The Old Camera Angle (closer) VS The New Camera Angle (farther and higher)

+

The Old Camera Angle (closer) VS The New Camera Angle (farther and higher)

  • The Old Camera Angle (closer to Geralt)

    Votes: 135 60.5%
  • The New Camera Angle (farther and higher)

    Votes: 88 39.5%

  • Total voters
    223
What?
No seriously, what?

How does a camera that's slightly further away stop you from doing any of those things? We're not talking about a max zoomed out World of Warcraft Camera, or an Isometric View camera.
When exploring you'll have control over the "angle" of the camera, like up/down/left/right, but you just won't have control over the zoom. I really think you're highly exaggerating the amount further it's zoomed out, and what effect that has on being able to "interact" with the world and its inhabitants.

It doesn't stop you from getting closer and observing the NPCs, but it breaks immersion (spatial!) while you're observing them from a farther perspective. I think that's pretty obvious. One of the things I've mentioned is while you're riding Roach, your POV is so high/disconnected from the world that you don't get to see all those interesting little details

---------- Updated at 04:51 PM ----------

For reference:


 
Well, I looked up wikipedia and you're right, there are 4 types of immersion. What I'm talking about is spatial immersion
:rly?:
Does it seem like I was talking about water immersion till now?

"Spatial immersion occurs when a player feels the simulated world is perceptually convincing. The player feels that he or she is really "there" and that a simulated world looks and feels "real"."
Well it's a 3rd person game, you're never going to actually feel you're "really there" you have a character that is visible. Besides, how exactly am I going to feel 'spatially immersed' if by spatial awareness is severely limited to a keyhole FOV? Not to forget one's personal preferences be damned if a choice like this is physically affecting people with nausea/motion sickness.

You're delving into a field that's not full of factual data yet, psychovisuals/psychophysics, it's still an experiment with what 'feels right'. While we're at it I'll also mention proprioception, something that is necessary for the player to have proper control:
https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Proprioception

And in relation to that:
http://designreboot.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/refrigerator-box.html
 
Last edited:
I feel it's worth pointing out at this juncture that 'zoom' (where the camera is positioned close/far to the character) and 'field of vision' (how wide the aperture on the camera is and what it allows you to see left and right) are two separate things, and should be identified correctly when trying to discuss preferences.
 
but it breaks immersion (spatial!) while you're observing them from a farther perspective.

Well I just can't agree, at all.



The above is the kind of camera difference we're talking about here. You're really telling me that being able to see Geralt's feet and that larger FOV is really killing some kind of spatial immersion?
Carry on, but I'm just going to take my leave here because I cannot for the life of me see the big deal being made. It seems utterly trivial at best.

As a side note the Horse camera angle doesn't always have to be that high, as stated you can manually swivel the camera and bring it so you're more "even" with the world and not looking at it from such a high perspective. Although you're on a Horse... It's kind of natural you're going to be looking at folk from a higher perspective.
 
Well I just can't agree, at all.



The above is the kind of camera difference we're talking about here. You're really telling me that being able to see Geralt's feet and that larger FOV is really killing some kind of spatial immersion?
Carry on, but I'm just going to take my leave here because I cannot for the life of me see the big deal being made. It seems utterly trivial at best.

As a side note the Horse camera angle doesn't always have to be that high, as stated you can manually swivel the camera and bring it so you're more "even" with the world and not looking at it from such a high perspective. Although you're on a Horse... It's kind of natural you're going to be looking at folk from a higher perspective.

Well, look at how long this discussion has become. This is no trivial issue :)

While I agree that it is not really that significant in some scenarios, in a heavily populated area like Novigrad I feel they should, if not make the camera a bit closer, at least make it lower, just like in Assassin's creed, etc

edit: And honestly (call me crazy), yes, I do see a difference between those two screens. TW2 makes you feel way more 'as' Geralt, for that reason alone

---------- Updated at 05:13 PM ----------

If you've ever played DA:I, then you should know that many people requested a 'walk' toggle (released around patch 4?) just so they wouldn't always run around the city. There are some people who take these issues seriously :)


That's interesting. Thanks for the link
 
Last edited:
Okay, so let's restate your desires here, because this seems to be coming back to the same things that were discussed in the 'world too small' thread.

1. You want the camera position lower down, so that you can more accurately roleplay 'as' Geralt and not 'in control' of Geralt.

2. You want the camera position closer to Geralt to better mimic 'seeing' through Geralts eyes (though not through his head, :p) and get better facial data from villages at longer distances between Geralt and them.

3. You want a lower field of vision because you think that having less peripheral vision makes you more immersed and ratchets up the tension nicely.

======

1. This is done through just positioning the camera that way if you are playing with a mouse-keyboard

2. This can likely be done through a mod.

3. Just turn up the difficulty. You'll get a much better sense of tension and wish you had a 360 FOV when some monster comes sneaking up on you from behind. ;)
 
Okay, so let's restate your desires here, because this seems to be coming back to the same things that were discussed in the 'world too small' thread.

1. You want the camera position lower down, so that you can more accurately roleplay 'as' Geralt and not 'in control' of Geralt.

2. You want the camera position closer to Geralt to better mimic 'seeing' through Geralts eyes (though not through his head, :p) and get better facial data from villages at longer distances between Geralt and them.

3. You want a lower field of vision because you think that having less peripheral vision makes you more immersed and ratchets up the tension nicely.

======

1. This is done through just positioning the camera that way if you are playing with a mouse-keyboard

2. This can likely be done through a mod.

3. Just turn up the difficulty. You'll get a much better sense of tension and wish you had a 360 FOV when some monster comes sneaking up on you from behind. ;)

1. Yes!
2. Yes!
3. Well I'd ideally prefer something more realistic (IRL is 180 deg, but only 90 deg are visible because your side vision is naturally blurry). I don't know what the current settings are, but they look OK as long as you do #1 and #2

1. It probably will be done with a mod, because Marcin Momot officially stated that the camera wasn't adjustable. Oh man, what a let down..
2. Yup :(
3. Combat FOV can be bigger and camera can be a bit higher, like in Ryse/Mordor/ACU. But yeah, I guess :)
 
This is why I downloaded the FOV fix in shadow of mordor right away. As long as they include a zoom or FOV slider option then everyone is covered.
 
3. Well I'd ideally prefer something more realistic (IRL is 180 deg, but only 90 deg are visible because your side vision is naturally blurry). I don't know what the current settings are, but they look OK as long as you do #1 and #2

120 degrees is the is forward facing 'focus' cone. i.e. - When you are focusing in front of you on something, 120 degrees is that field of vision.


1. It probably will be done with a mod, because Marcin Momot officially stated that the camera wasn't adjustable. Oh man, what a let down..

This is actually a good thing. TW3 is going to have Redkit/modtools, and the new information about the camera having different 'baked' settings for different activities means that there is positional data for the camera during riding, sailing, walking, indoors, etc, etc, which means each one of those camera positions can be tweaked to what feels best to you, and then the engine itself will still handle contextual switching.

That's an ENORMOUSLY easier mod to write than trying to do that sort of thing yourself and much more immersive than just finding a camera position that works for everything.

Edit: I'm pretty sure that mouselook is still a thing. And if it's a thing, then camera elevation should be dependent upon your positioning.
 
Last edited:
I prefer a closer and more immersive camera, so I'm happy they are trying to put in many options for the players to choose.
I hope that this is official, so everyone can pick the camera he prefers and no one will be disappointed.
 
For me, having a severely and artificially reduced peripheral vision forcing me to constantly look around to maintain a proper sense of my surroundings breaks immersion for me immediately, because well, that's not something I have to do in real life. .

Yes! That's what i tried to explain to Wavebend, but i think he misunderstood. Foreign language + emotionally laden topics = dangerous combination. :p
 
When exploring you'll have control over the "angle" of the camera, like up/down/left/right, but you just won't have control over the zoom. I really think you're highly exaggerating the amount further it's zoomed out, and what effect that has on being able to "interact" with the world and its inhabitants.

I think the term "zoom" is misleading. We should use the terms "camera position / proximity" and "FOV" because they are completely different things, and even work contrary to each other.

You (Wavebend) could have a farther camera proximity* but still have a narrow(ish) FOV, so you can see other NPC nearer to you. It's the simple matter of perspective. Which means, higher FOV values give the impression of compressed space, lower FOV values the impression of expanded space.

*(so Geralt does not cover 1/3 of your precious screen space - not everybody has a 21:9 monitor, LOL)
 
Last edited:
120 degrees is the is forward facing 'focus' cone. i.e. - When you are focusing in front of you on something, 120 degrees is that field of vision.




This is actually a good thing. TW3 is going to have Redkit/modtools, and the new information about the camera having different 'baked' settings for different activities means that there is positional data for the camera during riding, sailing, walking, indoors, etc, etc, which means each one of those camera positions can be tweaked to what feels best to you, and then the engine itself will still handle contextual switching.

That's an ENORMOUSLY easier mod to write than trying to do that sort of thing yourself and much more immersive than just finding a camera position that works for everything.

Edit: I'm pretty sure that mouselook is still a thing. And if it's a thing, then camera elevation should be dependent upon your positioning.

I'd add that in real life, the brain computed before the next focus of the eyes in accordance with any body movement that displaces the trajectory of sight. In any game, the brain performs this calculation AFTER the "body" (mouse or Gamepod) has executed a displacement of the character. So many players don't support the FP camera, it decentres them and causes headaches.
 
I prefer a closer and more immersive camera, so I'm happy they are trying to put in many options for the players to choose.
I hope that this is official, so everyone can pick the camera he prefers and no one will be disappointed.
I don't know how they are going to do all this with so few buttons, GTA5/RDR does it with the select/share button. Also.. they changed the fast dodge to B and long roll to Y, so fast attack is A and heavy is X like TW2 :)
Cast sign is right trigger, bolck is left trigger sounds good to me ;)
 
Its not, Damien was mistaken.

Damn! Oh well... I suppose I'll get over it. Thanks for the info anyway.

---------- Updated at 07:17 PM ----------

I don't know how they are going to do all this with so few buttons, GTA5/RDR does it with the select/share button. Also.. they changed the fast dodge to B and long roll to Y, so fast attack is A and heavy is X like TW2 :)
Cast sign is right trigger, bolck is left trigger sounds good to me ;)

As thisismadness stated, there are no camera options to zoom in, so the problem of which button has to be assigned to camera switch doesn't exist anymore.
What a pity, though. It would be awesome if they implemented a closer camera option. Maybe in the future with a DLC...
 
I've played a lot of 3rd person games and never had an issue for any of them. I doubt this will change with The Witcher 3.

Though if I recall the Mass Effect camera was a bit too zoomed in, but it never really bothered me that much to bring it up or complain about it. I don't get queasiness in games and I don't get headaches very often.
 
Personally I like closer camera more and really hope CDP will implement camera options for a patch.

As for controls, they could easily make it a menu option.
Select camera distance: slider

Or even simply close,medium, far options would be nice.
 
A cam slider option is way to complex and annyoing for consoles, if consoles do get this patch, it needs to be like GTA5/RDR .
I still think the system they have right in place now, might turn out be really good, I guess we will see soon enough ;)
 
I personally much prefer the newer camera style. A nice centered 3rd person camera, of which isn't stuck up against Geralt's bumcheeks.

Saying that - with all this cutting edge technology going into this game. If I load it up come May, and you cannot do a simple thing like zoom the camera distance in and out. I'm actually going to throw my PC out my window lol.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom