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Better zoom in?

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I did some simple research on the camera controls of SupCom, it seems in SupCom when you zoom in, the camera won't move exactly towards the position under your cursor, instead it would move along a curve (which is a side effect of the rotation during zooming), and the position under your cursor would end up vertically closer to the middle of the camera. It seems it is the main reason why it feels much better than zooming in Spring, without it playing SupCom/WarGame/RUSE/PA without minimap would be quite difficult.

Can we have something similar in Zero-K? I don't mean the rotation, but the effect of the position under your cursor end up closer to the middle of the camera, which might be achievable with a method different to SupCom.
+1 / -0


9 years ago
Doesn't it already do this? I mean, zoomin-zoomout is my fav method of scrolling and such?
+2 / -0
No, SupCom has a different method, in Zero-K if you zoomout then zoomin without moving your cursor, your camera would still be in its original position, which is not the case in SupCom.
+0 / -0


9 years ago
quote:
in Zero-K if you zoomout then zoomin without moving your cursor, your camera would still be in its original position

I have not observed this to be the case.

Are you using COFC or TA camera?
+0 / -0
Hmm, it seems it is because I'm using COFC and it has both "zoom in to cursor" and "zoom out from cursor" enabled.
But that's not important, with the default Zero-K camera the cursor's relative position to the ground would still be unchanged after zoom in, only changed after zoom out. If you zoom in to a unit close to the edge of the camera, it would still stay close to the edge of the camera, which is not the case in SupCom.

+0 / -0


9 years ago
quote:
default Zero-K camera the cursor's relative position to the ground would still be unchanged after zoom in

So basically your feature request unfolds as follows:
- COFC default camera
- Zoom in to cursor default setting true
- Zoom out from cursor default setting false

?
+0 / -0
COFC without "zoom out from cursor" is the same with the default camera, the default camera has "zoom in to cursor", and if there is a tree under your cursor, after zoom in the tree would still be under your cursor.

SupCom's camera rotate when you zoom in (like total war camera in Spring), so the cursor's position related to the ground is in gradual changes when you zoom in to cursor, that's why the camera moves along a curve instead of a straight line, and further your cursor is away from the horizontal axis of the camera, the bigger the curvature would be.
+0 / -0
Would it be easier to explain this with videos? I randomly picked two casts for comparison.

The default Zero-K zoom in:


The SupCom zoom in:


You can clearly see in Zero-K how the cursor's relative position to the map always keep unchanged during zoom in, while in SupCom it changes and units become closer to the enter of the camera.
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FIrankFFC
9 years ago
I still dont get what is your problem?
+0 / -0


9 years ago
@[ffc]Killer: As far as I can tell, CNrankqwerty3w wants to have the zoom in/out not just gradually shift the distance of the camera to the ground, but to also shift the view angle gradually from 90° (as in perpendicular to the map) to 45° during the zoom. This seems like a small challenge to implement, but only in terms of getting the details right. The biggest thing is ensuring there are elegant ways to handle the camera being rotated apart from zooming. SupCom did it by restricting rotation at high zoom levels, and making rotation at low zoom levels reset when you let go of the relevant modifier key.
+0 / -0


9 years ago
Imo the niceness of the zoom modes is entirely subjective.
+1 / -0
Zoom in to cursor while gradually tilt the camera to 45°(actually 0° in SupCom) at the same time would make the camera move into a different position than simply zoom in to cursor then tilt the camera to 45°, if you understand this you would know what I was talking about, it's not about the angle itself, but about how the gradual angle changes affect the camera movement, and how it makes zooming more intuitive.
+0 / -0

9 years ago
I would say it's less intuitive.
+1 / -0
You can notice how a Zero-K caster often use the edge-scrolling before or after zoom in, while for a SupCom caster it is just simply zoom in. If you want to zoom in to something, you would prefer it end up in the center of the camera.
+0 / -0


9 years ago
Rotating camera is not the only approach to improve centering.
+0 / -0
And I have said that in the begining.
But still the 90°to 0° rotation is probably the most easy way to do this, it is simple and has been tested in many different games, the only major flaw is it only helps the vertical centering but not the horizontal one. But the camera has more width than height, and the UI blocks a part of the vertical space, so horizontal centering doesn't matter as much as the vertical one.
+1 / -0
Is there still anyone couldn't understand the centering in SupCom? Or misunderstand it as a perspective thing like how you see things on a table become "closer" to the horizon line and each other when you lay your head down on the table?
+0 / -0
CNrankqwerty3w: Are you able to implement this into COFC, or even just write out the algorithm precisely? Most of us haven't played SupCom in years, if ever, and even with the video it seems like we aren't seeing the same thing. It does look kinda neat, but there are some edge cases with the freer rotation of COFC compared to SupCom's camera, and I suspect there's also more control over zoom level in COFC as well. I've always gotten the impression that SupCom's camera just has about 6 or so height levels and camera angles, and everything else is just the interpolated transitions between them.
+0 / -0
I'm not a lua coder, and it seems the algorithm is hardcoded so I can't find it in the lua files of SupCom, so the only thing I can provide is a speculation.

In SupCom:
5km maps have 20 zoom levels, get 45°rotation at level 10.
10km maps have 23 levels, and the last one isn't a full one, so it's actually 22.5.
20km maps have 25 levels.
81km maps have 30 levels, get 45°rotation at level 15.

Also if you try to zoom in to the north or south edge of a map, it feels like the trajectory of the camera movement come close to 4/1 of a circle.

So it seems the algorithm is really simple, the rotation angle gradually decrease from 90° to 0° at a constant rate from fully zoomed out to the ground. For example, on a 81km map, which has 30 zoom levels, the camera rotate 3° for each zoom level.

Other than this rotation and how SupCom limit the camera movements (force it to be contained in a camera shaped space which also contained the map), the SupCom camera is COFC without free rotating.
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FIrankFFC
9 years ago
...so he wants diffrence camera?
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