The only reliable method is iteration and trial and error.
November 28, 2017 12:50 PM   Subscribe

 
what a fascinating story. I hope he finally lands at a place where his game is fun to play!
posted by rebent at 2:07 PM on November 28, 2017


I don't play video games, but I'm an engineer, and that was really cool.
posted by intermod at 2:08 PM on November 28, 2017


(For Safari users, this makes a lot more sense if you right-click some of the images and choose "Show Controls"—there seem to be embedded videos that are meant to auto-play.)
posted by designbot at 2:53 PM on November 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


designbot, that happened to me in Chrome, too. The screenshots seemed aggressively unuseful and made the whole article confusing to me. Then I right clicked...
posted by jjwiseman at 4:06 PM on November 28, 2017


According to oral history, Super Mario 64 had a developer dedicated full-time to the camera, and it shows.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:31 PM on November 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


Yeah, Nintendo paid a lot of attention to the viewpoint or camera, and not just in 3D games. IIRC, one of the things that the embryonic id software found so difficult when trying to do a proof of concept for PC Mario was the camera. Specifically when it moves or does not move the field of vision when the character is moving on screen.

(Nintendo didn't take them up on the pitch and it eventually became Commander Keen)
posted by selfnoise at 6:09 PM on November 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


holy shit I haven't thought about commander keen in like 20 years
posted by lazaruslong at 6:10 PM on November 28, 2017


Goodness, I am building a 2D side-scroller for work at this very moment and I face similar difficulties. I have one fewer dimensions to worry about, yet I still struggle to program an acceptable camera.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 6:49 PM on November 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


If you want 2D cameras, a good reference is this article on Gamasutra

For 3D there's 50 camera mistakes but exactly how you deal with these things can change drastically based on how you move in the game, as the OP shows.
posted by RobotHero at 9:28 PM on November 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


I liked the looks of the first game when it was just a bullet on the wall to bounce thru enemies. I'd play that! The spider game? Not so much.
posted by Grither at 8:25 AM on November 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


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