Chase Cam...?

Have a question, suggestion, or comment about Aleph One's features and functionality (Lua, MML, the engine itself, etc)? Post such topics here.
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Flippant Sol
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Aleph One has a cool feature, and that's the ability to play the games in third person! So why doesn't anybody use it?
One; It wasn't in the original games, and
Two; No one likes staring at the back of their own head.

There's a way to configure and control the Chase Cam using the preferences file for each game. It goes like this:

Code: Select all

  <chase_cam behind="1536" upward="0" rightward="0" flags="0"
    damping="0.500000" spring="0.000000" opacity="1.000000"/>
We have several tags here that can help us create a useful 3rd person view a la Gears of War or Resident Evil 4.

behind is obviously the distance between the back of the player and the camera; it is relative to the direction of the player. When the camera comes in contact with a wall or staircase, it comes closer to the player to avoid clipping, however sometimes this fails and there is visible black space. I am assuming that 1536 is 1.536 WU, but I will need clarification on that (?).

upward is also intuitively the difference between the height of the camera and the player. Can the camera clip through ceilings? Also, is this too in World Milli-units?

rightward is not as intuitive. I am assuming that it is how rightward the camera is of the player, and that negative values can be used to place the camera leftward of the player (?). If this is the case, can the camera be placed in FRONT of the player, or BELOW the player? Again, World Milli-units?

These next three elements I have no clue what they do or what their nature is.
damping and spring sound like how the camera comes closer to the player when hitting a wall. Do these have max values? Is flags some kind of MML specific determinant and thus a way to control the chase cam through MML? Just conjecture.

If I have any understanding of visual elements, it's that opacity is basically the brightness or fullness of the camera image, 0.000000 being pitch black. This means that you could turn the chase cam into a dimmer or shutter screen while the HUD, terminals, and overlay map remain. This could be a very cool concept for a scenario.

Is there a document I can reference to that will tell me the nature of these? I've checked the HTMLs. Nothing about XML or chase cams. Once I know what I'm working with, I can figure out the optimal settings and do the minimal amount of backing out and saving. Also, if anyone has tinkered with this, post your values.
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Pfhorrest
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I think opacity controls the opacity of the player sprite. So you could have a chase cam looking at the back of your opaque head, or a chase cam looking clear though your invisible head, or anything in between.
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Flippant Sol
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Pfhorrest wrote:I think opacity controls the opacity of the player sprite. So you could have a chase cam looking at the back of your opaque head, or a chase cam looking clear though your invisible head, or anything in between.
Well, I did a lot of backing out and saving, and from what I can tell, setting the behind, upward, and rightward isn't enough. Whenever you steer the camera towards the left, the player moves into the center and blocks the reticle. Is there a way to make the Marine transparent but not the weapons in hand in MML or LUA? Looking into it now. Oh, and the opacity? Does nothing.
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Flippant Sol
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Flippant Sol wrote: Well, I did a lot of backing out and saving, and from what I can tell, setting the behind, upward, and rightward isn't enough. Whenever you steer the camera towards the left, the player moves into the center and blocks the reticle. Is there a way to make the Marine transparent but not the weapons in hand in MML or LUA? Looking into it now. Oh, and the opacity? Does nothing.
Well guys, I found out what damping and spring are, and I found out the hard way!
Here is what damping looks like when set to 1.000000:
http://vimeo.com/249774358
As you can see, Damping effects the marine models sturdiness on screen. Higher numbers mean that the marine can move more on the screen, and 0.000000 means that the marine will always stay still in position on the screen. I didn't want the marine to look too robotic, so I opted for 0.125000 damping myself.

Here is what spring looks like when set to 1.000000:
http://vimeo.com/249774342
Spring does exactly what it sounds like. It creates a bounce effect whenever the camera moves and stops. the default is 0.000000 and I think there was some good thinking behind that, but it is a neat effect and I plan to put it to good use with 0.125000 spring personally.
I've checked for everything and I still cannot find out what that opacity toggle does. Reticle, Player, Brightness, HUD, nope.

Time to read the HTMLs and write a script.
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Flippant Sol
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Does anyone know how to get the keyboard default element to work?
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