Buttons & Cameras - Why it's so important to get them right
Some of you are probably wondering what is up with the lack of news updates once again? Well the simple fact of the matter is that we are working on and testing out a lot of changes and features that are pretty cool to us, but are also in a butt-ugly testing state too.
Most of these changes, testing and tweaks have to relate to controlling your character and the camera system that Realm Wars uses, which is single handedly the most important system of the game. When I speak of controls I don't just mean pressing a button, I am also speaking of how the character reacts in the world as well such as how fast can he rotate, minimizing how much the player slides when going from a run into a sidestep and so on and so forth. Essentially the goal here is to make your character feel as though they are a part of the world and are responsive and not a floating camera with a weapon stuck on it.
This is something that we have fought with (especially Markus) for the past few weeks and what we have tried to do here is a lot easier said than done. Its far more involved than just getting all your mapping assigned to the right input, but also ensuring that it feels right (ie. isn't too twitchy but isn't unresponsive either) and adding in features that allow us to tweak the settings. Markus has done an incredible job at getting all of these changes in to where the game is starting to feel real good as you control it. There is still a way to go with this but everything feels as though it is on the right track here towards being something that people will enjoy using from the very moment they start playing the game.
Second area where most of our recent changes have come from are with the camera system. Once again this is one of those areas that you probably look at initially and say "ya so what, its a camera, its what I see" but there's so much more to it than just that. Much like in cinema, cameras in games heavily influence many aspects of the medium and brings in an expectaction to the viewer of what to expect. A camera needs to essentially work hand in hand with the controls so that the player doesn't feel boxed in or confined with what they can do and thus heavily influences their actions.
With Realm Wars 2 we have fought a lot with trying to get our camera angles and positions setup just right and so that it complements the controls. It's always amazing to test out something locally and think that you are on the right track and then realize that it absolutely sucks when you are trying to do a multiplayer game. Through a lot of trial and error we thankfully have something that we are quite happy with (as well as alternate angles that we can test out in game at a click of a button) and feel really helps complement the controls as well as influence how you want to view and most importantly play the game.
Well thats the low down on the key things that we have been working on lately. I wish I could say more or provide some screenshots but most of this stuff is something that you will just have to sample when it comes times. On the plus side though with these two key elements well on their way to being "final" it does allow us to focus once again on building brand new art and missions that work hand-in-hand with what we have done here with the controls and camera. Stay tuned for more updates as the week goes on.
posted by Logan Foster at 9:11 AM
|
9 comments
