Official Camera Feedback Thread

Howdy folks, UberGaf here...

I'm the guy behind all of the recent camera changes. There are still a few more items on my camera hitlist, but hopefully you'll find things to be much improved. If you want to offer feedback that gets to the right developer (me) in the most efficient way possible - then post in this thread.

I encourage you all to mess around with zero camera friction.... Give the planet a spin... and a middle mouse click to stop it. This feature was pretty hotly debated in the office with some fans and some haters. Would like to hear how the community at large feels about it. For the record, a camera friction setting of 47 will be very similar to the previous camera behavior. At 50, it will come to a dead stop.

I'm not a fan of the scroll acceleration. I'd like a way to be able to turn that off – didn't see one in the settings.

UberGaf: Do you mean the mouse wheel zoom acceleration?

Yes. Also, why edit my comment instead of use a reply? The only reason I know you edited my comment is because ZaphodX replied to it. If I hadn't gotten that notification, I wouldn't have known you asked me a question.

Thanks for putting this up!

I love the seamless zoom, but there are a few little issues left with the camera. The main one is that panning with the mouse wheel button seems to have a problem when you are zoomed in very closely and move the mouse too fast. This might be happening when the mouse comes into contact with the edge of the screen.

Would it be possible to have the N key do the same thing as the space bar when you are zoomed out to the solar system? I understand the need for the space bar to consistently zoom you out no matter where you are, but I think some people may be accustomed to pressing N as a way to fix their camera.

The other thing I want to mention, and this might just be my own problem, is that I really miss being able to move around the planet by spinning the scroll wheel while the mouse is pointed into space around the planet. I found this to be the easiest way for me to move around without losing track of my orientation, because I could do it without having to click and drag many times. I understand if this isn't something people want to have though.

Great job on the camera over all. This goes a long way towards making the scale of the game feel really, really BIG.

Turn the camera friction all the way up in the settings.

*Edit*

Read your post a second time and realized this is not what you mean.

You don't use edge scroll do you?

Basically the problem here is that when you spin it, if your spin isn't perfectly horizontal it will eventually end up at either the North pole or the South pole

UberGaf: I think what you're describing is a feature of pole lock, not edge scroll. I don't personally use either, but I could look at adding some Y damping when in pole lock mode to help the camera resist regressing to the poles.

Using the "Zoom To Celestial" keyboard shortcut zooms all the way out and spins the system really really fast.

UberGaf: This twist is an outstanding bug, and has the same root as the old twist in the transition to space cam. I'll get it stomped ASAP.

seamless zoom really makes a huge difference to the feel of the game, well done

don't really like the camera sliding, but if you can turn it down/off then great - i'm usually clicking directly on the spot I want to scroll to and dragging it to the middle of my screen, so naturally I don't want it to then slide away from where I put it

Way to fast sliding, Also the patch notes are broken...


UberGaf: The 'slide' speed is comparable to the mouse pan speed; which may need to have it's default value of 10 re-tuned. In any event you can get a more mild pan by turning down the mouse pan speed slider.

Loving the new smooth transition from the orbital layer to the solar system.

Also, it would be nice to be able to double-click a planet and be automatically brought to the orbital layer of that planet.

UberGaf: I can probably do that. Note that you can already put your mouse over a planet and zoom directly in to it. Also you can double click its portrait in the top right to go straight to that planet's orbital zoom level.

There are two issues

The second is pole lock. And that sounds good

The first I didn't explain.

If you spin the camera by flicking to the edge of the screen, it starts edge scrolling. So it stops the camera spin straight away.

So, while the camera is spinning, it interprets any other panning input (mouse, keyboard, edge) as an indication that you want to do something other than watch the world turn. So, it halts any spin in progress. This is going to almost always be the correct behavior. To complicate the issue further, if you click/pan you mouse from left to right the planet will spin in the opposite direction from how it will edge scroll if your mouse comes up against the right edge of the screen, meaning we can't simply ignore that new input. Do you have ideas about what would feel like the natural thing for the camera to do in this scenario?

It probably should ignore the edge scroll until the mouse has moved back into the screen and then back to the edge again, right? No reason to read the mouse movement as more than one command if it is all one smooth motion.

Well....

If you think about the mouse as someones hand.

What the person has done is they've whacked a globe really hard. The amount that the mouse moves determines the magnitude of the slap. The fact that the mouse hits the edge of the screen is just a side product of that movement, it isn't actually an indication that the player wants to start panning again.

I kind of think that the rotation of the planet of the planet should be adjusted by middle mouse globe spin, and then any panning controls are simply panning the camera around.

If you think of the camera as being a geostationary satellite, spinning the globe is changing the speed of the satellite to not be geostationary, and panning the camera around is changing its path around the planet.

So panning directly against the spin would slow the camera down again. (Acting as friction)


On an unrelated note, is there any possibility of adding planetary rotation in? And keeping the camera as a geostationary satellite?

absolutely wonderful, i really have no issues with it as of now, but i did have to play with my built in mouse sensitivity a little (really fast scrolling).

Very nice work @UbergGaf. This is very smooth. Also like the friction move.

1) One concern is wheter the friction move will work when the game lags or have low fps (which obvisiouly will happen from time to time). When you are playing whit low fps you are not having a very good controll on the spinn speed. Forexample if the lag/low framerates come in the midle of the mouse-spinn-move...well, you understand. Havent experienced it myself enough to be very sure about this though...

2) I also have another comment relating to the camera view, dont know if this is your table but I try: When the game cam is fixed at a point on a rotating planet, well the background (stars) obviously have to move (relativily compared to the game cam and the planet). They dont do that in the present patch. I have described it in this thread. And according to @guzwaatensen it is a easy fix:

Keep up the good work @UberGaf, its very interesting to follow the development!

Edit: tried to explaing myself better...

Planets do not rotate.

Edit: Obviously they do in real life! just not in the game. Nothing rotates. A year is as long as a day. Or do they not have days? I can't figure it out.

UberGaf: Planets do rotate in game.

Are you shure? They dont rotate? I am almost certain at least they where rotating before? Is this changed? Hmm, I need to check this out. If you are right my whole point is ...well... sort of meaningless ..... Thanks for the tip.

Well... I don't think they rotate. I never saw them rotating, and it always bothered me.

If I'm right your point is meaningful. Why don't they rotate? They have an axis to rotate around.

UberGaf: The axis is perpendicular to the ecliptic plane.

Love the new seamless camera system, makes looking around at planets much faster and easier.

Haven't noticed anything with the friction system, as I use edge scrolling to move around (like the RTS games of old). I did experiment with pole lock, but found it to not my liking, especially when fighting around the poles. Use N alot now to just reset the camera when I am done looking around the planet so I can find my base back easier (since I know where it is in relation to N or S).

You are right, they are not rotating. Well, it would have been nice. But I may understand why they do not rotate. I guess it is much easier to find back to your bases etc when the planets do not rotate compared to eachother... Now you can zoom out and back to the same place, if the planets are rotating, well....

With the new seamless cam it also would be harder to get this working, specially when the cam is far away from the planets.