By damocles
Date Created: 5/4/2002
Welcome to the advanced camera point tutorial. To start with, prior knowledge: Before you read this article, be sure you understand UnrealED editing basics, Deus Ex basics and how to place and edit camera points.
First of all, how do they work? Well, camera points work by taking the player and making him ethereal (in other words he can't be seen or collided with). This allows the player to move around and become the camera, without interrupting the normal flow of play. This means that there is no player object around during a camera sequence.
Let's start with a description of each of the properties you can adjust in the camera point class:
bParallel:
If this is true, then the camera will perform both its own action and the action of the next camera point in tandem. For example, you could combine a move with a push to create a funky effect.
bRandom:
If true then this camera is to be used as a random camera, for random sequences. Any cameras with this property set to true will be available for use in a random sequence.
eventName:
eventName is the tag name of something you want to trigger. This only works if the camera's command is set to CMD_Trigger. The trigger occurs as soon as the camera is activated in the sequence.
postRandomNum:
This is the sequenceNumber of the camera the sequence should resume at after a random camera point section.
randomCount:
This sets how many camera points should be randomly used when activating a random camera sequence. This only works with the CMD_Random command.
sequenceNum:
This is the number in the sequence. The sequence will play out in numerical order and there MUST be one camera with the number 0 or else your results might be screwy.
timeSmooth:
This is the time it takes to move from the camera's start position to its end position. The end position being the position of the camera in the editor. Setting this to 0.0 will result in an instant jump to the end position, like a 'cut-to' in regular film camera terms.
timeWaitPost:
This is how long the camera will wait after moving before the next camera in the sequence is activated.
Value:
This is used in conjuction with several of the CMD options. For example, if you choose CMD_FOV, the Value becomes the new Field of View value for the camera.
Cmd:
This is what tells the camera how to behave when it is it's turn to control the view. There are several options available:
CMD_Move:
This is the default option and quite simply moves the camera from wherever it starts to the point you place it in the editor. The itme it takes to move is specified by TimeSmooth.
CMD_Push:
This option will push the camera in the direction it is facing by the distance specified in Value.
CMD_FOV:
This sets the FOV (Field Of View) for the camera. The FOV can be simply thought of as a zoom function. By setting the FOV to a low value (around 10) you get a very extreme zoom almost like a sniper rifle. Higher values (higher than 90) will create a kind of fish-eye lens effect. The transition to the new FOV is done over the amount of time specified in timeSmooth.
CMD_Tilt:
Tilt is used to tilt the camera up and down. The tilting is done by the value specified in the Value property. Positive values will cause the camera to tilt up. These values are in binary angles, this means that 90 degrees is represented as 16384, 180 degrees would be 32767 and 360 degrees is 65535. For simplicity, think how many normal degrees you would like to tilt by and multiply that number by 182.042.
CMD_Pan:
Pan is used to make the camera pan left or right. The pan amount is set by the Value property. Again this uses binary angles (see CMD_Tilt) and positive numbers cause it to pan right.
CMD_Roll:
Roll is used to roll or bank the camera left and right. Again, the Value property holds the amount for the camera to roll by and is set in binary angles (see CMD_Tilt).
CMD_Wait:
This has two uses. First, if the eventName property is empty, then the camera will wait for the amount of time specified in timeSmooth (kind of redundant because you could just use the timeWaitPost property in the previous camera point).
The second function is to wait for a triggered event before continuing the sequence. To do this, set the eventName property to the event that will be triggered. The camera will then wait until something triggers that event name before continuing the sequence.
CMD_Trigger:
This simply triggers the name stored in the eventName property. The trigger is activated as soon as the camera starts it's action.
So how do we actually use them then? Simple. Create a series of camera points and set the sequenceNum property so that they run in numerical sequence. If you have a camera with the sequenceNumber of zero it will run automatically when the level starts, otherwise, trigger the first camera in the series. As it stands, the camera points do not return control to the player at the end of the sequence, so they only really are useful for intro sequences and extro sequences. Simply make the last trigger in the series trigger the mapExit actor to exit the map, otherwise the view won't change and the player will be stuck.
Now you should be able to set up elaborate sequences in no time. I hope this has been of some use to you. Thanks for reading.
| 
