Spring RTS Engine

As far as i see, the control of the camera is like many 3D games.

We press the up-arrow-key(?) to move camera forward but the camera moves forward to where we are looking.

When we want to move to somewhere on the map, we will want to move while looking down. As we are always looking down, the camera always moves down.

SY's, please change this. Have the camera move always horizontaly. That way we can move forward and back on the map, with the camera looking down, without changing the camera altitude.

To change the altitude of the camera we can use something else like Page-Up/Page-Down. And/or using the mouse-wheel/both-mouse-buttons to move camera back/forward with altitude.

Since i don't know exactly how the camera control works because i'm not playing the game, if i'm wrong about how the control works, disregard my requests.

Camera control will be extremely important to how much the game will be enjoyable.

Well, in video 15, there's a camera mode named "TA style", so I guess it's already in there. I might be wrong though.

Have the camera move always horizontaly. That way we can move forward and back on the map, with the camera looking down, without changing the camera altitude.

To change the altitude of the camera we can use something else like Page-Up/Page-Down. And/or using the mouse-wheel/both-mouse-buttons to move camera back/forward with altitude.

Sean Mirrsen talked about a Total War style camera mode being implemented, which would be the same as what you are describing here. I can't remember if he said it was finished or not, but I'm pretty sure he said it would be in the game.

I think CC Generals has the right idea: a view that becomes horizontal when zoomed in, and top-down when zoomed out. Scroll Wheel zooms, press in the scroll wheel and move the mouse left/right to rotate view. The only thing Generals did wrong was that it didn't zoom out enough. I doubt that will be a problem here, especially after video15.

There are 3 camera modes.

FPS style: cursor keys move left/right, forward zooms in to where you are looking, backward zooms out. Middle mouse button look around. Mouse wheel move up and down.

Ta style, works like TA but you can zoom out and in. With wheel.

Total war, mouse hits top of screen zoom in, bottom screen zoom out, left right move left right, top left top right rotate.

In the beginning you think ARGG. But after a while you get used to it and it's really very easy.

This is really a good solution. Might be a bit more configurable to adjust to personal tastes, but at least there's a decent zoom out contrary to the average RTS in 3d.

What happens when you're in FPS mode and your peewee dies?

Also, just how far out can you zoom? I would love to have a real-time equivalent of the +makeposter function in OTA.

A question about building: do you always have to look for flat spots like in TA, or does terrain adjust to your building? Being able to build turrets and radar almost everywhere would be awesome (provided you up the cost and buildtime proportionally to the slope/irregularity of the terrain: you have to build more foundations before starting the building proper). It would be realistic too: antennas and radar are often built on mountainsides.

If the FBI file states that the building can be built on a slope, you can place it on that slope, and the builder will 'terraform' the build location so that it is flat.

Total war style means that moving the mouse to the top of the screen pans forward, to the bottom pans back, and zooming is controlled either with the keyboard or the mousewheel, which is different to what you described, Redfish.

There are 2 fps modes. On with free looking camera, and another controlling the unit with camera at units perspective. If your peewee dies, the camera is put at that last point , which isn't that good, maybe it should zoom out a bit.

If what your controlling dies the camera angle should snap back to the angle that you had befor you went FPS. Note that doesnt mean change the position just zooming level and angle. That way you will go back to what your usew to playing in, not one of the presets.

That or give the user the option between the two.

aGorm

Or perhaps if you could just set a default camera style and angle, that would also be used when you enter a game, or press the return to default camera position key...

Sean Mirrsen wrote:If the FBI file states that the building can be built on a slope, you can place it on that slope, and the builder will 'terraform' the build location so that it is flat.

Cool. That option wasn't in ordinary TA FBI files, wasn't it?

hmm im really confused about this camera angle stuff I hate thingin about angles in my head but from what Im hearing it seems spring did great

ok for some reason mine double posted and I cant figure out how to delete this so... uum the terraform sounds great because other games do this slightly and also u should be able to point ur factorys and well everything