Fishery : Camera Play Pt 2 (vertical loop problem)

February 5, 2017

So, after implementing the follow cam, I’ve encountered an issue with viewer disorientation. This happens when the camera follows the avatar into a vertical loop. It becomes very difficult for the viewer to know which way is up or down anymore. To solve this, I noticed that the camera in Abzu simply stops following the avatar from behind once a vertical loop has been detected. When it does, the camera zooms out, re-aligns its up vector with that of the world’s, and looks at the center of the loop. This allows the viewer to watch the avatar from a comfortably distant and static third person perspective until the loop ends.

Detecting the vertical loop is the tricky part. Intuitively, I think I’ll have to detect when the camera’s up vector is nearly upside down. More on this as I complete it.

Update: It looks like I’m going to have to prevent upside down orientation.