Freecam improvements

subcritical · November 14, 2017, 1:37am

Hey Developers,

If you aren’t already familiar with the Freecam, this is a tool that can be used by Place Owners/Developers to drive a camera through the game world, in order to capture great footage for game trailers and videos, so you can promote your game! We have made a number of improvements to Freecam to ensure developers have the best possible tools for capturing stunning in-game cinematic footage.

Changes

Removed the black letterbox mattes
Added speed controls to keyboard
Added FOV controls to gamepad
Developer key bindings are now respected
- In particular, Shift+P will no longer override your key bindings unless you explicitly call BindActionAtPriority with a priority below 1000.
Improved compatibility with games that use a custom character
Damping math is smoother and easier to tune
Camera focus now dynamically adapts to scenery distance

Updated controls

Keyboard

Shift+P: Toggle Freecam
Right click+drag: Pan
WASDEQ/UHJKIY: Move
Mouse wheel: Adjust field of view
Up & down arrows: Adjust movement speed

Xbox

Right thumb: Pan
Left thumb, LT & RT: Move
X & Y: Adjust field of view

Note that a gamepad will allow for finer-grained control over movement than a keyboard, through the use of analog sticks.

This is currently live.

ChipioIndustries · November 14, 2017, 1:44am

I think a toggle for showing your avatar should be implemented. Some single-player games only make sense with the avatar being visible.

doneyes · November 14, 2017, 2:34am

Awesome, can’t wait to use this

EchoReaper · November 14, 2017, 2:45am

Glad to see those black boxes go.

Accessibility could still use improvement – there’s no mention of these anywhere in-game. Not in the settings menu similarly to the Open Dev Console button, nor in the keybind list. If I didn’t check the developer forums, I would never know this feature, along with others such as toggling GUIs, existed.

Might be a good idea to convert “Open Dev Console” to “Open Developer Tools” which allows the developer to toggle freecam, GUI visibility, the developer console, microprofiler, performance stats, and all other similar tools we offer.

subcritical · November 14, 2017, 2:45am

Bear in mind that you wouldn’t be able to control your character with Freecam, so you can get the same functionality by cloning your character into workspace with a static pose.

Alternatively, open your place up to 2 people and have a friend pose while you record.

EchoReaper · November 14, 2017, 2:54am

The vision behind freecam seems to be offering an easily-accessible way for developers to capture cinematic screenshots/videos of their game – if it were anything else, freecam could just be implemented by the developer.

Assuming ease of access is in fact the driving factor for freecam, it makes sense that its design offers the easiest use. Moving a visible character out of the way of a shot is a lot easier than calling in a friend or exiting the game, making a change in Studio, and reloading the game. Capturing your own character can actually be pretty useful, so it’d be nice to offer that functionality.

Khodin · November 14, 2017, 4:51am

Tilt controls would be pretty cool, just don’t forget to add a key to reset the tilt.

Hexadecagons · November 14, 2017, 7:20am

Glad those obnoxious black bars are gone.

Partixel · November 14, 2017, 3:58pm

Is this a corescript / playerscript or built into the client?

einsteinK · November 14, 2017, 5:08pm

It’s just a regular LocalScript in PlayerGui that gets inserted by a CoreScript:

github.com

Roblox/Core-Scripts/blob/master/CoreScriptsRoot/Modules/Server/FreeCamera/FreeCameraInstaller.lua#L35


      
          	local originalModule = script.Parent:WaitForChild(name)
          	local module = Instance.new("ModuleScript")
          	module.Name = name
          	module.Source = originalModule.Source
          	module.Parent = parent
          	return module
          end
          
          
local Install = function ()
          
          
	local function AddFreeCamera(player)
          		local playerGui = player:WaitForChild("PlayerGui")
          		local freeCameraScreenGui = Instance.new("ScreenGui")
          		freeCameraScreenGui.Name = "FreeCamera"
          		freeCameraScreenGui.ResetOnSpawn = false
          		freeCameraScreenGui.DisplayOrder = 10
          		freeCameraScreenGui.Enabled = false
          		freeCameraScreenGui.Parent = playerGui
          		local freeCamera = LoadLocalScript("FreeCamera", freeCameraScreenGui)
          		LoadModule("Maid", freeCamera)
          		LoadModule("Spring", freeCamera)

Partixel · November 14, 2017, 5:10pm

Excellent, I want to use it in my admin

einsteinK · November 14, 2017, 5:12pm

I remember my old admin (ancient by now) had !freecam *(actually I forgot the syntax) that uses a simple Camera script. Long ago, it just did .Character = nil. Good ol’ times with their good ol’ tricks.

Partixel · November 14, 2017, 5:22pm

Yeah, I used .Character = nil up until recently but it seems to have broken and thus here I am.

joa_n · November 14, 2017, 10:04pm

Usually I would have just used Shift+L to remove the black boxes from the screen, but the improvements being done to this is great!

SteadyOn · November 9, 2018, 8:20pm

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I really don’t like how the keybind was removed if the developer is already using shift, and there is no alternative route to opening freecam. It’s only developers who can use this feature, so out of the millions who play a game they’re the only ones very slightly affected by the keybind. It’s a massive pain for me to go out of my way to install the script into my game manually, set up some kind of command or button that is only visible to me etc simply so I can use a camera in my game.

Allowing the keybind to be used anytime, or creating a chat command, or a longer shortcut that wont get in people’s way would be great for me.

system · July 27, 2019, 2:01pm