FreeCamera for taking in game recordings/screenshots

We have released a new free camera that allows you to more easily take pictures and video of your game. You can activate this free camera in game using LeftShift + P in any game where you have server side developer console access.

Controls:
WASD/UHJK to move around.
Q/E or Y/I to move the camera up/down.
Mouse wheel to increase and decrease the FOV.

Example of footage recorded using the free camera:
https://i.gyazo.com/e3b6b85b18c56cc3cd4a902140ceaf44.mp4

258 Likes

Not sure the keybind is a great pick. Shift is commonly used for sprint, so if a developer is sprinting and then presses P (e.g. press p for Party Window while sprinting), they’ll be given freecam. Would make more sense as Ctrl+Shift+P.

68 Likes

This is awesome!

2 Likes

I did not think this would be much of an issue because LeftShift and P are on the opposite sides of the keyboard and in most games you would be using the mouse as well as the keyboard so these keys are not commonly used with each other. If enough developers think they might have keybindings that overlap we could probably change this though.

18 Likes

is this the same one that’s been used to film the event trailers?

2 Likes

Yes! have been waiting for this for so long!

EDIT: getting a lot of fun with this! video below
https://twitter.com/raqRBX/status/899757332879613952

Also found this problem where when you jump with it enabled, the character doesn’t jump at all, sometimes you get stuck and you can not move anymore till you disable it.

6 Likes

Lovely

1 Like

How would this work in a game like @Tim7775 's hide and seek game? Players could just “FreeCam” everywhere and find people. :thinking:

4 Likes

It’s only for the owner/developers :slight_smile:

8 Likes

Ahh, awesome! :slight_smile:

1 Like

Exactly what I need! Awesome

Really useful for like competition events and/or livestreams! Thank you for making this. :blush:

1 Like

Woah! I love this new thing!

1 Like

Wow cool, thanks!

2 Likes

Was this used to record the intro gameplay footage during RDC?

2 Likes

There are some popular AAA games that use similar keybinds, so I imagine there would be plenty of ROBLOX games that do as well.

Skyrim

Alt → Sprint, P → Magic Menu, I → Inventory
Alt is on the left-hand side of the keyboard, similarly to sprint (in fact, I rebound it to shift since that’s more standard), while P is on the right-hand side of the keyboard. Currently I have inventory/magic menu bound to M4/M5 so they’re really easy to access, but before I would use I/P to open them. Frequently I would be sprinting away from an enemy that was about to kill me and open either of those menus to access a healing potion/spell.

Warframe

Shift → Sprint, M → Expand Map
In Warframe, I’m always sprinting (nature of the game). Whenever I press M to enlarge the minimap, I’m probably already sprinting, so I’m pressing both Shift and a key on the other side of the keyboard.

Borderlands 2

Shift → Sprint, I → Inventory, K → Skills
I’m also habitually glued to the sprint key in Borderlands. When I open the inventory/skills pane in the middle of combat, I might still be holding shift even if I’m standing still. I/K are on the other side of the keyboard from Shift.



It seems bad to approach features with "Let's test it out and hope it works" as opposed to addressing any known concerns we catch early on. Freecam especially, since it's a developer-only feature its use is nowhere as common as normal game keybinds, so the latter should take precedence. Why does freecam need to reserve such a prominent keybind instead of something like Ctrl+Shift+P (a notation UI hiding already follows)?
10 Likes

In the case of this feature, perhaps as it will be more difficult to change the key binding down the road when everyone already knows it. But I wouldn’t agree with this as a general principle, because it takes time to address concerns and it makes sense to know these are real issues before investing that time.

When we first picked the keybinding for this, it was actually just an internal tool so it didn’t really seem to matter much what we picked. When we decided to make this feature developer facing also, I briefly thought about changing the keybind, but thought the current one would not cause problems so we could avoid the inconvenience of changing it for admins currently using it.

Those are some good examples though, we will think about changing this.

6 Likes

This shouldn’t be an issue.
You can only use this camera mode if you have the correct permissions for the place:

1 Like

Would it be possible to add the page up/page down and period/comma controls like in studio to help snap the camera to more square angles?

i kinda hoped this could be used to help developers make cinematic shots in-game for like intros and such rather than have it used for trailers and screenshots