Focused Feedback Thread - Camera Suite

Hi Sally,

It would be very nice if we could have the same keymapping for ship, SRV and on foot.
It makes no sense that I need to configure different key to open camera mode.

Removing blackout would also be very nice.

Also, the ransomware shield of Avast is making is impossible to take screenshots either from frontier or epic account (many games have this issue)

Stay awesome <3
Definetley this.
 
Top issue right now:
Definitely the black out. I personally think the spoiler aspect of the camera blackout isn't as serious of an issue. Same with seeing the inside of the planet. People don't enter the camera suite to experience the game from the player perspective. If we were seeing the inside of the planets from the player POV, THAT would be a problem. And people trying to spoil themselves are going to find a way even without the camera. Youtube is littered with tutorial videos and spoiler images of ED experiences.

That being said, I think the blackout could be justified against misuse of the camera against other players, in PvP for example. Especially on-foot now, where seeing through walls would be a much bigger advantage.

My short term suggestion for that would be only applying the blackout on-foot, if possible. It's never really an advantage in PvP in the ships.


Long term suggestions/Opinions:

Based on my opinion of the misuse of the camera, I think going for a collision based camera is not the answer. It might stop some misuse, but only if there's no collision-free path for a camera to take. For example, players could still position cameras around corners and fly through hallways.
Having camera collision might be nice if you're trying to stop the spoiler stuff and hiding the ugly parts of the game, but I still don't think this is an issue. It would seem like a lot of work for something that players care little about.

My suggestion would be to completely disable the camera suite in on-foot Conflict Zones only, if that's possible. Then allow the full freedom of the suite outside of Conflict Zones. My reasoning is that on-foot PvP is the only place I can see serious misuse happening, and Conflict Zones are the only place where players are attracted and inclined to stay for PvP.

Also, to address VR, I've seen some others say that the camera suite might be the perfect system to allow the on-foot first-person VR experience. I think that might be a good compromise if we're not going for the full VR compatibility on-foot. I understand that VR has the potential to be misused way more than the camera suite, and adding full VR compatibility is a very big technical challenge. But as it stands right now, we already have a 3rd person POV in VR when in the on-foot camera suite. VR playspaces can already be manipulated from there. So we might as well provide a first-person preset (which removes the character head) and let people at least enjoy walking around and exploring in VR.
At the very least, we need the option to fly around in the free cam mode again
 
Current camera suit is absolutely OK for me.

I am not video editor/producer/film maker whatever.
Rather rare I can switch to external camera to have a look at my shiny ship or have a look around when in SRV.
The camera satisfies the needs perfectly.

Thanks!
 
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Top Current Issues/Quality of Life Requests
  • Remove blackout effect
  • Remove camera collision with ships, SRVs and humanoids, it can ruin the shot if players get too close to the camera (at the least, use the actual collision mesh instead of the big invisible bounding box)
  • Fix the preset cameras connected to the outside of the SRV from snapping when the SRV is driving/bouncing (camera movement is not smooth but ugly)

Long Term Wish List
  • Allow night vision to be used in free cam, this is a great effect for pictures on the darkside, we also use it to film people during races on the darkside of the planet, using a bug (example:
    Source: https://youtu.be/pDiPbNFTAmw?t=160
    ) -- We would hate to lose that feature/bug during a rework of the sytem
  • Allow free cam movement inside of cockpit so we can choose our own location in the cockpit
  • Allow custom presets to be saved/removed/edited (storing location, angle, zoom, DoF settings)
 
Some sort of camera drone? Cyberpunk had a really good photo mode, most of it inapplicable for ED, but it was still neat. I only learned how to even USE it because of one side mission, rally.
 
What everyone else said., but I thought I would throw something out there.

Long Term Wish List

In counterstrike you could record some gameplay, but what it was recording was the position of various in game assets over time.

Then after it was recorded you could edit the camera path and replay from different points of view. This would provide an incredible level of control to creators who would be able to showcase the game in ways never before possible without requiring multicrew.
 
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Blackout as a seperate point, because it seems like a difficult thing:
In the short term, maybe at least remove it completely where nothing critical is around. Things like the SRV, biological and geological objects, or even stones really shouldn’t count as trigger.
If there’s stuff that really needs prevention from going inside with the camera suite (Thargoid sites, guardian sites, settlement buildings): Make specific collisions/blackout rules for it and let us clip through everything else.
I liked the camera drone idea from one of the streams. It could be an even more long-tethered camera like a “SLF” launched when on foot, to do exactly what you prevent with the collision: Flying in them is now possible, but since the drone is physical it has to follow the same rules as the player – can be spotted, shot and destroyed.


Top current issues/QoL requests:
  • Longer tether distance.
  • What ObsidianAnt showcased here in #81
  • Increased maximum zoom.
  • PNG instead of BMP (or setting to choose which one)
  • System, planet info in the file name.
  • Nightvision in free camera. (See #118, to which I would add my support to not get rid of the "glitched"/"bugged" camera! It does a few things like tether distance and clipping already better than the default camera.)

Wishlist:
  • Save positions/settings and a reset to default keybind.
  • Filters (or at least gamma, contrast, saturation sliders etc.)
  • Free movement inside the cockpit.
  • Tighter collision boxes around ships or let us clip through them.
  • Gestures or poses for the character. Even if only avaliable in camera mode.

Probably impossible, but:
  • Hyperspace jump and fleet carrier jump not closing the camera suite. It could even freeze the current settings and just allow orbiting movements around the ship/carrier during the jump.
 
I’d like to mention that I’m on PS5, in hopes that this is something that can be implemented for both PC and Console CMDRs.

Top Current Issues/Quality of Life Requests
  • Remove blackout completely. It really does more harm than good. The videos I could make with that one change… oops I’m drooling.
Long Term Wish List
  • Someone else mentioned “Add the ability to plot camera movement with several point to prepare the perfect path for video” This is something my friends and I used in believe it or not… (Call Of Duty - Black Ops 1) They called it “Theater Mode” we could place a dolly camera system anywhere we wanted, with timers between cameras to increase/decrease speed and tons of other options I can’t recall at the moment, it was a thing of beauty. 🥰
 
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My only issue-- real issue-- is the controls ,they are switching when, i com back from srv the srv controls are now my ship controls I have to exit game to get my ship controls back to normal X52 settings . I have Defaults On Foot-Keyboard and mouse SRV X52 presets -Ship X52 presets but some things works and some do not .
 
Long Term Wish List for On Foot:
  • Place a camera inside or above head of commander (body camera).​
  • Provide controller (binding) to select body camera on or off.​
  • Provide controllers (bindings) to move head ~180 degrees horizontaly (yaw axis ) and ~90 degrees vertically (pitch axis).​
  • Allow head to move left/right and up/down using yaw and pitch axis of flight stick (or rudder if flight stick has no yaw axis).​
  • Make body camera active when in VR by default.​
Adding clarification: Body camera locked to head so as to move left/right and up/down with head.
 
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rootsrat

Volunteer Moderator
Thanks @sallymorganmoore <3

Top Current Issues/Quality of Life Requests
  • Blackouts. Please reduce them greatly, if they can't be removed

Long Term Wish List
  • Allow us to save camera positions (all of the settings, basically create custom camera angles for ourselves).
  • While you're at it :) please also add separate profiles for those custom angles for Ship, SRV and On Foot
  • Some automation would be amazing (for example auto-rotate around the player or the specified object in game)
  • More advanced version of the above - allow us to create automated/custom camera paths for a video take
 
I don't know if this have been mentioned or not but it'd be nice if when using the camera suite and controlling the cmdr, the pitch of the camera could be controlled like it happens with the yaw. This way, we could somehow mimic playing in 3rd person which is something sometimes I like to do when on foot.

Also what has already been mentioned, saving camera angles for later. I don't know if it's only me but most of the pre defined camera angles aren't very good.
 
need a proper way of targeting the camera, it tends to drift a lot.
I am generally happy with it but it really needs a lot of tweaking, and yes the completely different keybindings to the ship camera can take some getting used to.

Long Term... A separate physical drone as camera, that can not just take snapshots for our galactic family album, but even be used for recon, and specific missions
(remember in the Before Times in Frontier, where there were missions that basically involved taking photos?)
 
I think that the black out should be improved a bit more. It can be a bit harsh sometimes.

Also, it would be nice to have a cockpit camera that can be moved around freely, instead of one that is fixed in place and only allows some panning and zoom.
 
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Top Current Issues/Quality of Life Requests
  • As I think everyone else had said, the camera blackout needs a rethink, either go completely and rely on collision meshes which already exist to stop it going through things or have the sensitivity of when the blackout happens turned right down. So many times I go to get a screenshot but can't quite get the angle I want as it blacks out.
  • Fix camera in VR ( https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/32730 )
  • Increased camera range.
  • Ability to change to the screenshot buttons.
Long Term Wish List

  • Store current CMDR location with screenshot, maybe in the in filename, as metadata or in a text file saved with the screenshot not as text within screenshot as that would ruin shots. I have so many early screenshots were I wish I knew where I took them. Currently using EDDiscovery to copy and automatically re-name new screenshots.
  • Option to take a 360 photo sphere screenshot, currently I'm taking multiple screenshots and stitching them for some VR backgrounds, which normally fine unless your near a high traffic area such as station and things move between the screenshots.
  • Hide camera UI hints by default, this is normally the first thing I do once I enter the camera suite
  • Free camera movement within the ship cockpit.
  • Custom presets for focus/blur settings and custom positions relative to the Ship/CMDR like the built in ones.
 
Long Term Wish List

  • Just throwing this one out here, but: time-lapse mode. Disregard any interactive objects, just generate an image from a given location merging [n (configurable)] shots taken at [x (configurable)] time-interval starting at [t (configurable)] point in time. Doesn't require any awareness of game situation, so can be built for arbitrary times, past or future.
  • Additional vote for 360 sphere panoramas.
 
Greetings Commanders! Hope you're all doing well today.

It's time!

Having followed many recent discussions lately through various social platforms regarding the Elite Dangerous Camera Suite, particularly the discovered differences that the version within Odyssey has compared to Horizons, I would love to work closer with you all on finding out more about what improvements you would like to see, in order to bring your creative experience back to parity with Horizons for Odyssey players, as well as general quality improvements for Horizons players.

An example, I have on my list here of a quality/experience improvement is looking into how the limitations of the "signal lost/blackout" boundary affects creativity.

I also want to include in this discussion what your long term wish list might be for the Camera Suite! So stepping away from just issues and such, looking more toward what you would find exciting as a new feature for the Suite. Go wild! No suggestion is a bad one, let's have some fun with this!

I'll be here joining in with you as discussions roll out.

Feedback Format
To help me out a little, please provide your thoughts in the following way:

Top Current Issues/Quality of Life Requests
  • X X X
  • X X X
Long Term Wish List
  • X X X
  • X X X

I'm excited for this!

Thank you all, as usual for your commitment to helping us make Elite Dangerous the best experience for us all moving forward.

o7

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A couple of FAQs I thought I might include for you all, for interest's sake.

Why was the signal lost/blackout boundary even implemented?
At the time of development of the Camera Suite, we were also developing Guardian and Thargoid sites in Horizons. We were really worried that players would end up ruining some suprises for themselves if the camera had no boundaries and could fly around through terrain and surfaces, as well as concern over...well...basically you seeing the "ugly side" of things like the inside of planets, you know? We're since learning that freedom of movement for creatives appears to be much more important than us worrying about some of these issues too much, however we are still a little concerned that entire camera freedom of movement without limitation could lead to spoilers or some kind of misuse.

Have you had any thoughts about what could be done so far to improve the Camera Suite further?

A few, totally. For example the main one being how we might reassign the camera to react based off collision as oppose to distance from player. Now bear in mind this idea is a bigger undertaking than many would assume - it would be a rework of the system and have a knock on affect to a fair few things. This would be an example of a long term improvement request BUT that doesn't mean to say we can't solve some initial concerns elegantly in the meantime, using the current system, and investigate such a rework as we move forward into the future.

Why am I doing this when discussions are already out there to farm from?
Rest assured I have my priority list in order from what I have seen, however having a platform where I can discuss and feed back to you personally in one place, with a helpful structure, is going to be way more beneficial for us all.

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Hi Sally

I'm loving all this interactivity with the community.

I do have a request. Please could we have a focused feedback for missions, as these are the meat of the game and I feel, without to much effort, using current in-game mechanics, you could take missions to another level.

Exploration would also be another great focused feedback too.

Gain, thanks for all the interactivity, it is greatly appreciated.

And apologies for being off topic.
 
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