Spring RTS Engine

smoth wrote:I cannot control that in spring.

I consider this a bug.

Wouldn't that be controllable through lua if someone was so inclined? personally I love the freedom of camera control, and dislike (for the most part) games that take it away

Funkencool wrote:Wouldn't that be controllable through lua if someone was so inclined? personally I love the freedom of camera control, and dislike (for the most part) games that take it away

They can just get around it. I don't want to lock the camera too much but I would like some control of it's zoom level and location

Funkencool wrote:personally I love the freedom of camera control, and dislike (for the most part) games that take it away

I agree that a lot of games are way too restrictive in terms of zoom ranges and viewing angles but I feel it's important to be able to pick the way you want the camera to work for your game.

The player sees your game entirely through the camera (bear with me), the way it behaves gives a structure for how the game is experienced. Limiting the zoom and even increased granularity in the zoom allows more creative control over the art. Currently you can smoothly zoom from the millielmo to all of the world which means game devs have to make their units look good and be informative at a wide variety or ranges. If you, for example, limited the zoom to smooth between close and medium then a jump to full zoomed out you would be able to give a clearer distinction between the macro and micro elements of the game.

This is all very depended on the gameplay you're trying to elicit but I think the current camera free for all is to the detriment of games.

Das Bruce wrote:

smoth wrote:I cannot control that in spring.

I consider this a bug.

that=?

edit: oh.

I would like some control of it's zoom level and location

zoom level: atm only via settings file (not changeable ingame)
location: lua

Thought there was a great deal of lua control over camera given that there's a 'complete camera control' widget, couldn't limits be put in to such a thing?

Still I guess specific callins/outs for controlling zoom etc would be helpful

Das Bruce wrote:

Funkencool wrote:personally I love the freedom of camera control, and dislike (for the most part) games that take it away

I agree that a lot of games are way too restrictive in terms of zoom ranges and viewing angles but I feel it's important to be able to pick the way you want the camera to work for your game.

The player sees your game entirely through the camera (bear with me), the way it behaves gives a structure for how the game is experienced. Limiting the zoom and even increased granularity in the zoom allows more creative control over the art. Currently you can smoothly zoom from the millielmo to all of the world which means game devs have to make their units look good and be informative at a wide variety or ranges. If you, for example, limited the zoom to smooth between close and medium then a jump to full zoomed out you would be able to give a clearer distinction between the macro and micro elements of the game.

This is all very depended on the gameplay you're trying to elicit but I think the current camera free for all is to the detriment of games.

Yea I do completely agree its an artistic part of the game and like smoth said I'm sure it would be easy enough to override, and I'm sure whoever does should be well aware of the consequences, e.g. units not looking as good outside of said range.
I think it would actually be pretty neat to see a little a time go into the camera, be that game/lua side or engine side (no idea if that's necessary). It would help it stand out in the crowd a little, for instance the total war series, which was awesome enough to be ported to spring but doesn't fit well for most spring games imo.

FLOZi wrote:Thought there was a great deal of lua control over camera given that there's a 'complete camera control' widget, couldn't limits be put in to such a thing?

Still I guess specific callins/outs for controlling zoom etc would be helpful

The problem is a lua solution can be easily overridden.

not if the lua is big enough
disable f11 menu/make your own

maybe my information is dated but I seem to recall a lot of hub-bub about how we cannot really lock down lua and how it is easily circumvented while still maintaining sync.

smoth wrote:The problem is a lua solution can be easily overridden.

Why is that such a big problem?

Surely it can be an unsynced gadget?

Das Bruce wrote:

smoth wrote:The problem is a lua solution can be easily overridden.

Why is that such a big problem?

one player can see more than others..

FLOZi wrote:Surely it can be an unsynced gadget?

Doesn't zerver want us to minimalize our usage of unsynced render stuff?

Moving the camera != drawing.

Enforce your camera limit with a gadget, and assume the user won't fight your Lua with his Lua. It's a perfectly reasonable assumption imo.

knorke wrote:zoom level: atm only via settings file (not changeable ingame)

ops, I was wrong.
While looking at specrun widget I noticed Spring.SetCameraStaet can have a .fov, at least for the "free camera" mode. (The other modes probally too but only tested that one)
Added changing fov via two keys and tada, zoomable camera.