Camera Controls in Editor (currently), how do you feel about it? (Feedback needed)

Help & Support
1

Hey guys.

If you feel that camera could benefit of some new or improved features, please share here.
This is related to orbiting, focusing, zooming (scroll), panning, flying (WASD) and looking around.

There is some work going over camera, as side work of something else, it will be useful to get any feedback from you guys.

2

hi there!

I find quite difficult to change between cameras in game, it’d be awesome if there was just a way of swapping cameras with just one function, for example.

Also, an easier way for post-processing, fade in/out… andsuch things!

It would be awesome if there were more optios for translating cameras with a timeline or so, for preparing cinematics and so… don’t know if I make myself clear!

3

Could you add an orbit camera and fly camera to the built in camera scripts?

4

I think Max is talking more about the Camera controls in the Editor rather than runtime camera behaviours in general.

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5

Also, swapping cameras with one function now is pretty simple. Create two cameras, and enable and disable them to switch.

cameraOne.enabled = false;
cameraTwo.enabled = true;

Transitions would be pretty cool though. Star wipes for all.

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6

Had some problems before with cameras; sorry for the silly comment @dave :smile:

So i think i’m gonna vote transitions and post process…

PD: Ahhh… simpsons… universal humour standar…

7

Sorry didn’t mentioned.
Question is related fully to Editor.

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8

Current camera controls work fine for me, have no issues with them.
The only request I would have is orbiting around certain point on object’s surface, for example by Alt + Shift + Drag.

9

I find that the camera is slightly hard to control in Editor with a trackpad. When zoom in and out, naturally I try to pinch in and out with the trackpad, but the zoom of the webpage changes and not the zoom of the editor screen, if you could attempt to make that disabled that would be great. Otherwise I’m fine with how it is.

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10

@underlight, we’ve experimented with orbiting around click point when starting orbiting. Problem is that this point is not in the middle of screen, and orbiting that way feels weird.
One option was to make camera look at that point, which introduced “extra” going on, which wasn’t intuitive.

So we’ve decided to get back to “imaginary” focus point, but difference with current system, that this point will try to stay in space in terms of distance from camera, regardless if camera is flying around. That prevents issues when focusing to large object, then you fly/mouse wheel closer to other smaller object, and focus point was totally off away under ground. Now it is a bit more predictable.

Although we could add again orbiting around point with modifier button similar to what you’ve suggested.

@PiggahBro, unfortunately browsers don’t implement functionality to deal with multi-finger actions on track pads. This is fairly annoying indeed. We could experiment certain things later on. But current focus is on good use of keyboard+mouse.

Thanks for feedback guys.

11
  • The panning with middle mouse pressed is only working if the mouse is over an entity, would be better to work as well in empty space.
  • Zooming with mouse wheel was way too sensitive some time ago, but now its not enough. Would be good to have a personal setting for this.
  • The orbit point is sometimes at a strange position, maybe it should be always at screen center, if it gets outside of the screen and no entity is focused.
12

Detzt, thanks for feedback.

Yes, it is small regression for now. It used to be just static value for panning, based on distance from focus point, which used to float whatever around. Now it is based on actual point you start dragging from. So as “empty” space has no point, we need to come up with some alternative scenario for it, which would be reasonable still, which is not that easy practically, but we will get it in future update.

Now it is based on where you are pointing. We will do a bit more tests to address this. Is your scene is “very large”? We focus usually on scale of 1 unit === 1 meeter.

Orbit point is always in the middle of screen, but distance to that point might vary. Previously if you fly forward it would fly with camera forward, and then try to orbit, it would totally be off. Now distance is kind of preserved, so if you fly forward, focus point will stay relatively where it was in terms of distance. Which made a bit more predictable focus point location comparing to old system.

13

Hi Max, by that measurement it is about 30 x 30 meters and takes a while to zoom out completely.

Ok I see. Its definitely an improvement, but sometimes I have to focus some entity, because that distance has gotten way to far.

14

Yeah, zoom same as panning, need a point of reference to work efficiently.
I might get some idea with zoom same as panning, to have “static” values.

Currently is as said, best to focus something.

15

Improved zooming and panning for camera.
Now if cursor is not pointing at anything, it will use distance to selected entities as reference.
If nothing is selected it will use distance to centre of scene or size of scene (whichever bigger) to approximate speed for zoom and panning.
As well fixed easing on camera zooming (used to depend on fps).