@@delphicdescant i think the Blender camera isn't bad on its own, but because it has a whole lot of customization, but no simple way to just get into it, instead forcing you to look up tutorials (as just about anything in Blender does), so it's.. unintuitive. other than that, you have all of the set-up options to make it match a real camera, so much so that faithful tracking is possible, look at any CGMatter tracking video, it's great
@@Fungo4 I'm not sure I see the connection to the Blender camera. Are you just saying that the Unity camera is another bad one that's too entrenched to change? I don't use Unity so I wasn't sure.
@@znefas Yeah, but having to look up tutorials on how to move your camera, to me, is *the definition* of a bad camera. Like the video was saying, a good camera is one you hardly notice. For example, Sketchup made a better camera for 3D modelling 15 or 20 years ago, because they focused on how to make it intuitive and natural feeling to move it around the scene. Someone actually cared. Before it was bought out by Google, at least.
@@LowProfile0247 Big Yellow is the one that got me into Leon funnily enough. Back when they did the video on Twelve's super economy in third strike they linked Leon's "THE bottom tier" video and spoke so highly of it i had to go watch it lol
I was born blind, with a little bit of vision on one eye. Depth perception has been a pain for as long as I can remember, both IRL and in games, which is one of the reasons I pretty much only play fighting games.
I'm slightly confused by this - if the issue is the poor vision that makes sense, but it it's about depth perception, us two-eyed people don't have any more depth perception in any video games than you do - it's all the same depth when projected onto a planar screen
For us to be able to see depth perception we need such things like monoocular cues (things that one eye/each eye individuali can perceive) and binocular cues (things that need both eyes to be perceive). To be able to see the binocular cues you must have both eyes working. Is not like someone with 1 eye working can't see depth, but is more difficult and less accurate
I love what your content has developed into in recent years. Such a unique perspective on game design topics bundled with a fun deadpan humor and now with these great charming animations. Keep it up king
This is such an interesting topic, I remember playing Mario 3D World when I was younger and feeling super frustrated at missing jumps I thought I landed because of the perspective
Yeah 3D world was kinda weird because of that. Especially when playing with other people and the camera stays zoomed out and immovable. Don’t know how that problem could’ve been fixed (if at all without creating other problems). The game would’ve been great if it had the closer camera like Odyssey, which we can see how it would’ve been like with Bowser’s Fury. Guess you gotta sacrifice better camera sometimes to include that 4 player functionality.
@@startwins9118 I think it inherited this problem from 3D land, but it made sense to design the game that way in 3D land because the game's challenes were designed around you tackling them with the 3D slider up. Obviously the Wii U doesn't have this, but they still decided to make some of their challenges in the same way because it was a sequel. You don't see it often, but when it does happen it's a pain in the ass.
Similar experience, but with the other 3D Marios. I genuinely don't get why the camera in games like 64 and especially Sunshine gets a pass when it feels like it's been a cause of so many of my misjudged jumps.
@@dorcasmutton6335 oh ok, I honestly forgot 3D land existed. Haven’t played it since I was little. That explains the design choice then (at least a little)
@@Skallva Gonna pre-empt my own comment with a recommendation for LiamTriforce’s retrospective videos on both games. He does an excellent job of putting things into perspective, and explaining it all both factually and emotionally. And he doesn’t pull his punches regarding Super Mario Sunshines’ flaws. 64 generally gets a pass because there was practically no other game that got cameras in 3D games right until 64 did. It was a not a huge leap forward in game design, it was the culmination of many huge leaps forward, all happening all at once. From a modern perspective it might be easy to look at it and think of ways it could be better, but to adequately design and implement changes like that would have been much harder back then, especially considering that you’ve got 17 gajillion other elements you’re supposed to design and implement and test and bugfix and the game releases in only 2 months. Apologies for (probably) exaggerating that last point. I don’t know the details around Mario 64 well enough to say for sure whether they had crunch like modern development, but from what I know it seems extremely likely. I may have made it seem like I grew up playing Mario 64, but actually it was Sunshine for me. I’m actually not that big a fan of 64, but I’ve been exposed to enough content surrounding it online that I have a great deal of respect for it. Sunshine is my true love, the one I spent so many hours playing on my first home console, gifted to me for my birthday… I think. Regardless of my bias, I also know how flawed Sunshine is. It has a strange camera, confusing goals, and unfair challenges. Years later when I learned that all those blue coins I had put so much effort into collecting actually do absolutely NOTHING but make a pointless number bigger, I was disappointed. I won’t be defending Sunshine today, but I still love it.
It's interesting to see that you show Trackmania clips, cause the game has 3 camera systems (well technically more, but 3 main ones) that each have pros and cons. There's the classic more arcade-y "far away and looking at the horizon" driving camera (Cam1), that shows you a wider area and lets you see what's coming ahead. There's one that's closer to the car and that follows its rotations more closely (Cam2), which is useful for specific maps and is comparable to something like the classic 3rd person shooter cameras. And there's the "first person" camera near the nose of the car (Cam3), that shows you very accurate direction and rotation, but depending on the maps you're gonna have trouble seeing where you're going. And the game gives you the ability to switch on the fly (hell, in certain maps i've seen players "reset" Cam1 so it re-aligns to the car instead of smoothly following it in specific parts, very reminiscent of all the camera manipulation from speedruns of 3D Mario games). However, it's interesting that if you look at all the top players in the game, even if Cam1 is the standard, a lot of players also play Cam2, and there are even some Cam3-only players such as Granady, currently one of the best players in the world. Also to note, the newest Trackmania title (the one released in 2020) added even more versions of these 3 cameras. For example the default "first person" Cam3 is from the pilot's perspective and it shows you the wheels and steering wheel of the car, but pressing the Cam3 button again will enter the classic "nose of the car" view. EDIT: also to note, older Trackmania titles had even wackier cameras, such as side cameras, a top down camera and such. Trackmania 2020 only has 3 default cameras, 4 if we count Cam7 (the freecam). On top of that, a common thing mappers do in the game is they make it so that when you enter a loop or certain wallrides, the camera automatically switches to Cam3 or Cam2 to better let you track its movement and what's important at the moment, then switch back to default camera (again, by default Cam1) after those parts of the map are passed. Though technically speaking, mappers have full freedom to make the camera track and move whatever way they want in their map, so some people have made top down "micromachine-like" maps that play like those classic games, or challenge maps with weird cameras, and such.
One eyed idjit here. It is quite a common mis-conception that people with one eye have absolutely zero depth. It's true you lose some of that depth, but it's mostly to do with objects that are at a very similar depth to another. An example would be when reaching out to push the button on a Monitor to turn it on or off or Trying to wrap your fingers around a fridge handle, it becomes a tad bit more difficult to understand the depth at a very fast glance, you get used to it obviously, but no matter how used to it you get you'll always end up bumping your finger tips against that fridge door just gently when before you'd be able to avoid that entirely. Same with the monitor pressing, at the incorrect angle of perspective if your one eye, you might miss the button very slightly to the side or above/below it. Apologies for going off on a tangent, this kind of thing never comes up for people like me, Thank you for making this video though, great entertainment and insight as usual.
OMG I remember playing Airblade and at times not even knowing if I was going forwards or backwards because of the terrible camera. Great video. Thanks for the relived trauma.
I haven’t watched the video yet but looking at the thumbnail assuming that the pig is approximately 1.3 meters long with a jump height of just under 1 meter (normal for pigs) and that it landed in the center of the platform and we are under the effects of earth gravity the answer is between 7.2 and 5.4 meters approximately if I had to guess 5.9 meters total travel distance in air and a total displacement of 3.9. Edit: … damn it.
Absolute banger video! I love how you point at certain aspects in games that, like in this video too, are unnoticed unless they are done poorly. I always go back to your videos once in a while, it's relaxing? Therapeutic? In a way. I look forward to seeing more of your content
holy shit the professor layton puzzle music had such an immediate reaction in me that instantly transported me back to sitting alone in the dark with this strange, mysterious feeling of being a child uncovering this charming whimsical world with a.. weird hint of creepiness? like, something about that specific puzzle music always put me on edge juuust a little bit, and i'm not sure why anyway, love your videos!
I work in the games industry, but not on the visual side of things. THIS TALK IS FANTASTIC and provides so much knowledge on things that I'm parallel to in my day to day work. And now I can better give feedback in playtesting if "something feels off but I'm not a gameplay designer/artist so I don't know how to elaborate"
Im starting to use 3d envirorments in my animatic job and this video is literally just what I needed (because I slacked at my cinematography class in cinema uni)
I recently coded the camera for my own fighting game and boy did I quickly start appreciating them. There's a lot of decisions a designer must make to make the information clear. You'd think it'd be as easy as anchoring it to the middle point of the two players, but no, while chasing that point horizontally is important, vertically if one player jjumps, the camera would be yoinked towards that middlepoint, obscuring the other player. But you WANT the camera to follow the jumping player to sell the change in verticality and more importantly to not let them jump out of frame to mask what move they'll be going for. The solution for this is to slow down the vertical camera chase speed But if you do that, and the player does a double jump, the camera catches up late and is now briefly stuck in the air while both players are only half visible. The solution for that? Slow down the chase speed for going upwards, but keep it fast for going downwards. BUT! There's another issues! Consider a quick character that has a triple jump, or perhaps even a character with a short flight who can go pretty high! Suddenly the middlepoint shows the top half of player 2 and the bottom half of player 1, neither clearly so you have to make a decision to prioritize a player at certain heights! I have worked on this piece of shit for a few weeks now and I'm still not happy with it. And this is a 2D game with a fixed perspective for the most part, not a fancy 3D game with free camera movement, which i imagine is another level of complexity.
@@undvined As another indie fighting game dev, the amount of space needed on screen is going to depend on movement and attack range. Games with more drastic movement and bigger attack ranges, like Marvel or Smash, need to be zoomed out more. Games with more restrained movement and more precise ranges, like Street Fighter, are better zoomed in. Ultimately, it depends on what characters are DOING with that space.
@@undvined this can be really jarring if it's not done correctly, i.e. if it doesn't have the correct easing in and out of a larger perspective. This is because changing the camera distance also changes the relative rate of change between both of the fighers, as in, as the camera zooms out, now my forward dash literally covers less distance on the screen. With another fighter doing a back dash, and the camera scrolling laterally, the largest consideration you have to make is between the two fighters. With the camera moving, you have to consider that as well, and it makes it much harder to get used to. I seem to remember some sega genesis fighting game doing this every time the characters jumped, but I can't remember the name. Anyways, if you do that, you have to have some serious initial jump lag for it to really feel natural, if any character has too fast of a jump, it kind of becomes a problem as the camera moves around too quickly, so that's something that scales with the vertical camera size, is how fast you can jump. If you have more space at the top of the screen, you can have a much faster jump, because there's more space to ease in those larger jumps. Generally camera distance isn't a super huge problem though, as the characters grow apart in speed they also tend to have less rapid of effects on one another. A farther target becomes harder to aim at for slow moving projectiles, and even for hitscan projectiles, they present a smaller target. A hitscan projectile with a 3 frame input delay would be kind of insane, right, because you would have to parry it or block it every time, but at a distance (perhaps a CONSIDERABLE) distance, you might be able to dodge it with lateral movement alone. Another element to consider with all of this is that having a marker of scale can really help. Pulling the camera back on a piece of graph paper, it's still pretty obvious as to the distances and scales of things, but if you put things in the background, then those things become smaller at a slower rate than the things in the foreground, and vice versa for foreground objects. This is also a consideration with muddy or indistinct background elements, they can become lost as the camera gets pulled back, and this can make distance harder to judge as well. Both of these effects can actually be neat if used properly, but can also make it a little bit harder to judge the scale of things. So, for goom, if they haven't already, I would consider adding a grid to the background, if they end up implementing camera zoom and pull, though, it's probably a good idea anyways.
your videos have never stopped improving since the first one i saw. stellar work again! Interesting topics, explained in a way that is fun to both watch AND listen to.
Clicked this video on accident, read the title and thumbnail after the first sentence falsely said I did, and followed along thinking that this would be a video about… honestly I can’t remember anymore, I have no idea what I just watched but I loved every second of it
I think it's maybe important also to note for burgeoning game designers: you can make any camera system work with most any game. I think the most obvious example of that to me is how racing games tend to narrow the FOV the faster you go. This is also a good idea in terms of gameplay, since it focuses more of your screen on stuff coming further down the road, but it also makes the player FEEL like they're going faster. Obviously it's pretty hard to do an orthographic fps, but I can see some great mileage being wrung out of such a concept. Maybe it's the point of your game, that you can't tell what the hell's going on. What's more important than the camera, is how well fitted the design overall is to it. You can have a platformer with a large focal length and a pushed in camera, and a low FOV. It's possible, and it can be desirable, such a camera might simultaneously make you feel claustrophobic, but also very fast and manic. The thing is that you just have to playtest your game, and you have to get other people to playtest your game. You're all going to have different senses of how far away something is based on the perspective of it, and if you play your own game too much you'll probably get used to it. Playtesting fixes these issues. If you want an orthagonal platformer, an easy way to do that is to make the lower platforms appear darker or more shaded relative to the rest of the screen, give your player a depth map, that sort of thing. But it's better to get these sorts of problems and design decisions, these tonal decisions, out of the way early, before you design half of your game, or else you're going to end up sticking with the default camera forever, only changing it as your gameplay scenario begets it (insert race car example again here), since it's the camera that feels the best in a default state of play. Much like the racecar example, affecting your camera can make your game easier or harder, and it can completely change the tone to fit the context, just like it does in film. But designing around a default camera leads to a generic feeling game, and you don't wanna make a generic game. Think about how shadow of the colossus would feel if the camera didn't shift side to side to face the direction you're going, if it didn't pull back to reveal the colossi as they come in to view, if they just had a constant over the shoulder 3d camera. Lots of details like these are the reason why games end up feeling super generic. Figure out the camera, then figure out the gameplay, make it fun, and then figure out what camera effects and movement you can add back in, as contextual gameplay prompts, to make the game flow better, or to capture the mood better.
This video was great; I felt confused a lot after you jumped from an explanation to an example. I feel like simpler examples and summaries would help tremendously!
You can feel the gears grinding in his head to force a cameo from Fez into the video because everyone who knows about that game was thinking about it from the very beginning but it hasn't got all that much to do with the point.
Holy shit, this is a sweet video essay. I originally clicked on thinking it was one of those videos about tile distance and how geometrically 2 tiles diagonally are so much further than 2 tiles axially. Dude I've seen and experienced alot of this stuff, but YA DONE PUT IT IN WORDS AND CLEAR CONCEPTS! I DIDN'T KNOW I WANTED THIS THANK YOU!
Out of all of the "invisible systems" there are, the camera is probably one of the least visible out of all of them in my opinion. I hear myself complaining about a camera not cooperating the way I want it to than I ever do praising a camera for just doing a good job, hell I'm not sure if I've ever praised it once. Funnily enough, it feels like a lot of things appear simple at first but become complex the more you dig into them. Aside from that, this was a well made video, I enjoyed the editing and it's not everyday that you see people animate in 3D or actually add more polish than subtitles and premade transitions. Well done man.
Dude, I just found this channel, and I am blown away! Not only are you really effectively teaching the finer points, and exploring the broader points, of a really technical subject, but the presentation is absolutely top notch all the while. Can't wait to dive in to the rest of the channel.
This was really nice and enjoyable to watch. I like your format, as a long time viewer I can definitely see you building your own style. Happy to be here for the ride ❤ much support
Great analysis, Leon, and this helps illuminate why game feel hits me the way it does. When input, focus, and design all jangle off each other, I'll put a game down in minutes.
1:07 Actually i can see a difference, pay attention to the sides of the card, when it starts flipping it's back up, you can see the side that the back of the card appears from first, which tells you which direction the card is flipping (It's more noticable in the earlier sections when it's flipping from the table) Also the mention of the Trials game just brought back memories i almost forgot i had, awesome
oh hell yeah, the boy is still at it, going over such small details that go over look so I can look into my favorite games and find out what the camera does like an easter egg
0:27 Perspective is important. Both socially and *more importantly* for the viewing of digital spaces. Glad mans has got his priorities straightened out
shoutout to Naya's Quest btw, a platformer where the whole gimmick is the first bit of the video: you're put in an isometric space without any perspective, and have to use the other tools the game gives you to figure out what jumps you can make (iirc one rotates the level, and the other hides all platforms that arent in the x- and z-axis "slice" youre in) its camera would be absolutely horrible in any other game, quite possibly the absolute worst camera a platformer could have, but since the whole game is built around figuring out what to do in spite of the camera, it works REALLY well (honestly as soon as i saw bungler fall past the other block i thought leon was about to bring up nayas quest lmao)
Was just gonna skim through this video from my recommendations, but the large variety of game examples here (and especially the bgm choices!) made me stay through the whole thing. Fantastic video
When you were talking about third-person-shooter cameras, I was reminded that there IS still a major shooter series that keeps the player horizontally centered in the camera: Splatoon. However, there is both a good reason why the player is kept in the focus area, and a key change to the camera that helps resolve the obstruction issue. In Splatoon, more so than other shooters, what you're standing ON is important to pay attention to. Standing on your enemy's ink is extremely detrimental to you, as you lose most of your mobility. When you step onto enemy ink, the game makes a sound (your character making a small noise), but there are also a lot of key visual indicators: there's little ink splashes and ripples around your feet, and your character's animations change. In this way, having your character front and center helps make it more obvious when this happens. In addition, firing your weapon directly at your character's feet is a key strategy for dealing with this situation, so having the aiming reticle horizontally lined up with your character helps make this more intuitive to do. However, the game does make a key change to the camera: It's placed significantly ABOVE the character, and as such is pointed slightly downwards compared to where you're aiming. In this way, your character is at the bottom-center of the screen, what you're aiming at is at the center of the screen, and the horizon is in the upper-center of the screen. This keeps everything visually separated, and helps largely avoid the issue of important visual information being obstructed. This does have the affect of making aiming a bit weird, as the shots don't come from the same direction as the camera, but the game uses a moving reticle system to make it clear what you're actually aimed at, so it largely just works.
This reminds me of how some optical illusions (such as the rotating mask where you can't tell which side it is) just _don't work_ on people with schizophrenia. Their brains are missing something in the cognition process that, for the average person, makes them interpret these things in an illusory way.
One thing I think you could have pointed out, is that an orthographic camera is basically the same as a perspective camera with an infinite focal length. The same way that the sun's rays are almost parallel to each other because it's so far away, a very far camera with a high zoom is almost orthographic.
I've been watching your essay type videos for a while and this in particular seems fresh while still remaining familiar. As others have been saying you can really tell how much you've improved over the years with your editing /timing while still remaining just as informative. All in all this was a very good video, thank you. As always, I'm looking forward to to your future content. Cheers.
I knew what the video is about when just looking at the thumbnail. I was happy like a kid that solved the riddle when you said that the prespective is orthographic. Still, great video.
Was trying to watch this video on my phone while walking around the house to get stuff done, and it felt like the Airblade camera, but for watching a video.
For the last outro shot where it lingers on the creature and the perspective jump, you should have made it jump again - but actually making it this time, implying the perspective wasn't lying in this instance. Just feels like it'd have been a cute way to tie the vid up.
I love this video! lol One thing that I just realized. I kinda like bad cameras too. I think I like them in spite of them being bad, but they add some weird artificial difficulty that can make the game more engaging. Or, even better, they sometimes bring the focus on things I happen to be caring about anyway. Like how they might sometimes make everything equally important (as was the case in earlier 3d shooters pre-GoW), I like this because I sometimes like when a thing is organically in the way of another thing, because that feels more immersive. I think I'll be in the minority to say this though, I think we should appreciate invisible systems like these more and I'm glad this video's out. lol
Wow, I was expecting some sort of "we're going to calculate the distance using maths!" video not a full blown essay on cameras. I'm pleasantly surprised!
So proud of you Leon! Your channel has gotten so much bigger and your videos have improved so much! I remember playing you in an online GGXRD tournament and we both played Venom, and I'd already watched your channel for your GG videos, but you absolutely destroyed me! Good work bro!
racing games are often the exception to the "you only notice it when it's bad" rule. you REALLY notice when it's bad, but when it's REALLY good, it does make a fucking statement. the big fucking tilt on drifts that NFS Unbound are a perfect example, so fucking good
really really great video. somehow all new information that totally makes sense with what I knew, all because it was stuff I had noticed without thinking about.
Love these vibes, man Its great to talk about games, go on passioned infodumps and uplift people who's face you don't even know. Great video, see you next time
Great job man, I was struggling with some FOV problems and you pointed me in the right direction and even gave me advice on things I didn't even notice I needed :)
This the first time I've watched a video that deserves a million views before it hitting a million views. This video is so well crafted and enjoyable and it definitely deserves more attention. Amazing job!
"And really whether you're conscious of cameras or even that you care that's all just a matter of perspective." I could hear the big fucking grin on your face in the silence of the remaining seconds of this selfcare moment, thank you, mwah.
God I forgot about Trials, I remember having so much fun with that game. The community completely destroyed the game with custom maps, some people literally figured out how to make first person levels with it, yes, an FPS controller in the *motorcycle game*
We used to use telecentric lenses at my old job. Same effect with the size of objects. Since we were doing measurements with optical devices, the objects needed to remain the same regardless of distance.
AMAZING VIDEO!!! I love this kind of edited videos, you should get WAY MORE attention and views than what you are rn. Lets hope one of your vids go viral and you skyrocket into the million subs. Keep up the work man!!
![[UNCUT] The Loyal Pin ปิ่นภักดิ์ EP.7 (1/4)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/2rPGOyKs0VE/mqdefault.jpg)
Leon learns Blender, the camera doesn't do what he wants and he becomes obsessive over cameras due to this: the video
tbf the blender camera is an embarrassment. Too bad so many people are "used to it" that no criticism will make a difference.
@@delphicdescant Literally the first thing I notice in any Steam game nowadays is "Oh god no it uses the Unity camera"
@@delphicdescant i think the Blender camera isn't bad on its own, but because it has a whole lot of customization, but no simple way to just get into it, instead forcing you to look up tutorials (as just about anything in Blender does), so it's.. unintuitive.
other than that, you have all of the set-up options to make it match a real camera, so much so that faithful tracking is possible, look at any CGMatter tracking video, it's great
@@Fungo4 I'm not sure I see the connection to the Blender camera. Are you just saying that the Unity camera is another bad one that's too entrenched to change?
I don't use Unity so I wasn't sure.
@@znefas Yeah, but having to look up tutorials on how to move your camera, to me, is *the definition* of a bad camera. Like the video was saying, a good camera is one you hardly notice.
For example, Sketchup made a better camera for 3D modelling 15 or 20 years ago, because they focused on how to make it intuitive and natural feeling to move it around the scene. Someone actually cared. Before it was bought out by Google, at least.
This was awesome but I'm not sure if I can look past tricking poor Bungler like that
What r u doin here
Actually, this totally makes sense, this channels got fighting games and surprisingly enough tf2
Didn't imagine this BANGER of an interaction but here we are
@@LowProfile0247 "why are people shocked to see TH-camrs in comment sections, I Work Here." - Sun Tzu
I agree! Bungler was a good friend, I can't believe they did them like that.
@@LowProfile0247 Big Yellow is the one that got me into Leon funnily enough. Back when they did the video on Twelve's super economy in third strike they linked Leon's "THE bottom tier" video and spoke so highly of it i had to go watch it lol
Oh god the 20 minute jump video essays are back.
deadass
*Oh good
G o o d
Damn it it was about cameras instead
Not again.
I was born blind, with a little bit of vision on one eye. Depth perception has been a pain for as long as I can remember, both IRL and in games, which is one of the reasons I pretty much only play fighting games.
I'm slightly confused by this - if the issue is the poor vision that makes sense, but it it's about depth perception, us two-eyed people don't have any more depth perception in any video games than you do - it's all the same depth when projected onto a planar screen
For us to be able to see depth perception we need such things like monoocular cues (things that one eye/each eye individuali can perceive) and binocular cues (things that need both eyes to be perceive). To be able to see the binocular cues you must have both eyes working. Is not like someone with 1 eye working can't see depth, but is more difficult and less accurate
In the end OP probably can explain better than me how it works for him-
Please tell me you rock an awesome monocle. Also I’m glad your condition doesn’t prohibit you from enjoying your hobbies (or at least not too much)
I love what your content has developed into in recent years. Such a unique perspective on game design topics bundled with a fun deadpan humor and now with these great charming animations. Keep it up king
heh. *Perspective*
That's it, Leon Massey is the best in the game at the moment. Nobody hits the combo of insightful, well explained, and entertaining quite like him
I won't argue who's better but I will say: I feel a heavy FUNK.e inspiration in his recent videos. His style is definitely his own though.
@@SomeRandomDude821 agreed
@@SomeRandomDude821 haven't heard of them, I'll have to check out their channel
@@SomeRandomDude821"recent"
I'd recommend Game Maker's Toolkit and Design Doc, they also make really good videos in a similar style
Dude holy shit your editing has gotten so good
This is such an interesting topic, I remember playing Mario 3D World when I was younger and feeling super frustrated at missing jumps I thought I landed because of the perspective
Yeah 3D world was kinda weird because of that. Especially when playing with other people and the camera stays zoomed out and immovable. Don’t know how that problem could’ve been fixed (if at all without creating other problems). The game would’ve been great if it had the closer camera like Odyssey, which we can see how it would’ve been like with Bowser’s Fury. Guess you gotta sacrifice better camera sometimes to include that 4 player functionality.
@@startwins9118 I think it inherited this problem from 3D land, but it made sense to design the game that way in 3D land because the game's challenes were designed around you tackling them with the 3D slider up. Obviously the Wii U doesn't have this, but they still decided to make some of their challenges in the same way because it was a sequel. You don't see it often, but when it does happen it's a pain in the ass.
Similar experience, but with the other 3D Marios. I genuinely don't get why the camera in games like 64 and especially Sunshine gets a pass when it feels like it's been a cause of so many of my misjudged jumps.
@@dorcasmutton6335 oh ok, I honestly forgot 3D land existed. Haven’t played it since I was little. That explains the design choice then (at least a little)
@@Skallva Gonna pre-empt my own comment with a recommendation for LiamTriforce’s retrospective videos on both games. He does an excellent job of putting things into perspective, and explaining it all both factually and emotionally. And he doesn’t pull his punches regarding Super Mario Sunshines’ flaws.
64 generally gets a pass because there was practically no other game that got cameras in 3D games right until 64 did. It was a not a huge leap forward in game design, it was the culmination of many huge leaps forward, all happening all at once.
From a modern perspective it might be easy to look at it and think of ways it could be better, but to adequately design and implement changes like that would have been much harder back then, especially considering that you’ve got 17 gajillion other elements you’re supposed to design and implement and test and bugfix and the game releases in only 2 months.
Apologies for (probably) exaggerating that last point. I don’t know the details around Mario 64 well enough to say for sure whether they had crunch like modern development, but from what I know it seems extremely likely.
I may have made it seem like I grew up playing Mario 64, but actually it was Sunshine for me. I’m actually not that big a fan of 64, but I’ve been exposed to enough content surrounding it online that I have a great deal of respect for it. Sunshine is my true love, the one I spent so many hours playing on my first home console, gifted to me for my birthday… I think.
Regardless of my bias, I also know how flawed Sunshine is. It has a strange camera, confusing goals, and unfair challenges. Years later when I learned that all those blue coins I had put so much effort into collecting actually do absolutely NOTHING but make a pointless number bigger, I was disappointed. I won’t be defending Sunshine today, but I still love it.
It's interesting to see that you show Trackmania clips, cause the game has 3 camera systems (well technically more, but 3 main ones) that each have pros and cons. There's the classic more arcade-y "far away and looking at the horizon" driving camera (Cam1), that shows you a wider area and lets you see what's coming ahead. There's one that's closer to the car and that follows its rotations more closely (Cam2), which is useful for specific maps and is comparable to something like the classic 3rd person shooter cameras. And there's the "first person" camera near the nose of the car (Cam3), that shows you very accurate direction and rotation, but depending on the maps you're gonna have trouble seeing where you're going.
And the game gives you the ability to switch on the fly (hell, in certain maps i've seen players "reset" Cam1 so it re-aligns to the car instead of smoothly following it in specific parts, very reminiscent of all the camera manipulation from speedruns of 3D Mario games). However, it's interesting that if you look at all the top players in the game, even if Cam1 is the standard, a lot of players also play Cam2, and there are even some Cam3-only players such as Granady, currently one of the best players in the world.
Also to note, the newest Trackmania title (the one released in 2020) added even more versions of these 3 cameras. For example the default "first person" Cam3 is from the pilot's perspective and it shows you the wheels and steering wheel of the car, but pressing the Cam3 button again will enter the classic "nose of the car" view.
EDIT: also to note, older Trackmania titles had even wackier cameras, such as side cameras, a top down camera and such. Trackmania 2020 only has 3 default cameras, 4 if we count Cam7 (the freecam). On top of that, a common thing mappers do in the game is they make it so that when you enter a loop or certain wallrides, the camera automatically switches to Cam3 or Cam2 to better let you track its movement and what's important at the moment, then switch back to default camera (again, by default Cam1) after those parts of the map are passed. Though technically speaking, mappers have full freedom to make the camera track and move whatever way they want in their map, so some people have made top down "micromachine-like" maps that play like those classic games, or challenge maps with weird cameras, and such.
One eyed idjit here. It is quite a common mis-conception that people with one eye have absolutely zero depth. It's true you lose some of that depth, but it's mostly to do with objects that are at a very similar depth to another.
An example would be when reaching out to push the button on a Monitor to turn it on or off or Trying to wrap your fingers around a fridge handle, it becomes a tad bit more difficult to understand the depth at a very fast glance, you get used to it obviously, but no matter how used to it you get you'll always end up bumping your finger tips against that fridge door just gently when before you'd be able to avoid that entirely.
Same with the monitor pressing, at the incorrect angle of perspective if your one eye, you might miss the button very slightly to the side or above/below it.
Apologies for going off on a tangent, this kind of thing never comes up for people like me, Thank you for making this video though, great entertainment and insight as usual.
OMG I remember playing Airblade and at times not even knowing if I was going forwards or backwards because of the terrible camera. Great video. Thanks for the relived trauma.
Very different to your usual content, but very entertaining and informative
Another wonderful video to add to the Leon Massey upload playlist. I enjoy the jump in video production. Thank you Mr. Brit.
I haven’t watched the video yet but looking at the thumbnail assuming that the pig is approximately 1.3 meters long with a jump height of just under 1 meter (normal for pigs) and that it landed in the center of the platform and we are under the effects of earth gravity the answer is between 7.2 and 5.4 meters approximately if I had to guess 5.9 meters total travel distance in air and a total displacement of 3.9.
Edit:
… damn it.
Absolute banger video! I love how you point at certain aspects in games that, like in this video too, are unnoticed unless they are done poorly. I always go back to your videos once in a while, it's relaxing? Therapeutic? In a way. I look forward to seeing more of your content
Leon's talking about jumping again.
holy shit the professor layton puzzle music had such an immediate reaction in me that instantly transported me back to sitting alone in the dark with this strange, mysterious feeling of being a child uncovering this charming whimsical world with a.. weird hint of creepiness?
like, something about that specific puzzle music always put me on edge juuust a little bit, and i'm not sure why
anyway, love your videos!
It is a shame that we never got to see Bungler make that leap in the end.
(Great video though, it was a fun watch!)
The Prof. Layton music was a perfect fit, excellent choice!
(I havent played that game in like 10 years and yet I recognized it *immediately*. wild)
Your editing is *insane.*
Like that part where you showed the getting over it map, and rotated the angle.
I work in the games industry, but not on the visual side of things. THIS TALK IS FANTASTIC and provides so much knowledge on things that I'm parallel to in my day to day work. And now I can better give feedback in playtesting if "something feels off but I'm not a gameplay designer/artist so I don't know how to elaborate"
Im starting to use 3d envirorments in my animatic job and this video is literally just what I needed (because I slacked at my cinematography class in cinema uni)
I really liked the presentation of this video, very clean 🫡
Just wanted to say that this video was really, really good. The editing and the visuals were all top notch. Keep up the great work :)
I recently coded the camera for my own fighting game and boy did I quickly start appreciating them. There's a lot of decisions a designer must make to make the information clear. You'd think it'd be as easy as anchoring it to the middle point of the two players, but no, while chasing that point horizontally is important, vertically if one player jjumps, the camera would be yoinked towards that middlepoint, obscuring the other player.
But you WANT the camera to follow the jumping player to sell the change in verticality and more importantly to not let them jump out of frame to mask what move they'll be going for. The solution for this is to slow down the vertical camera chase speed
But if you do that, and the player does a double jump, the camera catches up late and is now briefly stuck in the air while both players are only half visible. The solution for that? Slow down the chase speed for going upwards, but keep it fast for going downwards.
BUT! There's another issues! Consider a quick character that has a triple jump, or perhaps even a character with a short flight who can go pretty high! Suddenly the middlepoint shows the top half of player 2 and the bottom half of player 1, neither clearly so you have to make a decision to prioritize a player at certain heights!
I have worked on this piece of shit for a few weeks now and I'm still not happy with it. And this is a 2D game with a fixed perspective for the most part, not a fancy 3D game with free camera movement, which i imagine is another level of complexity.
A simple solution here appears to be 'pull the camera back', but I am sure there is more nuance to the problem than that.
@@undvined As another indie fighting game dev, the amount of space needed on screen is going to depend on movement and attack range. Games with more drastic movement and bigger attack ranges, like Marvel or Smash, need to be zoomed out more. Games with more restrained movement and more precise ranges, like Street Fighter, are better zoomed in. Ultimately, it depends on what characters are DOING with that space.
@@undvined this can be really jarring if it's not done correctly, i.e. if it doesn't have the correct easing in and out of a larger perspective. This is because changing the camera distance also changes the relative rate of change between both of the fighers, as in, as the camera zooms out, now my forward dash literally covers less distance on the screen. With another fighter doing a back dash, and the camera scrolling laterally, the largest consideration you have to make is between the two fighters. With the camera moving, you have to consider that as well, and it makes it much harder to get used to. I seem to remember some sega genesis fighting game doing this every time the characters jumped, but I can't remember the name.
Anyways, if you do that, you have to have some serious initial jump lag for it to really feel natural, if any character has too fast of a jump, it kind of becomes a problem as the camera moves around too quickly, so that's something that scales with the vertical camera size, is how fast you can jump. If you have more space at the top of the screen, you can have a much faster jump, because there's more space to ease in those larger jumps. Generally camera distance isn't a super huge problem though, as the characters grow apart in speed they also tend to have less rapid of effects on one another. A farther target becomes harder to aim at for slow moving projectiles, and even for hitscan projectiles, they present a smaller target. A hitscan projectile with a 3 frame input delay would be kind of insane, right, because you would have to parry it or block it every time, but at a distance (perhaps a CONSIDERABLE) distance, you might be able to dodge it with lateral movement alone.
Another element to consider with all of this is that having a marker of scale can really help. Pulling the camera back on a piece of graph paper, it's still pretty obvious as to the distances and scales of things, but if you put things in the background, then those things become smaller at a slower rate than the things in the foreground, and vice versa for foreground objects. This is also a consideration with muddy or indistinct background elements, they can become lost as the camera gets pulled back, and this can make distance harder to judge as well. Both of these effects can actually be neat if used properly, but can also make it a little bit harder to judge the scale of things. So, for goom, if they haven't already, I would consider adding a grid to the background, if they end up implementing camera zoom and pull, though, it's probably a good idea anyways.
your videos have never stopped improving since the first one i saw. stellar work again! Interesting topics, explained in a way that is fun to both watch AND listen to.
Every video game essay requires an ultrakill reference
Clicked this video on accident, read the title and thumbnail after the first sentence falsely said I did, and followed along thinking that this would be a video about… honestly I can’t remember anymore, I have no idea what I just watched but I loved every second of it
I think it's maybe important also to note for burgeoning game designers: you can make any camera system work with most any game. I think the most obvious example of that to me is how racing games tend to narrow the FOV the faster you go. This is also a good idea in terms of gameplay, since it focuses more of your screen on stuff coming further down the road, but it also makes the player FEEL like they're going faster. Obviously it's pretty hard to do an orthographic fps, but I can see some great mileage being wrung out of such a concept. Maybe it's the point of your game, that you can't tell what the hell's going on.
What's more important than the camera, is how well fitted the design overall is to it. You can have a platformer with a large focal length and a pushed in camera, and a low FOV. It's possible, and it can be desirable, such a camera might simultaneously make you feel claustrophobic, but also very fast and manic. The thing is that you just have to playtest your game, and you have to get other people to playtest your game. You're all going to have different senses of how far away something is based on the perspective of it, and if you play your own game too much you'll probably get used to it. Playtesting fixes these issues. If you want an orthagonal platformer, an easy way to do that is to make the lower platforms appear darker or more shaded relative to the rest of the screen, give your player a depth map, that sort of thing.
But it's better to get these sorts of problems and design decisions, these tonal decisions, out of the way early, before you design half of your game, or else you're going to end up sticking with the default camera forever, only changing it as your gameplay scenario begets it (insert race car example again here), since it's the camera that feels the best in a default state of play. Much like the racecar example, affecting your camera can make your game easier or harder, and it can completely change the tone to fit the context, just like it does in film. But designing around a default camera leads to a generic feeling game, and you don't wanna make a generic game. Think about how shadow of the colossus would feel if the camera didn't shift side to side to face the direction you're going, if it didn't pull back to reveal the colossi as they come in to view, if they just had a constant over the shoulder 3d camera. Lots of details like these are the reason why games end up feeling super generic. Figure out the camera, then figure out the gameplay, make it fun, and then figure out what camera effects and movement you can add back in, as contextual gameplay prompts, to make the game flow better, or to capture the mood better.
As someone who is obsessed over perspective for no reason, this was a treat
This video was great; I felt confused a lot after you jumped from an explanation to an example. I feel like simpler examples and summaries would help tremendously!
this will make another fine addition into the "long form essay videos to sleep to" playlist
You can feel the gears grinding in his head to force a cameo from Fez into the video because everyone who knows about that game was thinking about it from the very beginning but it hasn't got all that much to do with the point.
Holy shit, this is a sweet video essay.
I originally clicked on thinking it was one of those videos about tile distance and how geometrically 2 tiles diagonally are so much further than 2 tiles axially.
Dude I've seen and experienced alot of this stuff, but YA DONE PUT IT IN WORDS AND CLEAR CONCEPTS!
I DIDN'T KNOW I WANTED THIS THANK YOU!
Out of all of the "invisible systems" there are, the camera is probably one of the least visible out of all of them in my opinion. I hear myself complaining about a camera not cooperating the way I want it to than I ever do praising a camera for just doing a good job, hell I'm not sure if I've ever praised it once. Funnily enough, it feels like a lot of things appear simple at first but become complex the more you dig into them. Aside from that, this was a well made video, I enjoyed the editing and it's not everyday that you see people animate in 3D or actually add more polish than subtitles and premade transitions. Well done man.
Man, production value of your videos goes up with each upload. Great job! Keep'em coming!
I like how you apparently play Tony hawks proving ground as dr manhattan
Dude, I just found this channel, and I am blown away! Not only are you really effectively teaching the finer points, and exploring the broader points, of a really technical subject, but the presentation is absolutely top notch all the while. Can't wait to dive in to the rest of the channel.
This was really nice and enjoyable to watch. I like your format, as a long time viewer I can definitely see you building your own style. Happy to be here for the ride ❤ much support
great vid. attributing the popularization of over-the-shoulder camera angles in 3rd person shooters to GoW instead of RE4 was weird though.
Great analysis, Leon, and this helps illuminate why game feel hits me the way it does.
When input, focus, and design all jangle off each other, I'll put a game down in minutes.
1:07
Actually i can see a difference, pay attention to the sides of the card, when it starts flipping it's back up, you can see the side that the back of the card appears from first, which tells you which direction the card is flipping
(It's more noticable in the earlier sections when it's flipping from the table)
Also the mention of the Trials game just brought back memories i almost forgot i had, awesome
oh hell yeah, the boy is still at it, going over such small details that go over look so I can look into my favorite games and find out what the camera does like an easter egg
0:27 Perspective is important. Both socially and *more importantly* for the viewing of digital spaces.
Glad mans has got his priorities straightened out
I have recently started learning Blender after a few years in photography/film and this is brilliant from every angle I look at it. Great work!
shoutout to Naya's Quest btw, a platformer where the whole gimmick is the first bit of the video: you're put in an isometric space without any perspective, and have to use the other tools the game gives you to figure out what jumps you can make (iirc one rotates the level, and the other hides all platforms that arent in the x- and z-axis "slice" youre in)
its camera would be absolutely horrible in any other game, quite possibly the absolute worst camera a platformer could have, but since the whole game is built around figuring out what to do in spite of the camera, it works REALLY well
(honestly as soon as i saw bungler fall past the other block i thought leon was about to bring up nayas quest lmao)
Bro the 3d editing is insane on this video, but I also feel like you could pull this off consistently. Really dope vid
Was just gonna skim through this video from my recommendations, but the large variety of game examples here (and especially the bgm choices!) made me stay through the whole thing. Fantastic video
This actually helped me understand more about perspective for my art surprisingly enough
Great video
This is my first time watching one of your videos, and I did not expect that puzzle theme
When you were talking about third-person-shooter cameras, I was reminded that there IS still a major shooter series that keeps the player horizontally centered in the camera: Splatoon. However, there is both a good reason why the player is kept in the focus area, and a key change to the camera that helps resolve the obstruction issue.
In Splatoon, more so than other shooters, what you're standing ON is important to pay attention to. Standing on your enemy's ink is extremely detrimental to you, as you lose most of your mobility. When you step onto enemy ink, the game makes a sound (your character making a small noise), but there are also a lot of key visual indicators: there's little ink splashes and ripples around your feet, and your character's animations change. In this way, having your character front and center helps make it more obvious when this happens. In addition, firing your weapon directly at your character's feet is a key strategy for dealing with this situation, so having the aiming reticle horizontally lined up with your character helps make this more intuitive to do.
However, the game does make a key change to the camera: It's placed significantly ABOVE the character, and as such is pointed slightly downwards compared to where you're aiming. In this way, your character is at the bottom-center of the screen, what you're aiming at is at the center of the screen, and the horizon is in the upper-center of the screen. This keeps everything visually separated, and helps largely avoid the issue of important visual information being obstructed. This does have the affect of making aiming a bit weird, as the shots don't come from the same direction as the camera, but the game uses a moving reticle system to make it clear what you're actually aimed at, so it largely just works.
Holy shit he’s learning 3D animation
I think the entire reason that Airblade's camera is so low down is to go "Hey! Look! You're hovering! On a hoverboard! Isn't that cool?".
8:25 randomly brought back some old memories of bike baron (it only took like 30 minutes to wrangle the internet into helping me recall that name)
I watched the start of this video with my screen flipped the wrong way around and thought it was just part of the bit
Everyone- Enjoying the perspectives.
Me with my Lazy Eye- WTF IS THIS!!!!!
This reminds me of how some optical illusions (such as the rotating mask where you can't tell which side it is) just _don't work_ on people with schizophrenia. Their brains are missing something in the cognition process that, for the average person, makes them interpret these things in an illusory way.
One thing I think you could have pointed out, is that an orthographic camera is basically the same as a perspective camera with an infinite focal length. The same way that the sun's rays are almost parallel to each other because it's so far away, a very far camera with a high zoom is almost orthographic.
4:14
Yo that is one of the best zombie games I've ever played
One of the best free steam games
3:36 A T90 reference!? Let's goooooooooooo!
I've been watching your essay type videos for a while and this in particular seems fresh while still remaining familiar. As others have been saying you can really tell how much you've improved over the years with your editing /timing while still remaining just as informative. All in all this was a very good video, thank you. As always, I'm looking forward to to your future content. Cheers.
bungler could totally make that jump
Oh man, another absolute banger of a video! Amazing stuff
I knew what the video is about when just looking at the thumbnail. I was happy like a kid that solved the riddle when you said that the prespective is orthographic. Still, great video.
Was trying to watch this video on my phone while walking around the house to get stuff done, and it felt like the Airblade camera, but for watching a video.
For the last outro shot where it lingers on the creature and the perspective jump, you should have made it jump again - but actually making it this time, implying the perspective wasn't lying in this instance. Just feels like it'd have been a cute way to tie the vid up.
Thank you for making me appreciate cameras more
I was just checking your channel for a new upload the other day. Champion Leon
I never expected you to make such a deep video, nice!
11:00 OH GOD THIS IS WHAT DRIVES ME NUTS ABOUT WIND WAKER'S CAMERA. Somehow it never felt that bad in OoT or Twilight Princess but it DOES in WW
This gave me multiple epiphanies over the course of the video and I am amazed!
I love this video! lol
One thing that I just realized. I kinda like bad cameras too. I think I like them in spite of them being bad, but they add some weird artificial difficulty that can make the game more engaging. Or, even better, they sometimes bring the focus on things I happen to be caring about anyway. Like how they might sometimes make everything equally important (as was the case in earlier 3d shooters pre-GoW), I like this because I sometimes like when a thing is organically in the way of another thing, because that feels more immersive. I think I'll be in the minority to say this though, I think we should appreciate invisible systems like these more and I'm glad this video's out. lol
I love seeing you branch out from just fighting games nowadays
Wow, I was expecting some sort of "we're going to calculate the distance using maths!" video not a full blown essay on cameras. I'm pleasantly surprised!
So proud of you Leon! Your channel has gotten so much bigger and your videos have improved so much! I remember playing you in an online GGXRD tournament and we both played Venom, and I'd already watched your channel for your GG videos, but you absolutely destroyed me! Good work bro!
You were beginning to lose me, until you said it's a video about video games. Good jumpscare.
Huh... Today was both the first *and* second time I have ever heard of Airblade in my life... Life really comes at you fast sometimes.
racing games are often the exception to the "you only notice it when it's bad" rule. you REALLY notice when it's bad, but when it's REALLY good, it does make a fucking statement. the big fucking tilt on drifts that NFS Unbound are a perfect example, so fucking good
Airblade feels like a fever dream I had 21yrs ago, glad someone else remembers it!
Oh my god, is that Professor Layton music??? Jeeze that really brings me back. Absolutely great series. :)
Love these style of videos, keep em coming Leon! :D
really really great video. somehow all new information that totally makes sense with what I knew, all because it was stuff I had noticed without thinking about.
Love these vibes, man
Its great to talk about games, go on passioned infodumps and uplift people who's face you don't even know.
Great video, see you next time
Holy crap, never did I think I would ever hear Airblade referenced in any capacity, let alone talked about in some detail. Superfly in the sky indeed
Great job man, I was struggling with some FOV problems and you pointed me in the right direction and even gave me advice on things I didn't even notice I needed :)
BABE WAKE THE FUCK UP! MASSEY DROPPED ANOTHER HOOD CLASSIC
Extremely underrated channel (amazing video btw)
This the first time I've watched a video that deserves a million views before it hitting a million views. This video is so well crafted and enjoyable and it definitely deserves more attention. Amazing job!
This is like, a very random video, about a very random subject, but was very fun and I learn stuff. Very good :D
"And really whether you're conscious of cameras or even that you care that's all just a matter of perspective."
I could hear the big fucking grin on your face in the silence of the remaining seconds of this selfcare moment, thank you, mwah.
3:09 Yeah, in the first minutes I thought this was a video essay for school with a bit of references to games because your channel is about it
God I forgot about Trials, I remember having so much fun with that game. The community completely destroyed the game with custom maps, some people literally figured out how to make first person levels with it, yes, an FPS controller in the *motorcycle game*
We used to use telecentric lenses at my old job. Same effect with the size of objects.
Since we were doing measurements with optical devices, the objects needed to remain the same regardless of distance.
I really appreciate the game titles being in the corner. You missed a couple but i appreciate it all the same.
This video is really really well written
I just played "Superliminal" which uses this kind of ambiguity as a game mechanic. I highly recommend it.
I distinctly remember gaming before Resident Evil 4 and after. That game's camera heavily influenced gaming going forward.
AMAZING VIDEO!!! I love this kind of edited videos, you should get WAY MORE attention and views than what you are rn. Lets hope one of your vids go viral and you skyrocket into the million subs. Keep up the work man!!
this video is a joy to watch, the edditing is so good and smooth
Professor Layton music? Let's go! Took a while for me to recognise it. Nice video!