Camera Controls

[sebastian]

After watching the gameplay videos, I'm a bit concerned about the camera controls. It looks like the camera is rotating in place (around its own axes). If you want to look at the battle from a different direction, and rotate the camera, you loose the battle out of sight and have to move (pan) the camera.

I would prefer an orbiting camera, which is always pointed at a target point (point of interest), which is also the center of the rotation. Zooming (mouse wheel) changes the camera distance to the target point, while panning moves the target point (keeping its constant height of some meters above ground) and the camera, so their relative position is preserved.

rotation (right mouse):

zooming (mouse wheel) :

[ July 28, 2006, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: sebastian ]

[Madmatt]

There are three Camera Control styles. Free Camera (which I always use), Attach to Mouse and Attach to Center. (I know those terms will get changed to make more sense).

I think Attach to Mouse is what you would want as it will cause the camera to always keep the mouse cursor in view. Attach to center allows you to basically plant the camera unto fixed point and rotate around it.

Currently there is no ZOOM mode (Mousewheel controls camera height) but I am asking the developers to add a zoom component.

Madmatt

[Lt Bull]

Originally posted by sebastian:

After watching the gameplay videos, I'm a bit concerned about the camera controls. It looks like the camera is rotating in place (around its own axes).

Sebastian....a great observation. One that is probably missed by many and may even seem trivial to some, but is a fundamentaly impotrtant and a key difference between the CM style camera controls and what we see in the video.

Originally posted by sebastian:

If you want to look at the battle from a different direction, and rotate the camera, you loose the battle out of sight and have to move (pan) the camera.

This is EXACTLY the issue I have with these kinds of "rotate in place" cameras. They are unable to stay poinetd on any one bit action on the battlefield. This type of camera control is what they use in Take Command Second Manassas. I just don't think that just having that kind of camera control does any justice to a 3D battlefield. Regardless of how great the graphics look, if you can not control the camera to cinmenatically capture the action in free and easy manner, then so much potential will be lost.

Just consider this as an example. Lets say you were watching a movie that featured a sweeping epic battlefield (like Lord of the Rings, Gettysburg etc) with lots of action. Can you imagine just how crappy those movies would look if they couldn't keep teh camera trained on one spot as they orbited the camera around? (with orbiting cameras in helicopters or swinging booms). :eek: Or even still, if it was filmed from a first person perspective (which is what a rotate in place camera is) :eek: . Part of the fun of a 3D battlefield is being able to cinematically enjoy the look and landscape of the battlefield. A rotate in place camera control just can not achieve this to the same level an orbiting camera can.

Originally posted by sebastian:

I would prefer an orbiting camera, which is always pointed at a target point (point of interest), which is also the center of the rotation. Zooming (mouse wheel) changes the camera distance to the target point, while panning moves the target point (keeping its constant height of some meters above ground) and the camera, so their relative position is preserved.

I am 100% with you there. Camera controls get used 100% of the time ANY 3D wargame is played. It is a vital player interface that links/connects them to what is going on in the battlefield. Compromise on that and you compromise on the players ability to control and feel connected with the battle.

BTS/1C.... please consider the implications of limiting the player to controls of a camera that can only rotate on it's own axis (like in Take Command Second Manassas). Please also provide the player with the smooth CM style camera controls that do justice to a 3D battlefield. If you limit us to TC2M style camera controls, I think it would be a bad design decison.

Lt Bull

[sebastian]

Hallo Madmatt, Lt Bull,

thanks for the replies.

Originally posted by Madmatt:

I think Attach to Mouse is what you would want as it will cause the camera to always keep the mouse cursor in view. Attach to center allows you to basically plant the camera unto fixed point and rotate around it.

"Attach to center" sounds more like an orbiting camera to me. Orbiting camera means: The area that is in the center of the screen, stays in the center of the screen, while you rotate the camera around it. This is what makes most sense in a strategy game.

To make an 3D game, you need 3D-graphics-software like 3DStudioMAX or Maya, which all use an obiting camera. So the programmers schould just go over to the graphics department, and play around to see what I mean. The camera usecase of 3D-graphics-software is very simmilar to a 3D-strategy game: You have an area of interest, you are "working on". You want to quickly examine this area, from different angles, without loosing it out of sight.

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Currently there is no ZOOM mode (Mousewheel controls camera height)

With an orbiting camera you change the camera height by rotating vertically, beetween 0° (ground level) and 90° (top down view) und zooming (changing the distance to the area of interest).

Originally posted by Lt Bull:

This is EXACTLY the issue I have with these kinds of "rotate in place" cameras. They are unable to stay poinetd on any one bit action on the battlefield.

Happy to see, that I'm not the only one anoyed by this "first-person-cameras" in 3D-strategy-games. It's like playing an helicopter simulation.

[ July 29, 2006, 12:52 AM: Message edited by: sebastian ]

[Lt Bull]

Originally posted by sebastian:

Happy to see, that I'm not the only one anoyed by this "first-person-cameras" in 3D-strategy-games. It's like playing an helicopter simulation. .

Annoyed! Also just plain disbelief! FPS cameras CAN NOT do justice to a 3D battlefield! I really do think it is an area of game design that in the past has been just taken for granted by designers and players or has not been given the attention it deserves. Thankfully I think BTS got it right in CM.

But having to spell it out to others might just demonstrate how poorly understood or unfamiliar some camera control feature/concepts are to many. Perhaps some are just too interested in the graphics/screeenbshots and forget about the means my which they will actually be manipulating the camera views once they are actually playing and within the game.

Originally posted by sebastian:

To make an 3D game, you need 3D-graphics-software like 3DStudioMAX or Maya, which all use an obiting camera. So the programmers schould just go over to the graphics department, and play around to see what I mean. The camera usecase of 3D-graphics-software is very simmilar to a 3D-strategy game: You have an area of interest, you are "working on". You want to quickly examine this area, from different angles, without loosing it out of sight.

Absolutely. To me it is plainly obvioous. It seems you are at least familiar with some 3D graphics software and their camera controls. I too am familiar with some of these, having extense expereince using 3D CAD modelling software, and know just how important it is to efficiently and painlessly manipulate the camera controls to look at exactly what you want to see. They ALL basically have the "point of interest" orbiting camera control capability, that can zoom in and out, stay trained on the object of interest etc. I shudder in horror at ever having to navigate my way about a 3D CAD environment if I was just limited to the fwd/backward/pan left/pan right/rotate about self kind of camera I have seen in some computer games. :eek: (I needn't worry, no such software would EVER get past even the first stage of beta testing )

Anyways, I hope BTS/1C get it right like they did in CM.

Lt Bull

[sebastian]

Originally posted by Lt Bull:

I hope BTS/1C get it right like they did in CM.

I hope they get it better than CM. What I miss in CM is direct mouse control, using all mouse features (like pressed mouse wheel).

For example:

right button + movement : orbiting

mouse wheel : zoom

mouse wheel pressed + movement : pan

Or, if you need both mouse buttons for something else:

mouse wheel pressed + movement : orbiting

mouse wheel : zoom

mouse at edge of the screen : pan

All 5 degrees of freedom, of an orbiting camera, can be controlled in a fast, intuitive way using only the mouse wheel and mouse movement.

For those who still have a one button mouse with no wheel, or simply like pushing arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen, like in CM, they can keep these buttons optionally.

[Mord]

Man this reminds me so much of CMBO! My excitement level is through the roof!

Will there be camera shaking when explosions go off near by?

Mord.

[Madmatt]

Camera shake....hmmmmmm... Not that I recall, but I bet it could be added down the road...

Madmatt

[sebastian]

Another cool feature would be centering the view on an unit, when you click on a text message, send by this unit.

CC has a panel, which displays all your units, with icons, state and current activity. Clicking once in this panel, centers the view on the unit, while doubleclick selects it. This panel might not be needed in ToW, since it semms to display icons for all your units, even those off-screen, on the 3D-view. But it would be cool, if you could click this icons to center the view, and doubleclick to select.

[Madmatt]

Originally posted by sebastian:

Another cool feature would be centering the view on an unit, when you click on a text message, send by this unit.

CC has a panel, which displays all your units, with icons, state and current activity. Clicking once in this panel, centers the view on the unit, while doubleclick selects it. This panel might not be needed in ToW, since it semms to display icons for all your units, even those off-screen, on the 3D-view. But it would be cool, if you could click this icons to center the view, and doubleclick to select.

Yeah, you can do that. You can also use a Next Unit/ Previous Unit controls and the selected unit is always focused on. And those icons off screen are also clickable and doing so again centers the view on that unit.

The camera features in this title are VERY flexible and intuitive.

Madmatt

[sebastian]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

The camera features in this title are VERY flexible and intuitive.

I'm looking foward to the demo, to check this out. The best example for the orbiting camera I want, is Google Earth. You can get it for free here:

http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html

Download it, zoom in on a hilly area and you will get a very good impression, how great this camera would be for a strategy game.

They use the sheme:

mouse wheel pressed + movement : orbiting

mouse wheel : zoom

Since they have no interaction they "waste" the right button for zooming too, and use the left button for panning. But in a game you can do panning by mouse at edge of the screen or holding down the space-key, and have both mouse buttons free for other functions.

[ July 30, 2006, 07:18 AM: Message edited by: sebastian ]

[Lt Bull]

Excellent example! I would also throw in the CM-style "move mouse to top/bottom, upper side/, lower/side screen edges to pan fwd/bwd amd rotate" functionality as well and you have a winner. Such a smooth clever and great utilisation of simple mouse movements to control the camera in 3 dimensions.

Now can you imagine using a POV/FPS style camera controls to veiw the terrain in Google Earth? :eek:

It is no coincidence that Google Earth is not restricted by FPS/POV style camera controls. The designers of this software know their stuff. With milllions of people using this software, they wouldn't muck around. What makes the requirements of camera controls in any 3D strategic battlefield game any different to those in Google Earth?

Lt Bull

[ July 30, 2006, 05:54 AM: Message edited by: Lt Bull ]

[Madmatt]

You can move the mouse to the edge of the screen to move forward/back and move left and right, but they didnt do the side pans at the corners like we did. Oh well, you cant have everything.

I will say though, I find ToW's variable camera modes very intuitive and from what I see you can even tweak the sensitivity of the mouse itself to tailor it to your own specs. I need to play around with that though to be sure.

Madmatt

[Mord]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Camera shake....hmmmmmm... Not that I recall, but I bet it could be added down the road...

Madmatt

That would ROCK!...Ahem...literally.

Mord.

[Megakill]

Currently we have everal types of camera controls. We will read forums carefully and maybe change smth. As we still have time.

Overall we carefully studied all popular wargames and RTS games to see what are camera controls there and tried to pick up all good bits.

[sebastian]

Originally posted by Megakill:

Overall we carefully studied all popular wargames and RTS games to see what are camera controls there and tried to pick up all good bits.

Unfortunately wargames similar to ToW, like GICombat, Squad Assualt got it very wrong with the camera.

Popular RTS-Clickfest-Games like Warcraft, Dawn of War or Codename Panzers have an extremely limited camera, not suitable for a realistic simualtion like ToW.

The only RTS game, I can think of, that offers the freedom to zoom from ground level to a complete overview of the map, is Black & White. And they are using an orbiting camera, just like the one Google Earth is using.

You can not only look up the great camera controlls from Google Earth, it has also a lot of WW2 military overlays, of battles. Great source for map designers.

[1Cowboy8]

This may have been addressed elsewhere in the fourms, sorry if so, but I am curious if a tactical realism camera mode will be provided? I.e. a mode that institutes a rigid camera control from the perspective of about 3 meters above the commander head on the field or only eye height of all soldiers on the field.

To each their own but it would be a great option to restrict a player to seeing only what the commander and soldiers can actually see. I realize some people want to float all around like a bird, but in multiplayer this is a nice feature to lock the players in to their soldiers.

In this 3D age it should be implemented more. I have never been fond of the 2D open field scenario and "presto" the computer calculates a soldier is now "seen" and magically they appear!

It's a different feeling hearing distant rumbling but not knowing exactly what it is until it crests the ridge in front of you. With an unrealistic global drone camera you can see what it is a kilometer away and plan accordingly.

[WineCape]

I want a camera just above the chicken's head.

[ComradeP]

Personally, whenever I play CM, I place the camera as high as possible, unless I need to find out what is blocking view/field of fire. I prefer orbiting camera's a good distance above ground level over camera's closer/on ground level in most situations.

[Nikki Mond]

I disagree totaly with most of the above comments on the best and worst mouse controls for this particular game. First off this is a real time game. Therefore implementing an order by the shortest possible path is essential when that JS2 just popped into view. The algorhythm is imediately in motion to zap your Mark 4. Panning around in an eliptical orbit like MTW2 or CMBB is not the the shortest path to look around and see threats as they imediately see you. remember the AI's response time is quicker than you.

The turn on zero axis is the best because it is the fastest. This allows you to see 360 degrees in the shortest possible time. One can always roll the mouse wheel and change elevation. In the fog of war, who sees who first is important. I don't trust my unit AI to redirect its attention to a new and bigger threat. Or to bug out now as the JS2 crew is breaching its round.

I don't know if I speak for the majority or not, it doesn't really matter as battlefront included 3 modes of mouse movement to keep everybody happy.

[sebastian]

Originally posted by Nikki Mond:

The turn on zero axis is the best because it is the fastest. This allows you to see 360 degrees in the shortest possible time.

What does the speed of rotation has to do with the axis of rotation? :confused: You can orbit an camera by 360 degrees just as fast as you rotate it around its own axis.

The difference is, when you are looking at your tank, and rotate the camera in place by 180deg, to see who is shooting at it, you loose your tank out of sigth. When you orbit the camera around the tank by 180deg, your tank stays on screen and you see the enemy behind it.

To make it clear: I don't want the Combat Mission style orbiting. I want the Google Earth camera, with faster non-linear zooming.

[Nikki Mond]

Well I was about to say you were wrong until I read your last sentence. I find MTW2 like CM very cumbersome. Not familiar with google earth so whatever works for you. Depends on your play style. Myself I'm not interested in seeing my own tank and the enemy. Just the enemy. Therefore a quick spin around of my POV without collateral movement is the most efficient. I think squad assault for a flawed game had the best mouse/camera control going after its last patch. I play alot of 3D RTS games and found the most efficient; tried, tested, and true is the method used in games that went platinum in sales. After-all, the hundreds of thousands of kids with A.D.D. that bought relic games like CoH and DoW can't be wrong.

Incidently I don't like Company of Heroes so bad example.

[sebastian]

Originally posted by Nikki Mond:

Myself I'm not interested in seeing my own tank and the enemy. Just the enemy.

Well I need to see both. Think not one tank, but multiple of your units. I need to keep them in sight, to be able to select and give orders and to see what they are doing.

The speed of rotation(orbiting)and panning schould be adjustable. The speed of zooming and panning schould be adaptive (faster if camera is far away from the ground).

Most 3D RTS you mentioned games are using a limited kind of the orbiting cam I'am asking for. Google Earth is more the pure thing: orbit angles and camera distance(zoom) are independent.

[Nikki Mond]

Originally posted by sebastian:

The speed of rotation(orbiting)and panning schould be adjustable. The speed of zooming and panning schould be adaptive (faster if camera is far away from the ground).

That sounds very customizable. I know what you mean by adaptive and it is a very good way of doing contol. Madmat did not elaborate how customized the mouse settings are. But they did have enough forsight to have 3 different methods. Game patches usually include control changes based on customer feedback. So things could change if needbe in that respect.

[Freeboy]

ok, I am having difficulties getting my camara to rotate, I have read the manual, none of the keyboard keys, which I do not want to use, work, and the mose only goes on a left right up down forward backewark movement, not a rotate, which is a gamebreaker!