Camera
Learning paths through this topic
The text box covers the character's mouth and chin in a dialogue scene
A tall portrait looks right until the box with the words slides up over it and hides the face that is speaking. Moving it up helps only to a point, and then something else has to give. Here is the order of what to try.
Show more of what is ahead, without the view swinging at every small step
Players need to see where they are going, so the camera shifts in the walking direction. But if it switches at every tiny back-step, the picture sways and makes people dizzy. Here is when to turn the shift around, how far to look and how fast to move.
Mouse look speed changes from computer to computer, and the view flips upside down
Turning with the mouse should feel the same on every machine, and looking straight up should stop at the top. Two common habits break both. Here is what to leave out of the calculation, the limit to use, and a protection against sudden huge jumps.
The over-the-shoulder camera is squashed against a wall and keeps flipping sides
A camera that looks past the character's shoulder is stuck with the wall right next to it in corridors and corners. Moving to the other shoulder helps, if the swap is done at the right moment and not over and over. Here is when to do it.
Place a conversation camera behind one speaker looking at the other, automatically
When two characters stand anywhere in a room and start talking, the game needs a good shot of them without a hand-placed camera for every spot. There is a classic arrangement, and a few cases where it fails. Here is the maths and the cases.
Layered scenery that shifts with the mouse or tilt but shows a gap at the border
Moving the layers of a scene by different amounts gives a pleasing sense of depth, until the front layers slide far enough to uncover the screen edge. Here is how much to enlarge each layer, and why it is not the same for all of them.
Looking out from a hiding place: the view should resist, not hit a hard wall
When the player hides in a wardrobe or under a bed, they should only see through the gap, but a view that suddenly stops dead feels like a bug. Here is a way to make the limit feel like a resistance, with no sticky corner and no way to cheat past it.
Taking a photo of a ghost: it counts when it is in the shot, but how do you know?
A puzzle where the player must photograph something needs the game to judge the picture fairly. Checking only the middle of the thing lets half-cut and hidden shots through, and rejects good ones. Here is a check that looks at the whole shape and returns a reason when it fails.
The screen shake in a pixel art scene never quite stops and the picture stays blurry
A shake that fades out should end on a perfectly still, sharp picture. With pixel graphics, tiny leftover movements keep it twitching by one pixel or leave it between pixels. Here is how to make it end cleanly.
The camera freezes or crawls when the story slows time for a dramatic moment
When a scene slows time or stops the world for effect, a camera move that should still play can stall with it. Here is which movements follow the slowed clock, which must not, and how to ease the clock itself.
Going back a line in the backlog leaves the picture zoomed or panned wrongly
Readers who step back through the story expect to see what they saw then, including the framing. If the view is rebuilt by undoing each move, small errors pile up and the picture drifts. Here is a way to make going back exact.
The scene looks zoomed in on an ultrawide screen and squeezed on a tall one
Games that fix one viewing angle show a different amount of the room on each screen shape: players on wide screens miss the cramped feel, and on narrow ones they see too little. Here is which angle to fix, and the limits that protect the mood.