Fishery : Camera Play Pt 1

February 5, 2017

Getting a camera to follow the action of a swimmer game has been tricky. Because the avatar can swim in any direction, the camera has a to do more than stay top-down. My first attempt was simply to make a free rotating camera and a swim button. The avatar will then swim in the direction that the camera is facing, but this created a very rigid and  tunneling view from directly behind the swimmer’s butt. I wanted something with more soft camera drifting that would momentarily show more angles of the avatar as the camera sweeps to behind the swimmer. To do this, I had to abandon the simple “swim in the direction of the camera” control scheme.

I added a steering touch pad, and corresponding keypad controls (arrow keys) to allow the player to freely orient the avatar before engaging the swim/thrust button. I want the player to be able to inspect his own avatar from any angle while not swimming, so I made sure that the camera only follows from behind the player when the swim/thrust button is engaged. The follow cam now smoothly engages with the swim/thrust button and offers a soft, natural delay when the avatar makes turns.