How hard is it to program a decent viewing angle in a game?

[SteveW]

Why are all modern 3D games plagued with bad camera angles? I'm playing Futurama for the Xbox right now. I'm at the end of the Sun City level where Leela has to jump from column to column while they're sinking into lava. The problem is that the camera doesn't always turn in the direction the character's facing, so i'm frequently jumping blindly into lava. I went from having 17 extra lives down to 5 before I started screaming at the TV and shut the machine off. This isn't a new thing, though. ever since games have been going 3D, there have been bad camera angles that never follow the character properly, crippling the game. Don't these companies have playtesters? Can't the programmers tell that if the chase camera constantly ends up in a wall, making it impossible to see your character or who's attacking it, their game is not going to do very well? With the enormous amount of people working on a single game, why can't anyone spot these things and try to fix them?

[CPUWIZ]

A 3D camera is not a trivial thing to program, most of the time regardless of it's results, a dedicated camera programmer has to work almost the entire length of a project to get the camera "right".

[SteveW]

I wonder if there's a lot of turnover in that profession. Or just people being fired for gross incompetence.

[CPUWIZ]

A bad camera is not always the programmers fault.

[Inky]

A bad camera is not always the programmers fault.  

 

I was wondering when CPUWiz would respond.

[Starscream]

3d platform games are sometimes more frusterating than fun anymore mainly because of the camera angles IMO. I will see a kick ass looking games and then see it's a platformers and I almost alwasy skip it. FPS seem so much more enjoyable now with the exception of the last Turok - bad camera in an FPS?! Unbelievable....

[MegaManFan]

And at times like these, it's no surprise I'm nostalgic for the days of 16 bit or less consoles.

 

* Bad 3-D motion gives me nausea and headaches.

* Bad 3-D motion makes some games frustratingly impossible.

* Bad 3-D motion is not only nauseating and frustrating but LOOKS BAD.

 

It can be done right, but when it's done wrong, I just say fuck it and go back to playing Mega Man.

[RCmodeler]

Mario 64* was one of the FIRST 3D games. If Nintendo could "get it right" back in 1996, why can't companies get it right today? Sheer ineptitude IMHO.

 

If the company is too dumb to program a decent camera, than just make it a fixed camera (like Pac-Man World) or with a pre-programmed route (like Final Fantasy 10)

 

 

 

* One of my favorite scenes in Mario 64 is when you walk into the room of mirrors, and you can see the camera guy floating on his little cloud! Nice attention to detail Nintendo!

[AtariDude]

I rather be given a choice of seeing my character from slightly behind the character and slightly above. It is much easier to follow that way. It would be great if I could just set that as the default viewing angle for a game.

[liveinabin]

Mario 64* was one of the FIRST 3D games.

 

One of the first 3D games? How old are you? I mean, good lord, even Ridge Racer is older than Mario 64. You're out by a good 20 years as far as 3D games go.

[MegaManFan]

I'm pretty sure Wolfenstein 3-D existed LONG before Mario 64. Hell, Battlezone was around long before that

[joeybastard]

Ridge Racer, Wolfenstein and Battlezone don't act in the same way as something like Mario 64 though. The fact that you can move and look anywhere in the "physical" plane in something like Mario64 is much different then say Wolfenstein's linear straight ahead view.

[MegaManFan]

In that case then, I can think of at least one 386 or 486 game I played that qualifies. It was a 3-D stunt car game where when you got bored with the pre-set tracks you could build your own. You could face any direc tion, move in any direction, and you were not limited to one "plane" since you could go flying through the air.

[joeybastard]

I don't doubt that there are precursors with good camera angles, I was just pointing out that the 3 mentioned by various people may not be the best examples.

 

I personnally thought the angles in Mario 64 were the best I've seen in that type of game. I didn't have any problem with them. 2nd place for me is Jet Grind Radio on the DC, I have no big issues with those angles either.

[RCmodeler]

Dear Anal Retentives:

 

I said Mario 64 was ONE...... repeat...ONE... of the first 3D games. I did not say it was "the" first.

 

(You may now remove the executive branch from your anus.)

[RCmodeler]

BACK ON TOPIC:

 

My point was that Mario 64's camera was near-perfect back in 1996. Given that such camera movement was perfected way back in 1996, why would programmers have a difficult time with cameras in 2003??? None that I can think of except pure ineptitude.

[Godzilla]

I always hated the camera angles in Mario 64 and they killed me a lot. But I will say this, most of what came later does make mario 64 look good by comparison. I never had a problem with Saturn Tomb Raiders camera, though.

 

As far as the fun history lessons, to the best of my knowledge, the first 3rd person 3d platformmer was 'Continuum' for Amiga/PC. A really fun game, and a great flexible camera too :-)