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Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

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Re: Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

#11

Post by scott_karana »

0942v8653 wrote: post #6

Great article. (Unfortunately I had to finish it in w3m because the gifs were so huge.) I remember doing lerp and projected-focus before I knew what they were called. It definitely has more depth than it seems, and as I was reading I was surprised at how much thought went into some of these decisions, especially Super Mario World where I had never noticed it. I suppose it's like UX design -- you only notice it if it'…

This article is a strong candidate for in-focus GIFs, or webm, or both. I had similar issues :)

Re: Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

#12

Post by mrspeaker »

corysama wrote: post #4

Has this been seen by http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/ ? If not, it definitely should be :)

Strangely, it didn't do that well on /r/gamedev - I get the feeling that this talk, coupled with the article (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iNSQIyNpVGHeak6isbP6AHdH...) this will become the "definitive" article on 2D camera boxes. Great work!

Re: Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

#16

Post by wiradikusuma »

Awesome work!

Unfortunately, some game engines just give you the Camera and basic stuff, and you must implement scrolling yourself while wondering, "Am I doing this right?" (mostly I use LibGDX). Would be great to see this codified as a library. I think it's not game engine dependent.

Re: Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

#17

Post by jzymbaluk »

0942v8653 wrote: post #6

Great article. (Unfortunately I had to finish it in w3m because the gifs were so huge.) I remember doing lerp and projected-focus before I knew what they were called. It definitely has more depth than it seems, and as I was reading I was surprised at how much thought went into some of these decisions, especially Super Mario World where I had never noticed it. I suppose it's like UX design -- you only notice it if it'…

I was also having a major issue reading this article on mobile. Every app I tried to read it on was crashing repeatedly, with increasing frequency as I got to the bottom of the page.

Re: Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

#18

Post by babuskov »

I wish every game developer read this. Some really popular games have bad camera movement. For example, Limbo has poor vertical camera and you have to make "leap of faith" often. Trine has problem with scene transition with multiple players so you often play off-screen. And Vlambeer games have too much shaking ;)

Re: Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

#19

Post by emsy »

babuskov wrote: post #18

I wish every game developer read this. Some really popular games have bad camera movement. For example, Limbo has poor vertical camera and you have to make "leap of faith" often. Trine has problem with scene transition with multiple players so you often play off-screen. And Vlambeer games have too much shaking ;)

Sreenshake can be turned off, but they have a problem with their offscreen action. That is, enemies that are 2 screens away from you can shoot you mercilessly which is even worse than a leap of faith because it's purely random and can't be prevented with skill or knowledge.

Re: Scroll Back: The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

#20

Post by babuskov »

emsy wrote: post #19
babuskov wrote: post #18

I wish every game developer read this. Some really popular games have bad camera movement. For example, Limbo has poor vertical camera and you have to make "leap of faith" often. Trine has problem with scene transition with multiple players so you often play off-screen. And Vlambeer games have too much shaking ;)

Sreenshake can be turned off, but they have a problem with their offscreen action. That is, enemies that are 2 screens away from you can shoot you mercilessly which is even worse than a leap of faith because it's purely random and can't be prevented with skill or knowledge.

Yes. I've had such moments in Nuclear Throne very often.
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