Debug Camera Issues and Ideas to improve it.

[XCaliber]

Hi Everyone,

The Problems we find with the current setup of the Debug Camera Mode and the ideas we might have to improve upon it.

Here's my thoughts: What's Your Thoughts?

Camera starting position inconsistent. On a Type-6 the camera position starts on top of the ship on a Type-7 it starts at the bottom.
Speed of changing camera position is too slow. Easy to miss an opportunity due to setup time taking too long.
Jumping into hyperspace while in Debug camera mode: The camera seems to float back to cab view on its own... sometimes creating a view that shows the wire frame of the ship.
Auto Docking and using the Debug Camera: Debug needs to work with other things like just before leaving the Dock and using the Autodocking module.
Popup Menu. Do we really need the popup menu? I would prefer an overlay (If we must have something to indicate we are in Debug camera mode) but obviously not interfering with our screen shot.
Formatting High Definition Bitmap only? Why not have other formats to choose from for High Definition screen shots?


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Idea's to make it better than it is currently:




Increase the speed or perhaps have set positions that we can quickly get to a desired point on the ship
Constant starting position or Remember last postion?
Remove popup menu..if necessary, use overlay that says we are in debug camera mode...(but don't allow this overlay to be part of the Screenshot we take).
Allow Jpg and Png format for High Definition and others if possible.
Increase the speed of movement of the camera 20x ... I miss many beautiful moments because I can't setup the camera quick enough.
Show the Rockets burning fuel during a screen shot to show motion. Some times I can not get the rockets to burn even with 100% speed applied.
When I take screen shots of Outpost stations and other stations... I do not want to include the "Yellow Boxes" indicating the number of the landing pad.. This is somewhat unsightly and distracts from the beauty of it all.

 

[XCaliber]

Hi Everyone,

The Problems we find with the current setup of the Debug Camera Mode and the ideas we might have to improve upon it.

Here's my thoughts: What's Your Thoughts?

Camera starting position inconsistent. On a Type-6 the camera position starts on top of the ship on a Type-7 it starts at the bottom.
Speed of changing camera position is too slow. Easy to miss an opportunity due to setup time taking too long.
Jumping into hyperspace while in Debug camera mode: The camera seems to float back to cab view on its own... sometimes creating a view that shows the wire frame of the ship.
Auto Docking and using the Debug Camera: Debug needs to work with other things like just before leaving the Dock and using the Autodocking module.
Popup Menu. Do we really need the popup menu? I would prefer an overlay (If we must have something to indicate we are in Debug camera mode) but obviously not interfering with our screen shot.
Formatting High Definition Bitmap only? Why not have other formats to choose from for High Definition screen shots?


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Idea's to make it better than it is currently:




Increase the speed or perhaps have set positions that we can quickly get to a desired point on the ship
Constant starting position or Remember last postion?
Remove popup menu..if necessary, use overlay that says we are in debug camera mode...(but don't allow this overlay to be part of the Screenshot we take).
Allow Jpg and Png format for High Definition and others if possible.
Increase the speed of movement of the camera 20x ... I miss many beautiful moments because I can't setup the camera quick enough.
Show the Rockets burning fuel during a screen shot to show motion. Some times I can not get the rockets to burn even with 100% speed applied.
When I take screen shots of Outpost stations and other stations... I do not want to include the "Yellow Boxes" indicating the number of the landing pad.. This is somewhat unsightly and distracts from the beauty of it all.

I just heard that Frontier has plans for a new Camera system. If this is true, please disregard this thread...

 

[Evenios]

I think the movement is clunky. I think some custom mapping would be nice. tying the forward and boward to the thrusters is just not a great idea. also if you could have the option of showing the debug camera message just ONCE instead of everytime. would be nice. some easier way to rotate around your ship or what for the best angle would be great.

 

[Eagle Eye]

Because it is a DEBUG feature that was purposely "nerfed' to prevent it to be used to gain advantage during combat. It is clunky by design & community request. Read up on the massive thread that discuss it.

 

[xondk]

The DEBUG camera is not meant to have any advantages, it is meant to be for screenshots only, and that is why it isn't moving and turning faster, so you can't use it in combat or somesuch without substantial risk.

so no..doesn't need changing in my opinion

 

[Troa Barton]

I don't see the issue with speeding it up a little.
i wish you could use it with auto dock, wish there wasn't a bounding box around your ship, I wish it remembered the last location it was in, wish you could boost while in debug mode.
that notification is annoying.
cant zoom out very far.
not having access to ship health, unable to use shield cells, and not being able to change your system power is enough of a drawback to not use it in combat.

 

[Elan]

I'd be really keen to see improvements made to how the cam currently works.

As it stands it's great for shooting stills, but it's incredibly clunky for trying to shoot video as we've been encouraged to do for the ctrl+alt+space competition.

To start with some basics, the box surrounding the ship really needs to be rounded to make panning around the ship a more smooth experience. Also the digital directional inputs from hat switches etc could use some fine tuning to again smooth the camera panning.


Hopefully FD will really go to town on the cam to give us a tool capable of producing truely great cinematography.

 

[TriumphANT]

There are some major bugs in it too, mostly to do with throttle and orientation AFTER you've used it in SC. Really, really annoying. I was trying to do a time lapse flying from about 2000Ls towards a ternary star system. Set my throttle to 50%, my arrival time should have been about 4 minutes, and I moved to debug cam. Tapped F10 every 4 seconds exactly. Almost hypnotic. 10 minutes later, the ternary stars still hadn't resolved into discs, so I hit "0". My throttle WAS at 50% on the display, but jumped to zero. I was about 1800Ls away from the stars. Tried it again from there. Same result.

Earlier I was using it in normal space to look at a drifting Sidewinder. I was stationary alongside it, and used the debug cam to get a shot of my ship juxtaposed with the other ship. The other ship moved just at the last second (should've told the drifting CMDR what I was doing I suppose!), so I tapped "0" again. My ship was spinning wildly at about 30% throttle. Which is weird, because in debug cam it was rock solid. I had an outpost as the backdrop for my shot about 3km away. It seems like there's some crossover between the controls in cam and controls of the ship when entering/using/leaving debug cam.

Finally, it DOES give a small tactical advantage when docking, but I don't want it nerfed, so I'll just leave that there for perusal.

I've taken some beautiful shots when exploring, but the setup of them is so clunky. As we cannot control our ship, just having a few preset positions around the ship would be nice. Use the power management buttons for this would make sense, e.g. "reset" is the default position, "ENG" is immediately behind the thrusters at maximum distance, "WEP" is back-right position at 45 degrees with the ship centred and "SYS" is front-left position at 45 degrees. Just "far away" positions to start with.