Livery menu: Free Camera

nrage · Jan 19, 2017

Watching videos of ship kits.. would really like a free camera here. The ability to right click and rotate, scroll to zoom, that sort of thing. Some of the kit components aren't very well in shot with the current/default camera positions.

Someone on reddit suggested; why stop at livery, all of outfitting would benefit as sometimes it's hard to see where hardpoints are actually located. It's a bit like .. ok, that looks like the underbelly of my ship, but front or back, left or right? Where? I think it was the Asp Ex where I personally got totally confused as to where one set of the hardpoints were.

Bryan K · Jan 19, 2017

YES PLEASE.

It's irritating trying on new spoilers and tail fittings on the Python and Anaconda. You have to pick one blind and then exit outfitting and use the debug cam to check your work, then wash-rinse-repeat several more times to find the right combination.

nrage · Jan 20, 2017

I know that frontier have avoided adding a free camera with easy controls to the game itself, to avoid people then using it to gain some sort of combat advantage. So, having one which only works on the Livery screen seems a good restriction to avoid this.

Ian Phillips · Jan 20, 2017

Moving to suggestions.

Good idea!

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead · Jan 21, 2017

nrage said:
I know that frontier have avoided adding a free camera with easy controls to the game itself, to avoid people then using it to gain some sort of combat advantage. So, having one which only works on the Livery screen seems a good restriction to avoid this.

I keep reading this.

Tell me, how can the camera be used as an exploit, FD!!??
Lol

"There's a bandit on my six I think, let me check! I must check, it's an advantage!"
*Open debug camera, click ok*
...
*Panning*
"Not there"
*Still panning*
"He's moved... Somewhere! I wouldn't know, because I can't turn or see the radar out here, clearly this is the advantage!"
*Still planning*
"Ahhhh, can't see him, I MUST see him with the camera! I must have The Advantage! The Advantage!"
...
*More panning*
"Damn, I hit an asteroid"
*Zooming out*
...
*Boom*

Thats what would happen if you used the camera in combat.
Unless panicked screenshots are lethal to your opponent, I think we're safe to have a better camera.

VR Jay Le Chardon · Jan 21, 2017

As for the potential of (ab)using a debug camera in combat, the danger is it would turn into eve, Pan Tilt and Zoom with the mouse right click target to select them and left click to fire... You could end up with players abusing that to gain a tactical advantage, kind of like the chase camera on driving games offers a bit more spatial awareness to the driver than a cockpit / bumper cam view.

The OP's idea of a debug camera for livery to get a wider view on ship paint jobs and liveries - its absolute genius

Just last night I was trying to make my mind up between chrome, tactical ice, tactical graphite, and plain gutamaya white for my cutter, and tweaking the ship kit on my vulture. During that process I ended up going through the loop of return to surface, debug camera, make my mind up, return to hanger, livery, adjust, return to surface to check the revised look, repeat until happy with end result...

nrage · Jan 24, 2017

CMDR_Cosmicspacehead said:
Thats what would happen if you used the camera in combat.
Unless panicked screenshots are lethal to your opponent, I think we're safe to have a better camera.

Yup, this is exactly why the camera is so terrible. Can you imagine if the camera came up immediately, had no "ok" button to click, and allowed free rotation/panning etc with nice acceleration all via the mouse. You'd be able to get a quick peek in combat without too much trouble.

Jayridium said:
As for the potential of (ab)using a debug camera in combat, the danger is it would turn into eve, Pan Tilt and Zoom with the mouse right click target to select them and left click to fire... You could end up with players abusing that to gain a tactical advantage, kind of like the chase camera on driving games offers a bit more spatial awareness to the driver than a cockpit / bumper cam view.

Exactly this.

Jayridium said:
The OP's idea of a debug camera for livery to get a wider view on ship paint jobs and liveries - its absolute genius Just last night I was trying to make my mind up between chrome, tactical ice, tactical graphite, and plain gutamaya white for my cutter, and tweaking the ship kit on my vulture. During that process I ended up going through the loop of return to surface, debug camera, make my mind up, return to hanger, livery, adjust, return to surface to check the revised look, repeat until happy with end result...

Yeah, it's a right pain ATM.

Khoraak · Oct 9, 2019

Congrats, nrage, you got your wish

VIP_Flash · Sep 23, 2020

Still nothing can be done to have a better view of the ship

in livery? Some ships are placed there in terrible angles so u cant see s__t... Best livery placements

are for SRV and SLF IMO so far... and... that sucks coz its obvious it is possible to do at least better model placements/ship view in livery, but its not done for regular ships. Not to mention the lighting... Shop items look totally different then when on model in livery hangar... And in real game later on too... facepalm

But Eh, maybe its for the better, we would probably waste more time

and money

on livery if we could see it well lighted and positioned in the hangar...

Factabulous · Sep 23, 2020

VIP_Flash said:
Still nothing can be done to have a better view of the ship in livery?

Well, other than the store camera ...

What have the Romans ever done for us etc etc

Northpin · Sep 23, 2020

VIP_Flash said:
Shop items look totally different then when on model in livery hangar... And in real game later on too... facepalm

You know what they say... At night all cats are black

It's all in the light and it's impossible to match the hangar/shop lights with the ones in the actual game.

VIP_Flash · Sep 23, 2020

Northpin said:
You know what they say... At night all cats are black

It's all in the light and it's impossible to match the hangar/shop lights with the ones in the actual game.

Nah, I meant 2 differences between 3 states/uses:
1 - shop menu - all paint jobs are extra-lighted when you browse through them
2 - livery model - dark, non-vibrant, shadowed - paint jobs like predator red on Python are totally off putting (an exception could be an Imp. Eagle (maybe more "small sized ships", havent tried) - thats the way i would like to see the new paintjob presented at least, free camera view and proper lights everywhere would be best ofc.) - when I see it on that eagle, i say "Hey! Thats amazing, thats a thing I want!" ... When I see it on Python in livery, I say - "Man, really? It absolutelly does not look that cool as advertised... What a pitty, thought i would have a cool paint job, but this?" ... Not to mention all the "galvanized" paint jobs on Python, where they all look totally non-metalic on the livery model, so another bummer and huge disappointment...
3 - real game visuals - here it is like none of those 2 above, but thats the least problematic thing as i know that in-game lighting differs wherever you go, and thats ok i think. But it is none of those above...

What I would do to make livery shopping better would be pbbly 2 things:
1 - when browsing paint jobs in store, then when the mouse is over a paint job (OMO effect from web browsers) - show paintjob rendered with more "in-game like lighting", so it kinda resembles that point 3 mentioned above... (thats not nescessary if the next point -2- would be done)
2 - when free cam is not possible in livery, a) make at least sure there is propper lighting on all ships, not just on some of them, b) allow 2 or 3 more predefined camera positions around the model so i can switch to them, c) if b) is not possible/too much work, go through all models in livery and reposition camera on those, where there is bad visibility of the whole paint job... I know, it would pbbly make the camera to look on all the ships from just a few good angles, but I would find it better then to look on ship from a cool angle but where i cant see the paintjob properly :-/

No harsh flame here, just wondered why that shopping thing aint polished by fdev, coz i would suppose it is some kind of a money channel for them that would be taken care of in terms of good "product marketing" which would net them more cash...