Creator's Camera System

[anthman852]

This is something I have been thinking about messing around with for a little while, but haven't gotten around to it. The point of the camera system is to have a camera which works similar to the basic game camera, but gives the creator control because he/she will know what the player is seeing at any given time.

Basically, it is a movie camera on a little piece of holo which follows the player around. The movie camera is set to a fixed position, but when the player moves the piece of holo follows them which moves the camera as well. This piece of holo ends up being key because it will always be in the exact same position on the screen no matter what the player does.

One possible implementation of this could be for a HUD system. All the HUD systems I have seen used so far seem to follow the player rather than use a specific corner of the screen like most video games do. This camera system would let you fix a HUD object to a specific part on the screen and have it stay there through the entirety of the level. Another implementation could be for activating objects in the environment. Instead of using a zone to activate the object you could have it activate once it enters the player's filed of vision. I'm sure there are other ways you could use it as well.

I made a little demonstration level to show how it works in game and to give away the camera. The camera I made is meant for 16:9 resolution televisions. I don't have a 4 TV to make another version of the camera, but it wouldn't be very hard to make and I would highly suggest making one if you were to use something like this in a level. Anyway... here is the link:

http://lbp.me/v/0hf6r3(Now V2)

Sorry if this has been done before or is common knowledge...I hope it helps some people out. Also feel free to move it if I put this in the wrong section.

Please leave comments below to let me know what you think.

[Darkcloudrepeat]

I love this concept!
Its so simple and would have never have thought of it, thank you very much. I cant wait to start expanding on this.

[anthman852]

Thanks! I'll be expanding on it soon with an update which shows it off a little more than the current one. The current one was kinda rushed and not polished nearly as well as it could be. I just thought I would put something out there right now since I suck at level design and I thought it would be helpful.

[Darkcloudrepeat]

It was very helpful and I now have the basic outline for HUD's from these views:
Top Angled
Left Angled
Right Angled
Bottom Angled
These are all side view angles.

[anthman852]

Just uploaded V2! The level is much more interesting than before and the Camera prize now has notes which explain what is going on.

Hope it helps!

!

[hesido]

Hi Anthman,

I couldn't check out the level yet as the lbp.me's psn sign in seems to be bust (PSN problems again?) but from your descriptions, it is quite the same as what I've been planning for the boulder dash level, which already uses a movie camera fixed for the editor seat, and a movie camera for virtual player seat, which is placed on a hologram and follows the player smoothly.

What I'm going to ask is, what happens when there are multiple players? Can movie camera's be used for multiple players? (This is quite a noob question but I've only started creating things in LBP when PSN went down, but my brother Terbas really helped me get on my feet quickly )

[Darkcloudrepeat]

If you are wanting to allow multiple cameras follow separate players then the game camera would be the solutions.