Hi, I'm not sure if anyone here developed a 3D third person shooter games. But I thought to ask. Can anyone advise on how to select a best camera view? I have a person walking and shooting at enemies/cars/buildings. Selected various cam views but can't really be positive if thats the best...

Maybe any links on howto or related information?

Appreciate it.

Here are a couple of links, though you might have seen these already. They deal mostly with the set-up of a third person camera (which you have obviously already done), but also have information on determining camera location:

A Simple Third-Person Camera Using The Polar Coordinate System (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1591.asp)

Camera Class Tutorial (http://www.gamedev.net/reference/articles/article1927.asp)

It is surprising that a simple web-search doesn't reveal more information about actually selecting effective camera views, but I haven't searched very deeply, so the information is probably out there somewhere.

I'd study really good ones and pay attention, think about how it appears to be selecting the angle (assuming you're talking more about theory than technical practice). The two best I've ever seen are Mario 64 and Grand Theft Auto 3 & Vice City. I think Heavy Metal - Fakk2 was pretty good, but I haven't played it in a while. Max Payne 1/2 is pretty good.

I think it would also be a very good idea to allow at least some manual control of the camera positioning. No 3rd person camera system is perfect. Just being able to nudge the camera left or right a bit can make all the difference in the world.

One of the Game Programming Gems series of books has an article in it about the camera used in Mario 64 iirc, so if you have them you might want to skim through the index. I took a quick look through them and couldn't find which book it was in, but I know it's in there somewhere. :)

Thanks for advices. I might havent given enough info though.
I have engine already done, but I'm not sure how to position the camera the best way. What angle, zoom. So most of the objects are on the screen and it looks good.

I lower down camera and then it looks fine kinda like fps, with tps view. Then I raise the camera and it looks kinda more from the top..I start thinking that it's too small.. So I'm wondering, is it all subjective and you just need to find your own angle or there are some hints on selecting a proper view. It's very important because it influences the games play.


Thanks