Level Up.pdf

132 LEVEL 6 The Three Cs, Part 2—Camera
character go down. Many FPSs do this and frankly, it ’ s just stupid since in
most FPSs you are playing a character, not an airplane. If you have to have
this camera - relative control option, at least give me the option of changing
it. Even better, make the character- relative controls the default and make the
airplane controls the option.
Corners. The number one cause of camera fl ipping (when the camera
tries to find a good place to come to rest but ends up bouncing between
two or more objects) are corners. Rather than trying to come up with an
overly complicated camera system to combat flipping (and believe me, it
usually ends up being overly complicated), just keep players out of corners
in the first place. But rather than creating invisible geometry (oh how I hate
invisible geometry; more ranting on this later), build blocking geometry like
small retaining walls, shrubberies, boulders, or fencing which tell the player
to “ stay out! ” of corners. Don ’ t invite trouble: keep your collectables out
of corners. Keep your enemy ’ s AI path/detection zones out of corners.
Move your gameplay elements to the middle of the room. Stay out of
corners! I mean it!
OK, so you didn ’ t listen to me. You HAVE to have that one power- up nestled
in the corner of that room. Then, as your character walks into the corner
make sure your camera goes up. Imagine that the Amazing Spider- Man is
your camera man. What does Spidey do when he reaches a wall? He
climbs up. Have the camera scoot up along the surface of the wall to look
at the player from a bird ’ s - eye view (or would that be spider ’ s - eye view?).
But avoid having the camera show the player from a direct top - down view.
Not only does it look bad, but it just invites flipping once the camera tries to
decide where to look at the player.
Position. A topic of disagreement among the world ’ s greatest designers is
whether the camera should strictly follow the player as if it were attached to