you're less likely to run into a wall with player-relative movement, but it's still not much better.

      I think either style can be done well, but each is better suited to a different kind of game. I wish more games would let you switch between camera-relative and player-relative (Escape From Monkey Island allows it, but then again it also has a fixed camera so I guess it's irrelevant).

      Maybe I just like camera-relative because I'm old-fashioned ... imagine playing Tetris in "block-relative" mode.

    5. Re:Control affected by camera by Jerf · · Score: 1

      The big problems with the second one come from poor automatic camera controls; if the camera swings wildly or suddenly, your character suddenly starts running off in a different direction.

      Interetingly, the Sonic Adventure games did the opposite. The camera would go wild, and in order to proceed, you had to trust the system and just keep pushing up. Anything else and you typically fell to your death.

      Understanding this makes the games much easier, and it is the basic reason I never shove this game in front of guests; it is not at all intuitive.

  6. Re:Huh? by moronga · · Score: 1

    This has to be the most retarded Slashdot article, ever. Of all time, even.

    Yeah, no kidding. I thought it was going to be a discussion on what works and doesn't work with what they call the "3rd person (soft)" camera, because that's the one with the most problems, in my experience.

    Instead, we get descriptions of different camera types. Thanks for explaining first person view for me, genius.

  7. Prince of Persia - Sands of Time (PC) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm about ready to kill PoP after forking out $50 + tax for a game that keeps changing views inappropriately. And because character movement is relative to the 3rd person perspective, changing angles affects how you end up directing the character. I'm sure one of the other views (fixed perspective from far above) was included simply because the dynamic 3rd-person view was so tempermental...and it's a poor substitute.

  8. I prefer the 3rd person soft, 1 vs 2 player issues by cjmnews · · Score: 3, Insightful

    As the article states the 3rd person soft is the most popular of camera angles in games today. Though I am pretty sure I saw an article yesterday that said First Person view was the most desirable. Don't ask me why the conflict, I just read the articles.

    Being a player of PC games (Diablo II, Neverwinter Nights) and PS2 games (Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance (1 & 2), Champions of Norrath, Lord of the Rings) I have experienced the 3rd person cameras and their issues.

    On the PS2 the Lord of the Rings Return of the King game seems to have the most difficulty when switching to multi-player. The camera angles for single player were great. It adjusts for the terrain and keeps the important stuff on the screen. Once you go into multiplayer though, it is a different story. For some reason, less of the screen is visible with multiplayer. I would have thought more (or even the same) would be visible as the additional character takes up some real estate. Many of the angles prevent you from seeing paths (the run out of the Paths of the Dead) and traps (tiny spiders in Shelob's Lair) as well as some enemies. The lack of control of the camera does not help. The testers needed to test more with multiplayer to identify these issues and do something like expand the real estate seen in multiplayer.

    The Baldur's Gate and Champions games on the other hand require you to manipulate the camera. This is fine for me, but not great for my kids as they have not figured out the fine art of directing the character with the left hand while turning the camera with the right hand.

    Neverwinter Nights also has full control of the camera, with 3 different 3rd person view points built in. If I remember correctly, you can download a hak that allows for an almost first person view, that is particularly liked with the jiggle hak. These controls are pretty good and you can turn on the feature to have obstructing objects (2nd floors) automatically disappear when they obstruct your view. There are times when you can accidentally turn the camera so you can't see the battle that you are in, which can be quite deadly. Some module writers also force the camera view on you which I find frustrating. I set up my system the way I like it, don't change my settings.

    Diablo II has the 3rd person hard camera. They did a good job to prevent most obstructions, but there are places where you can't see. NWN has spoiled me and I try to turn the camera in Diablo II.

    All in all the cameras I have seen are pretty good, though there are others that need some work. Bionicle forces the camera to point a particular direction, Harry Potter SS and CoS have no camera controls, Harry Potter PoA has controls, but they are not as responsive as the Baldur's gate ones.

    --
    You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
  9. You haven't been paying attention then. by Moryath · · Score: 1
    Their content keeps going... and they got a mention on Slashdot for their first Weekly Musings article last month too.

    Just because you left somewhere doesn't mean you have to talk down on them.

    1. Re:You haven't been paying attention then. by deman1985 · · Score: 1

      I was a former writer for GlideUnderground as well, and I would tend to disagree with you. Being on the inside at one time and seeing how things were done, yes, I can look down on them =P

      --
      KappaStone :: Constant Innovation
  10. Did you bother to read the article? by Moryath · · Score: 1

    Lame.

    There's a section - with big red letters - titled "How They Screw Up" at the end.

    I don't see how defining terms before getting to that point is bad.

    1. Re:Did you bother to read the article? by moronga · · Score: 1

      There's a section - with big red letters - titled "How They Screw Up" at the end.

      Yes, I read that part. It doesn't say anything insightful. The main thrust of it is that "3rd person (soft)" has problems with the camera getting stuck or swinging around wildly. Wow.

      Sorry to insult an article you submitted (on a website that you run?) but sorry, it was lame.

  11. And how long ago? by Moryath · · Score: 1

    Looks like things are done differently these days.

    If you haven't been in for a while, you wouldn't know - feel free to hold grudges if you want, however.

    1. Re:And how long ago? by deman1985 · · Score: 1

      That may be the case, but the last time I checked, it was still run by mostly the same people (unless the About page is just severely out of date). So, excuse me for having some doubts, hehe. It's nice to see that, although the content has gone downhill on the site, some things have stayed the same-- proofreading still isn't a common practice =)

      All joking aside, though, I take it that you at least somewhat remember who this is. I've got a few ideas for the site if the guys have any interest in hearing them; I'm itching to build another big site. Email me.

      --
      KappaStone :: Constant Innovation
  12. Re:I prefer the 3rd person soft, 1 vs 2 player iss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    "As the article states the 3rd person soft is the most popular of camera angles in games today. Though I am pretty sure I saw an article yesterday that said First Person view was the most desirable. Don't ask me why the conflict, I just read the articles."

    Lots of games are based around some kind of character the makers are trying to promote, like Mario, Spiderman, Lara Croft...
    A first person camera means that this animated advert isn't on the screen all the time, and so it's not an option for many modern games.

    I think it's quite clear the best thing that can be done for all third person games is to provide a first-person mode for navigating crowded areas (and for shooting), and preferably a way of controlling the camera as well - although this is not to say that camera AI and selective transparency are useless, they are never going to replace a human hand on the controls, and should just be there to ease the job and keep the game flowing.

    However, given the within-game advertising and the tendency of designers to oversimplify the controls where possible, to enhance the kiddy-appeal if nothing else, I don't see third-person-only games leaving the market any time soon.

  13. Bleh by Pluvius · · Score: 1

    I read the section where they say that there are no problems with FP cameras, completely missing the common complaint that they're very difficult to use in jumping puzzles. Then I saw the complaints about the article here and didn't bother reading any more.

    Rob

    1. Re:Bleh by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      They also missed the fact that you can't see whats behind you/to your sides. Yes, that part is by design, but its still an advantage of other camera angles that first person doesn't have.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  14. Hey... by DaFlusha · · Score: 1

    Quit talking trash about my EyeToy!

  15. Uh huh..right! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try this. You play me in a lightsaber battle in Jedi Knight. You in first person, me in 3rd. Watch how much you get owned because I have more information on my surroundings.

  16. Someone had the same thought - they emailed. by Moryath · · Score: 2, Informative

    The article's got an update to the same effect. Were you the guy who emailed them?

    1. Re:Someone had the same thought - they emailed. by Pluvius · · Score: 1

      Nope. Like I said, it's a common complaint.

      Rob

  17. Re:I prefer the 3rd person soft, 1 vs 2 player iss by AuMatar · · Score: 1

    I disagree entirely. First off, 1st person is not an option at all for some people. These people, myself included, get nauseous in just a few minutes time looking at first person perspectives.

    Secondly- first person is much HARDER to move around in. You can't accurately see your sides or rear. Without that view, how can you avoid things behind you/to your sides?

    Really, I don't see anything good first person brings to either controls or game fun at all.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  18. Re:I prefer the 3rd person soft, 1 vs 2 player iss by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You get nausea every time you open you eyes? Poor you... :)

    When you are moving forwards you don't need to avoid obstacles behind you. And a half-decent FPS player can run in a straight line whilst looking around fast enough to navigate and keep an eye out to make sure no-one is chasing them. It's harder to do that on a console, but that's why console FPSs are more likely to have radar, autoaim, etc.

    Anyway, I was only suggesting that first person should always be an option, in some situations third person just doesn't cut it. I've never played a third person game (beat-em-ups/racers excluded) where the camera angle wasn't a problem at some point. If you truly hate it you don't have to push that button.

  19. Controls locked to cameras by MilenCent · · Score: 1

    The article says that Super Mario 64 is widely pointed-at as a near-perfect example of a game camera. I have to disagree.

    Someone else here has already pointed to what happens when the camera decides to pan when crossing a narrow beam. Since the controls are tied to the camera, you have to match the direction you're pressing to the camera's motion so Mario doesn't end up falling to oblivion.

    But I don't think that having the controls relative to the camera viewpoint is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it's the control method closest to "fixed" camera games, back in the days before 3D engines, where there was never any confusion about what press will do what because the camera couldn't move.

    I call this the "direct" method of 3D control, because if the player wants to go "up" (really forward) on the screen, he presses up on the stick, and ditto the other directions, with no mental translations or opportunities for dyslexia to get left and right mixed up.

    The other, scheme for "soft" 3rd person cameras, used in the likes of Resident Evil, I liken to the old arcade game Asteroids: you have rotate left and right controls, and you have a "thrust" control. Few people remember it these days, but it took some players a bit of adjusting to get used to that.

    I think both cameras have their places (though the Asteroids-like scheme is rarely used well except in vehicular games). I seem to be alone, actually, in liking Mario Sunshine's system, which devotes one entire analog stick to the camera. I'd make terrifying jumps in those infamous Void levels and maneuver the camera on the fly to keep everything in perspective, making my friends gasp in amazement (when they weren't being motion sick).

    But then again I tend to get good scores in Robotron: 2084. Maneuvering dual joysticks at once seems to come natural for me. I'm probably an exception, and not the rule, in this area.

  20. The cause is quite obvious by obeythefist · · Score: 1

    The root of the problem is console and console conversion games. Not a troll, hear me out. As the article suggests, the key problems with camera angles in games are all control related - unpredictable controls, and camera angles that don't show you the most useful view at the time.

    The consoles are getting better, but initially, there are two problems that caused developers to *have* to make bad decisions with regards to camera.

    Firstly, resources. Console games haven't always been able to afford complete freedom with the camera, because of their poor resourcing. Developers have done great things in terms of optimisation, but they haven't been able to allow end users to fully control the camera (Sands of Time for instance) because they may go over a scene with too many polygons, and then get framerate problems. PC gamers tend to have to optimise the system themselves, choosing the right resolution and quality so this is not an issue (unless you don't know how to change your graphics settings).

    Secondly, controls. With no decent analog control available for consoles until very recently, it just wouldn't make sense to allow the player to control the game. So the developers have had to "decide" algorithmically what the best angle is for the player to use. Oddly enough, that method sucks. Not a problem for PC gamers, they've always had mice, and therefore 100% control over the camera (until the recent glut of console ports from cheap publishers). Of course there are now mice for PS/2 and X-Box... but how can you use a mouse on the couch?

    --
    I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
    1. Re:The cause is quite obvious by bigman2003 · · Score: 1

      Sands of Time had a horrible camera- what a shame for a beautiful game. I ended up trading it in because of the camera.

      But consoles don't necessarily have to have crappy cameras. In fact, I find it easier to control third-person games on my Xbox controller, over a PC mouse/keyboard. (Try GTA 3 on both, and se which is better.)

      A game with a *great* camera- Psi-Ops. Great camera, awesome game.

      --
      No reason to lie.
    2. Re:The cause is quite obvious by DeadScreenSky · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Console games haven't always been able to afford complete freedom with the camera

      You couldn't be more off here on what the problem is. With the exception of a couple of gaming genres (only forced first-person perspective games, really), gamers don't want full freedom of the camera. It doesn't make the games any more fun, it just serves as a frustrating distraction to the core gameplay. Unless I purchased a game about using a camera (whether welded to a gun or not :D), I really don't want to constantly mess with one.

      Why would I want full camera control in a 3D third-person action game, the genre which gets most camera complaints excepting platformers (which has similar problems)? A quick camera reset button in Ninja Gaiden is more than enough - I don't have enough hands or fingers to play a serious, fast-paced, difficult action game and still worry constantly about a camera.

      Sure, some minimal control can be nice (to look around at some parts of the artwork/environment, or a quick 'behind-the-back' re-adjust if the automatic camera isn't working as well I would like it), but full camera control is usually terrible.

      The real game camera problem is just that many developers still aren't any good at making them. Part of that is that the 3D gaming artform is young, and we are still learning what works well and what doesn't. It is a hard problem, with only a few known 'perfect elements' (that many developers still don't seem to even be aware of - imagine if only a quarter of working cinematographers knew how to use a camera correctly!).

      EX1: Too often in games the non-player entities aren't aware of the camera perspectives (it should be part of their AI), so they attack from positions that the player can't see from, etc. This is obviously pretty stupid, but it still is a hard problem (you want a little surprise, after all). The enemies need to be aware of the what the player can see, and be pretty fair about that knowledge.

      EX2: Zooming in the camera too far is a big problem - developers need to have the discipline to let their characters look less impressive (because of the bad resolution of the TV, though this is getting better) to fascilate better gameplay. Ninja Gaiden does this pretty well - the environments and character models are gorgeous, but Team Ninja still keeps the camera zoomed far out so that the situation is clear. Team Ninja could have zoomed things in like their Dead or Alive series, but that would have been stupid beyond belief. Many devs do just that, though (Devil May Cry is pretty bad with this.)

      EX3: Probably the most obvious important technique, and the easiest, is that the player shouldn't be running towards the camera for any significant length of time. There are a couple of exceptional situations for this, of course (like running away from something, a la the whale in Sonic Adventure, or during some parts of horror games), but it is shocking how many games get this completely wrong. Devil May Cry is another bad example of this, though there are far worse cases.

      EX4: Almost as obvious an issue - the camera needs to automatically track threats to some extent. You don't want the camera doing quick crazy 180 degree turns or the like (PC FPS gamers are fairly rare examples of people who aren't made sick by this, and their kind is almost completely unknown in places like Japan), but it can't require the player to constantly fiddle with. Otogi is an example of how not to do this - the camera is almost completely static, yet enemies swirl around the player from all sides (including above), oftentimes with fast charging attacks or projectiles that are completely off-camera. It has a rudimentary lock-on system, but it needs to be manually trigger and is paired with a pretty stupid combat tracking system (you basically won't attack a non-targeted enemy unless you are completely touching them). The camera will not look up or down at all.

      So we know to some extent what makes a good camera in games, but too many devs seem ignorant of these elements. I suspect it will get better in the next few years (it already is), but I wouldn't be surprised if the early third-person 3D games are nearly unplayable to future generations.

      --
      There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
    3. Re:The cause is quite obvious by obeythefist · · Score: 1

      That's an interesting point you make there. I never considered it would be awkward having full control of the camera, because I'm a PC gamer. In PC games, especially first person shooters where camera control *is* the game, mouselook is the most intuitive interface into a gaming environment. Usually on a PC, if you have a game that doesn't use the mouse correctly, it's a console port.

      When you consider that consoles don't generally use the complete analog freedom of mouselook control, camera control would become so much less intuitive, which in turn inhibits the enjoyment of the game for the player. It's an unfortunate tradeoff for the "couch gamer" experience, that your usual couch doesn't have flatspace for a keyboard + mouse, and a game controller doesn't need a flat surface because it completely uses both hands of the player.

      One thing to keep in mind with the "sickening 180 degree turns"... A *lot* of people comment on this phenomena, and what I've found is that the problem usually only occurs if you're watching the motion but not controlling it. When you have the mouse in your hand and you know you're going to spin around quickly, your brain doesn't get tricked because you'll be anticipating the turn. That's why people usually don't get sick from running or jumping up and down or looking left and right to cross the street.

      I have met one or two people who still can't play FPS games for long durations, but that's a very small minority.

      --
      I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
  21. Re:I prefer the 3rd person soft, 1 vs 2 player iss by AuMatar · · Score: 1

    Anytime I see first person in another context. this includes movie/television screens and vido games (games are the worst).

    I have no problem with choice. But at the same time, I think every game should have a 3rd person option. And I'd rather have a polished 3rd than a crappy 3rd and a crappy 1st.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  22. Very true. by Moryath · · Score: 1

    Psi-Ops had a very nicely arranged camera. Not perfect, but definitely up there on the scale.

    As far as Sands of Time, there were spots the camera wasn't bad, and there were spots it was. A lot of times a bit of preplanning with the camera was all it took.

    1. Re:Very true. by obeythefist · · Score: 1

      Ahh, but if you gave the user full control with the camera, much like in GTA 3, the game would have been so much better!

      Of course, third person camera is really better for combat against multiple opponents, whereas first person camera is better for interacting with your environment. So third person is better suited to console games, which tend to be simpler, faster, with more twitch action than in a PC game.

      --
      I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
  23. Yeah. by Moryath · · Score: 1

    That's part of it.

    The other half is the dyslexic switchover - you can be running forward no problem, and want to attack "left" relative to your forward motion, but you push left and he goes right because of the camera switchover...

  24. There's an update up by Moryath · · Score: 1

    A couple of reader letters and a whole second page on problems and solutions have gone up to the article, have a look!

  25. I've dealt with these issues a bit. by BruceTheBruce · · Score: 1

    The previous game I worked on required a free roaming camera, and what I found was that players DON'T want anything fancy. Don't try to second guess what they want, because what they want is for the camera to NOT swing around while they're moving forward. Minimisation of changes in the yaw of the line of sight is far more important than the designer setting up some 'cinematic' looking swoops as far as our players were concerned. If the player ran in a direction not parallel to the line of sight, you could slowly turn the camera towards the player's direction to minimize the need for manual control without inducing complaints though. The camera did a few raycasts to try and predict when an obstacle would obscure the player (like approaching a corner) and react, but again not making sudden shifts was key to keeping people happy.

    Our current game places the camera on rails and thus avoids many problems of the "3d soft" scheme. But now the fact that the avatar isn't always standing at the center of the screen coupled with the fact the designers sometimes want overhead views and sometimes want more horizontal views introduces a totally different (but much easier to fix) set of problems. Control is always camera relative, but sometimes you want "away" on the joystick to make the player run parallel to the line of sight even though this takes the player towards the center of the screen due to perspective (corridors demand this), yet other times "away" on the controller needs to mean the player's movement on screen is straight towards the top of the screen (so their x-coordinate onscreen remains constant).

  26. Re: Super Mario Sunshine by Mriswyth · · Score: 1

    I really liked the camera in Mario Sunshine until Pinna Park. The combination of the cages, invisible Wall, real wall, and the jumping was a enough to make me want to smash my Cube and everything associated with it. That single expirience is probably the reason that Mario sunshine is the only game that I haven't played more than once.

  27. Wrong! by theguywhosaid · · Score: 1

    Nope this is the worst article ever. UML Poetry? wtf?