Experimenting with Camera angles

[Robert Misner]

Since settling on a primary view for the camera mod that works best for cab mode I've been wondering what else can we do to further enrich the experience.

I've been messing around with the idea in the back of my head of using the Presets to simulate slight changes in perspective vs completely different viewpoints.

More shift right and glance left, and shift left and glance right..and just hunkering down lower like people do when they play to see parts of the table better or just have a better line to a shot.

I tested creating a few camera views to simulate this..I think they might be too pronounced but you will get the idea.

With an addition to the Camera mod to allow 4 presets and an option to push and hold these views could be mapped to keys or the right analog stick on a joystick for example.
With your thumb you could push a direction to change perspective and on release it would return to the default centered view.

Another idea is something like Freetrack.
http://www.free-track.net/english/freetrack/qu-est-ce-que-c-est.php

Basically it's a free head tracking software utility for games. I don't' think the camera mod will be able to provide real time head tracking BUT Freetrack does have a single point mode that can be used to trigger keystrokes..so leaning left could trigger the hotkey for the left view preset and leaning right could trigger the hotkey for right view preset, and ducking could trigger the low view preset..

Its something I might just experiment over the winter with, but I'm curious if anyone else has used freetrack and has any insight to trying something like this for Pinball?
I know future pinball supported some kind of headtracking but that was coded into the game it would have to not rely on that.

 

[Locksley]

That is the way I use it basically. Well, I set up a position that I think is close to how I stand at a table and what is functional to see as much as possible + easy of doing shots.

I always wanted a few more views to choose from. Now I use 1. for plunger shot (if not necessary I set up an overhead view) 2. My standard play position with as big a playfield I feel comfortable with. 3. View with playfield and backglass, that I seem to be using quite a bit more nowadays. I mean I use the different positions to also get other angles!

I would like to get 2-3 more for use just the way you just set it up with angles when you lean left/right and down.

We'll see how Oculus Rift turns out - exiting next year for pinball I hope

 

[Nate]

Are you guys familiar with BAM for future pinball? And since the camera mod unlocks the camera couldn't something like the tracking functions of bam work for pinball arcade?

 

[NoEx]

A similar feature could be adapted to work with TPA, but this would require a complete rewrite of the code since Future Pinball is not TPA, is BAM open source?

Something like this has been already made for TPA by another dev some times ago to work with Oculus Rift > https://github.com/cbdillon/PinballVRcade/wiki

 

[Robert Misner]

I never even considered if the oculus rift code could work on a static display..interesting I got excited about the Rift version but my buddy had a good point..what good is it for multiplayer which is our perfered way of playing..beers and adhoc 2 or 3 player games.. Rift really is only usable by one person at a time.

I'll look into if BaM is open source or not.for sure.

 

[Pmarak]

Hi Robert....was wondering what values you used for the "hunkered down" view you demonstrated above ? It looks great and in my toying around I can't seem to get it to match. Would you be kind enough to share them ? If so, thanks. If not, I understand.