How do you let the player view the game?

[The Final Rune]

I'm not sure if this belongs here or in the Domain Chatter, but I figured since I'm asking about the game itself it in fit here.

Everyone of us has a certain way we want the player to view our game. I myself and still torn between a full CCS, a limited camera, or using a fixed view. I wanted to get everyone else's opinions on this. I think I'm leaning towards using a full CSS in my world maps, using a limited view system in my cities and a fixed view system for interiors and dungeons.

What setup are you using/going to use?

[Dungeon Warden]

The view in my game changes depending on what area the play is in. A many allow some customization in the camera (still undesided since some areas need to limit the view, but I may make outside areas fully customizable).

[Deleted]

I'm doing the customizable CCS/whatever. One thing to note about FF7, FF8, FF9, Chrono Cross, Chrono Trigger (for it's time), etc. that had one still camera angle is that they all had amazing graphics - amazing graphics in the sense of all the details of the surroundings and not 'good graphics' in the sense of PS2/X-Box/GC games. If the places are plain and boring looking a still camera angle'd suck ass. (that's all). The CCS is a whole ing lot better than the default horizontal-rotations-only camera system.

[Draygone]

The reason they looked so great is because 2D graphics don't take up as much memory and power to look nice. 2D graphics don't look like they're made up of polygons with blurry textures, not to mention there usually isn't any problem with aliasing aside from Mode-7 and scaling graphics. To make a 3D game look as good as, say, Chrono Trigger would take up lots of memory and power, and right now I don't think any system is powerful enough to accurately portray some of Chrono Trigger's areas in full 3D. They might come close, but not quite there.

Likewise, RPGM2 games will generally look the same whether you have a still camera or a moveable camera. Except you get a sense of being in a real 3D area when you can change the camera ange.

Anyway, I'm not sure what I'd use. At least in buildings. I mean, when you have camera control indoors, you'd always have to deal with the wall closest to the screen obstructing view of the usually small room, which IMO just doesn't look very nice. Everywhere else, still not sure. I wouldn't mind allowing the player to change the camera angle, but then it would be possible to see the horizon ten feet away, with bad pop-up. I might use a limited camera option, where pressing a button simly changes between three viewpoints, with the L/R buttons still rotating the camera.

[Dungeon Warden]

For the player a full CCS is great, for the designer it can cause problems. I know several places in my game that I wouldn't want players looking around to much. Of course, I could disable the camera at these times, but that still means using a mixture of camera types.

[Deleted]

You can see in the longer video demo of mine a trick for the wall thing, Draygone, that YOU first said at the agetec forum a long while ago. (I do owe you for that still)

[Draygone]

Yeah, I very well remember that trick. I also noticed a couple flaws with it, though. For one, you can't see shadows under where the wall would be. Another, it would look kinda funny if you had something hanging on the wall, and you turned the camera behind it and the object appeared to be floating. Not terrible flaws, but kinda noticeable for me.

[Dungeon Warden]

Yeah, I had to use that trick for my inn because the walls are so high. The windows and door do seem to be floating, but I set the starting position so that the player won't notice until they turn the camera and walk around.

[The Final Rune]

I'm thinking I'll make my interiors with a forced diagonal view and simply omit the two front walls, creating a open interior with only rear walls. Of course this method has flaws of its own. Object placement becomes limited, and interior walls create areas where the player's view becomes obstructed. How very annoying. I wish there was a simple solution to my dilema.

[Dungeon Warden]

Another, not so simple, solution is to make any wall objects into events and have them disappear when the party is looking through the wall. This can be done by using a custom camera to keep track of which way the camera is facing. Not the most efficent solution but it should work.

[WarDragon]

for me i will just have the camera to be shown in different areas. not areas that i want the player to look also

[Deleted]

Your idea would actually work well, Final Rune, since you'd only have to focus on making one direction look well. DW's'd work well too. I didn't think of that with the objects, oh well!