Level Up.pdf

122 LEVEL 6 The Three Cs, Part 2—Camera
artwork. It ’ s pretty common for a game to have more than one style of
camera, but you should stick with one “ main ” camera style for the majority
of your gameplay and only use other camera views for specific gameplay
situations.
Static camera. A static camera does not move position and stays fixed
onto a single screen, location, and image. The earliest video games used
static cameras because (a) they hadn ’ t invented the scrolling camera yet
(duh!), (b) it allowed the player to keep their eyes on several game elements
at once and, in the case of early 3 - D games, (c) it allowed teams to
maximize the game ’ s artwork by creating art that would only be seen
“ from certain angles. ” An item in a game world that is only viewed from
one angle doesn ’ t need a backside, which saves on production and
processing time.
Even though they ’ re old school, static cameras can still be found in use
today in many Flash - based arcade/puzzle games like Peggle and those
“ find the object ” games that your mom likes to play. Another advantage to
using a static camera is that you can use it to set the mood. A clever
use of the static camera to help mood can be found in early survival horror
titles like Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil. These developers not only
used the static camera shot to represent a single room, but also used it
to set up the camera for maximum effectiveness. Another advantage is that
you can easily use it to set up events in your game world, because you
don ’ t run the risk of a player looking the other way when it happens.
However, you have to be careful with a static screen because they aren ’ t
very dynamic. Make sure to compensate for this problem with lots of
animation and effects to keep your screen lively.
If you aren ’ t satisfied with a camera that stays put, you can always ask your
programmer nicely to make it into a scrolling camera instead.