Camera operators ?

You've got to write youre own code for this. yep, nothing come for free in this world an this is not different.

A paper that comes to mind is Through-the-Lens Camera Control, by Gleicher and Witken. You give the camera rules for how it should act, such as keeping the ball in a certain region of the screen. Here is a link, you might find it useful.

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/gleicher92throughlens.html

EDIT: Link fixed, left out a c at the beginning, Sorry.

[Edited by - MaximusCranius on February 21, 2005 4:17:14 PM]

Quote:

Original post by Slug You've got to write youre own code for this. yep, nothing come for free in this world an this is not different.

Actually, I am very glad to hear that because it ensures me that I am about to make something really worthy. :)

Thanks

That link is broken. Though, I found another paper here.

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Original post by James Trotter That link is broken. Though, I found another paper here.

Great thanks! I'll make a use of this. :)

Game Developer had an article called "A More Cinematic Camera" a few years ago, too. You might want to check it out. Their idea was that you had several "cameramen" with different algorithms for choosing shots (one likes face shots, one stays focused on the goal, etc), and then they each report into the director with the qualities of their shots; the director then uses heuristics based on how good each shot is; how long since the last shot; what's most important overall etc, and chooses a shot.

In the sports games I have worked on, it is a combination of canned camera movements, simple camera behaviors, director AI, and scripts.

The AI is usually pretty simple. Various situations have one or more scripts associated with them. When a situation occurs, the director AI picks a script out of the available scripts for that situation. Most of the time, the choice is random.

In the case of player closeup shots and crowd shots, these are freequently canned and there is a specific camera movement for a particular scene that is played.

Keep in mind that this applies to situations where the user is not interacting with the game. It would be very difficult for the user to control the players if the camera kept switching all the time.

The paper mentioned above ins't really applicable to sports games, since there are no stairs to climb, and no rooms and obstacles to manuever through and around.

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Original post by JohnBolton The paper mentioned above ins't really applicable to sports games, since there are no stairs to climb, and no rooms and obstacles to manuever through and around.

Well, I am not thinking about any particular genere of a game. Actually, I am interested how to make cameras in games become more 'cinematic'. My further goal is to create a kind of independent 'directors AI' which would be capable of selecting the best shots and angles - only to make the game cut-scenes more exciting. If you are interested, here are two links I've found :

http://wscg.zcu.cz/wscg2004/Papers_2004_Short/G31.pdf
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20030108/hawkins_01.htm

Thanks!