Camera Suite Improvements: Update Notes

Hi Sally, I like what I see and I appreciate your patience
And... after a sip of coffee I wonder...

Why didn't they add the "Welding" function to the Arc Cuter and allow me to collect materials to fix my ship's hull when I'm exploring
It is very rare for an explorer to have a hull repair drone at this time

I wanted things to do on foot outside the "Pew Pew bubble"
 

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Hi Sally, I like what I see and I appreciate your patience
And... after a sip of coffee I wonder...

Why didn't they add the "Welding" function to the Arc Cuter and allow me to collect materials to fix my ship's hull when I'm exploring
It is very rare for an explorer to have a hull repair drone at this time

I wanted things to do on foot outside the "Pew Pew bubble"

Howard I was all invested in this being a Camera Suite question seeings as we're here :') Made me smile.
That's a very exciting idea though.
 
Fantastic stuff! Working the camera on the "on foot" part of our epic HCS/Elite video was hard with the blackouts. We'd get a whole minute long sequence perfect and then BLACKOUT DOOOOOM just as we were getting the end of the shot.

Some cunning cuts and splices made it look smoooth though (ok, the voiceover actor helped a lot with making it so)
 

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
I suspect that every time someone asks Sally about the release date, QA takes just a little bit longer...

I don't know what more to do :') A known and certified release time/date is not something I would sit on going "hmmmmm we gonna make that lovely community wait. Even though I TOTALLY KNOW when it is...I'm just not gunna say a word MUAHAHAHAHAHHAHA" - Like I don't know what more to say :')
 
It's a good idea really. We've been thinking about opening up Forum AMAs again actually.
Great, it's important to note that AMAs need answers from the actual team, not the community as community answers regarding developer questions are obviously of no value.
However, if this would not be the case, then I fear AMAs will be of no use.
Only the team itself can answer questions regarding processes behind the scenese. Please keep this in mind when considering to reintroduce AMAs.
 
I'd just like to point out that this thread doesn't represent Update 6 on a whole, Commanders. I just thought it might be nice to share extra info with you all on the technical side of work carried out as part of the Camera Suite improvements...
Much appreciated. Even though I'm no camera aficionado it's still interesting to understand the changes and it's also good to showcase the work of some of the other members of the development team who are busy working behind the scenes at the moment, but could perhaps join you on a stream in the future.
 

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Much appreciated. Even though I'm no camera aficionado it's still interesting to understand the changes and it's also good to showcase the work of some of the other members of the development team who are busy working behind the scenes at the moment, but could perhaps join you on a stream in the future.

This! This is exactly the sentiment I was hoping would come of this :) Thank you for seeing through to it! o7
 

sallymorganmoore

Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Great, it's important to note that AMAs need answers from the actual team, not the community as community answers regarding developer questions are obviously of no value.
However, if this would not be the case, then I fear AMAs will be of no use.
Only the team itself can answer questions regarding processes behind the scenese. Please keep this in mind when considering to reintroduce AMAs.

Nono, I know that :) Pretty sure they were done a lonnnnng time ago with actual developers present. I'll dig up on how they were handled and how we can look to reignite them in the future.
 
Yes because obviously the camera suite is the highest priority bug that needs to be fixed first.
/sarcasm

Don't hate me, someone has to say it.
I don't hate you, cmdr. But in my view Odyssey is a big puzzle that needs many pieces to be placed. Try to think about it this way: the camera issue was troubling the devs until one had an epiphany. So, instead of just letting it go, they fixed it so they're now able to deal with the bugs that bug you :)
 
That video looks great. I think there's lots of little annoyances that I've learned to live with in the camera suite that this will sort out. Question: Does the new collision detection actually prevent the camera from going through things, or just make it less of an issue? And if it's the first, then does your comment about the camera being between a rock and a hard place mean that the camera can't get "stuck" and will revert to the blackout if the alternative is the camera being wedged somewhere we can't move it?

On a different note, there was a brilliant suggestion in the Odyssey Alpha forum I think, about tagging or watermarking photos/videos with the same details that are stored in the logs: current system, landed planet, cmdr name, etc. Do you know if the team knew about that suggestion/ruled it out?
 
Greetings Commanders!


Once again, thank you to all involved in the brainstorming of issues and quality of life requests to help improve the Camera Suite for Elite Dangerous: Odyssey.
With so many areas of Odyssey to cover right now, we haven't been able to implement all of the top requested tweaks as part of our forthcoming Update 6, but we are excited to have taken this healthy step in what we hope is the right direction for a more optimal experience.
We will naturally continue to listen to feedback further as time goes on...I'm just glad we got to tackle the 'Signal Lost' issue for you, at the very least right now!

I tell you what, let's do this in the style of my favourite things in the whole wide world (second to Commanders) - Update Notes.

Update 6: Camera Suite Improvements.
  • Fixed several issues that could cause occlusion by another vessel or certain parts of the player's own ship/SRV to cause the vanity camera to black out.
    • This should return the vanity camera collision behaviour in space and on planets away from any settlements to it's Horizons behaviour.
  • Implemented a brand new collision detection approach for the "Free Camera" mode of the Camera Suite:
    • Instead of trying to detect when the camera is inside geometry and blacking out the camera (Tech speak: This was an unsolvable problem for non-sealed/manifold trimesh hitcheck, which led to many false-positives in our current implementation), we now use collision detection to prevent the camera from entering any hitcheck in the first place.
  • This allows Commanders to fly the camera freely around a settlement, social space, or other location, without the camera blacking out whenever the line of sight to the player's vessel is occluded.
  • Added better collision detection for the Camera Suite in and around hangars.
    • This fixes the camera blacking out or being prevented from entering the lobby area.
  • Disabled the AABB collision detection vs non-moving (docked or landed) ships.
    • This allows Commanders to get closer to their ships for screenshots.
  • Disabled environmental collision detection when ships are moving between the hangar and the surface or back again.
    • This fixes the camera blacking out momentarily during this transition.
The max distance ranges on the free cam are:
  • 3km for ships in space
  • 250m for ships on planets and SRVs
  • 125m for on foot (This is now raised as of Update 6 from the previous 100m)

The only situations where the free camera will still black out are "between a rock and a hard place" sitations, where the camera is stuck between two vessels, or a vessel and the environment.

As Arthur said recently on Supercruise News, we would LOVE to do a deep dive stream with developer guests to talk through the Camera Suite in greater detail as part of future community plans, but for now I hope the above notes satisfy you a little bit, with showing what tweaks have gone on behind the scenes and the expected results you'll hopefully enjoy more as part of the changes.

Let's keep talking!

Again, I do understand that a lot of feedback and amazing ideas for future updates to the Camera Suite were submitted in our previous brainstorm session, which I have entirely kept and still check in on, but let's go one step at a time in line with all of the other really promising and massively beneficial updates coming for Odyssey moving forward.

Thank you so much again, Commanders! o7
Sally, thank you! Your posts are restoring faith in the entire game! You are literally carrying this community to brighter future on your shoulders :) You are amazing CM !
 
I really like this! Lets keep doing it please!!!

On the subject. Not sure how feasible it is but I would love it if the camera mode remembered the way it was when re-engaged. If I have setup a great view and I'm grabbing some shots but have to switch back to first person I'd really appreciate it if I didn't have to enter the camera, get back the base view angle, enter free camera, re-establish my position and angle blur and everything again.

:D
 
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