Using the Camera MCU's in SP mission

[Flashy]

Hi All,

 

Been playing around with the camera operators in the mission editor for  a few days now and I cant seem to get them to do anything. I want to "force" an external custom camera angle of my plane at the beginning of the mission while some subtitles play, so I set up both a camera point and camera operator in the ME and have tried linking them and activating them both in a few different ways (target links form various other MCU's etc), but nothing seems to actually work. Is it possible to do what I am trying to do? Can you force the player camera to change during a SP mission, or is it not possible? I know I got it to work a long time ago in the RoF ME, but nothing I do in the BoS editor seems to do anything ?

 

thanks in advance for any replies!

Edited December 26, 2018 by Flashy

[JimTM]

See "Create Views That a Mission Participant Can See" on pg. 53 of the editor manual.

[WWSitttingDuck]

Jim, the reason "save position" is not available is because the user deselected the camera operator when moving the camera position around.  In addition to redoing the steps, it is also possible to locate the camera operator in the mission tree, and if you right click on it  you can "select" it.   Then save position should be available.

[Flashy]

Hi Jim,

 

thanks for the reply. I did see that in the manual, but its not quite what I am after. However, I have got it to work now by deactivating the player aircraft at the beginning of the mission and setting my camera view to be the default for all coalitions. Now the mission does indeed show my camera at the beginning and drops the player into the cockpit when I want it to. However, there is a bug now: there is no "Finish mission" option available in the menu when you hit ESC - only a "Finish Spectate". So the player cant actually exit the mission anymore! ? I am working on trying to fix that now..

 

Another thing, how do you make the camera follow a path? I have linked a whole bunch of Trigger Camera Points together, and set the speed etc, then linked the camera operator to the first Camera point, but that also does nothing when activated..

[JimTM]

2 hours ago, WWSitttingDuck said:

Jim, the reason "save position" is not available is because the user deselected the camera operator when moving the camera position around.  In addition to redoing the steps, it is also possible to locate the camera operator in the mission tree, and if you right click on it  you can "select" it.   Then save position should be available.

 

Thanks Sitting Duck. I'll update the note.

 

FYI, Sitting Duck refers to the note in step 2c, on pg. 54 of the manual. 

[JimTM]

2 hours ago, Flashy said:

Hi Jim,

 

thanks for the reply. I did see that in the manual, but its not quite what I am after. However, I have got it to work now by deactivating the player aircraft at the beginning of the mission and setting my camera view to be the default for all coalitions. Now the mission does indeed show my camera at the beginning and drops the player into the cockpit when I want it to.

 

However, there is a bug now: there is no "Finish mission" option available in the menu when you hit ESC - only a "Finish Spectate". So the player cant actually exit the mission anymore! ? I am working on trying to fix that now..

        Weird. I encountered a similar bug when I copied a player tank, which currently makes both tanks player tanks. In this case, you cannot exit the SP mission
        unless you press Esc., choose "Restart Mission" from the menu, and then exit the mission from the map.

 

Another thing, how do you make the camera follow a path? I have linked a whole bunch of Trigger Camera Points together, and set the speed etc, then linked the camera operator to the first Camera point, but that also does nothing when activated..

        I did some testing on that when I wrote the manual, but I could never get it to work properly. Check out the beginning sequence in the first mission of
        Albert's Life, a free scripted campaign from SYN_Haashashin. Haash has a camera path that works, but I haven't analysed the setup yet.

 

 

 

 

[Flashy]

Quote

Weird. I encountered a similar bug when I copied a player tank, which currently makes both tanks player tanks. In this case, you cannot exit the SP mission
        unless you press Esc., choose "Restart Mission" from the menu, and then exit the mission from the map.

 Yeah, thats the exact same bug I get. If I try and disable the player plane at the beginning and only spawn it later, it kinda works (you get dropped into the cockpit at the right time etc) but you cant start the engine or anything and the only option available in the ESC menu is "Finish Spectate", so its kinda broken. If ,however, I  spawn the player normally at the beginning of the mission, then the cameras only work if you press f12 - there doesn't seem to be a way to force the external camera at the start of the mission if the player is already spawned - it just defaults to cockpit view. I'll check out those missions of Alberts life (just busy converting them to new game version) because if their external cameras are working without breaking the player plane then there must be a way to do it..

 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by Flashy

[JimTM]

47 minutes ago, Flashy said:

 Yeah, thats the exact same bug I get. If I try and disable the player plane at the beginning and only spawn it later, it kinda works (you get dropped into the cockpit at the right time etc) but you cant start the engine or anything and the only option available in the ESC menu is "Finish Spectate", so its kinda broken. If ,however, I  spawn the player normally at the beginning of the mission, then the cameras only work if you press f12 - there doesn't seem to be a way to force the external camera at the start of the mission if the player is already spawned - it just defaults to cockpit view. I'll check out those missions of Alberts life (just busy converting them to new game version) because if they are still working then there must be a way to do it..

 

 

 

Try this mission:

JimTMTestCameraOperatorDefault2c.zip

 

An "External Fixed" camera is triggered 500ms after mission begin and 10 seconds after that, the "Cockpit" camera is triggered.

 

I made the following notes long ago re. the "External Fixed" camera operator type:

• View is behind and above the object specified in "First Object". First object can be the camera itself or any object on the map (even if the camera operator translator can't see it).
• You can change the camera position to change the view. E.g., if you want the view at ground level, place the camera underground by some amount (try -80m).
• The viewpoint moves in sync with the object specified. E.g., As the plane moves forward, the view moves forward.
• Once you press F12 to view the next camera operator (assuming the external fixed is the only one) the view goes to the camera position, wherever that may be.

Because the view is from above and behind the "object" specified (in this case, the camera MCU), I placed "Cam - External" underground (MCU property Y: 100) and quite close to the plane. So, the resulting view is from ground level and back a reasonable amount.

 

The location and orientation of the "Cockpit" camera does not matter.

 

I specified 500ms after mission begin to avoid getting an in-cockpit view and then an external view. I'm not sure if this gives sufficient time for mission loading in all cases though. Normally, I use a 2 second delay after mission start before my mission logic starts working.

[Flashy]

Ah! you sir, are a genius! The key is that you have to set the "first object" in the advanced properties of the camera operator translator to something, otherwise it doesnt work! I didnt know you had to set that, so thats why it wasnt working. Thanks!

 

 

[JimTM]

You're welcome Flashy.