There's a lot of behavior that needs designed for a 3D third person camera: + Following style (delays then pulls, or tightly rigged) + Looking style (player controlled, or automated - for typical shooters, it usually needs to be player controlled) + Height relative to the player (can you see the player's feet? does the player take up the whole screen?) + Stride relative to the player (for example, Dead Space uses a large to-the-right offset) + Zooming in and out + Collision avoidance (zooming versus rotation, or both) + Switching modes (crouching, melee to ranged, getting into a vehicle) Does anyone have any annoyances with these types of cameras, or any behavior preferences? Or is this just one of those things players will easily accept, even when they find the behavior abnormal? For example, I hated the Prince of Persia cameras. I liked that the game wanted to alleviate the player's responsibility of moving it around, but the rotations to avoid visual collisions were fast, and really messed with my character maneuvering. Are there any other examples of things other games did right or wrong in this area?

In the newest Zelda, the camera can get rather annoying. I noticed annoyances in Metroid as well. Most often my quible is with making me deal with pointing the camera. I don't want to feel like a camera man following the PC I want to feel like the PC! The camera needs to follow and look such that the player is always looking at the character's back. Also, the direction controls need to be relative to the camera and not the character, always and without exception. If it is relative to the character and the camera rotates 90° without warning, the character isn't walking in the direction you intended. Metroid in morphball did this constantly. It would adjust camera angles for the odd turns, but then you would start going backwards because it just reversed 'front' and 'back' on you.

Smooth collision avoidance is probably an art, and one that needs to be mastered as well.

I prefer no stride, im in third, not first person, but im also not an actual third person either.

Looking is usually best when you make a good automation for typical gameplay and allow manual deviation from that angle with a snap back. The game needs to be fully enjoyable without using manual though.

I have no preference of delayed then pull, or tight. A smooth feel is usually good so a slight delay and pull is best I guess, but too much or too little would not be terrible either.

Height needs to be such that you can fight and explore and see what needs seeing, thats it.

Overall, transitions need to be smooth but responsive, the camera has to show everything the player needs to see at all times, and it should all be automatic such that the player is controlling his character and not his cameraman.

Quote:Original post by JasRonq
Smooth collision avoidance is probably an art, and one that needs to be mastered as well.

There's a rather simple gimmick that works pretty well for this. Attach two spheres to the camera - one just big enough to prevent intersection of the view planes, and one a bit larger. The larger sphere doesn't respond to collisions. Instead, it starts the smooth motion to get away from them. The closer any collision is from the large sphere to the small sphere, the faster the camera moves to adjust. With the right settings, it works very well for me. However, I've noticed myself hating the types of collision adjustments some cameras use, and provided a lot of options to control this behavior.

Quote:I prefer no stride, im in third, not first person, but im also not an actual third person either.

Well, in third person shooters, if the camera is zoomed in, and you can see most of your character's body, you definitely need some horizontal offset, or you won't be able to see what you're aiming at. Hitman did well without using any, but the view also cut the player's body off around the chest.

I don't think the automated camera will ever offer a good feel to it, not any time soon anyhow. It's like top down control brought to 3D but instead of just orienting your character you gotta deal with the camera too... not smooth. I would just use a top down perspective then build the combat design to emphasize the perspective, such as the character model briefly coming into close contact with the camera (like during a special jump attack, for a glimpse the model is very huge / close to the camera) plus make the the special abilities appear near the camera a lot too (like calling a storm of chinese stars). That would show off the top down camera rather than just let it get criticized.

In most point-and-aim shooters, such as Dead Space, Hitman, Gears of War, and my project, the camera isn't very automated. It represents the direction your character is looking (and what movement is relative to), and is completely under control of the mouse (or analog stick). However, most of the mentioned behaviors still apply.

I think the most important thing in a Third Person game is to not have a fixed camera. I can keep track of the camera fairly well, I wish games would stop adjusting it every time I move.
Being able to switch between automatic and player controlled cameras on the fly would be the best addition.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator
Probably needless to say, but I'd prefer to be as over the shoulder as possible. I'm not sure if it was Brute Force or not, but I remember one nice feature of making the character transparent in order to see targets.

You were just playing casper the friendly ghost.