Mouse-controllable external camera?

Post by **Cmdr James** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 8:53 pm

If anyone implements a fully nice external camera with pan and zoom, and chase mode I will buy them a beer. Cant say fairer than that

Diziet Sma · Post by **Diziet Sma** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:51 am

Cmdr James wrote:
If anyone implements a fully nice external camera with pan and zoom, and chase mode I will buy them a beer. Cant say fairer than that

A beer? That's gotta be worth two at least, surely..

Diziet Sma · Post by **Diziet Sma** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 7:53 am

Screet wrote:
Ooohh...and a freely scriptable outside camera could provide great cinematic sequences for oxpers

Screet

Now that would make for some great promo videos!

GUNSMIF · Post by **GUNSMIF** » Wed Jan 27, 2010 11:47 pm

I asked about this the other day!!!

I reckon it would be a massively popular oxp.

Cmd. Cheyd · Post by **Cmd. Cheyd** » Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:23 am

It's not possible as an OXP. It would have to be done via change to the core (trunk) code.

GUNSMIF · Post by **GUNSMIF** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 12:36 pm

Cmd. Cheyd wrote:
It's not possible as an OXP. It would have to be done via change to the core (trunk) code.

Can this be done? using trunk code?

Post by **Kaks** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:08 pm

Quite a lot of stuff is theoretically possible by changing trunk code. However, maybe you missed a few posts, so I'll quote myself:

Kaks wrote:
Can't help but agreeing with the core of Ahruman & Screet's posts: it's potentially a major pain to code... However, like the new revised hud code from Y A C a while ago, if any of you feels strongly enough about it, the possibilities are indeed endless, and we should have no problems including such a patch in trunk if any of you guys provides it to the dev team!

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:09 pm

GUNSMIF wrote:
Cmd. Cheyd wrote:
It's not possible as an OXP. It would have to be done via change to the core (trunk) code.
Can this be done? using trunk code?

Not in the way I think you're thinking...

What's been said here is that you (or somebody) needs to rewrite the external view handling code to include your desired whizzy mouse-driven viewing angles (in a way that works on all three OS types - PC Win/Linux and Mac) - submit this to the Devs for testing to make sure it doesn't break anything else in the code and if that's OK and it's agreed it goes in the trunk...

EDIT:

Ninja'd by Kaks!

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:33 pm

GUNSMIF wrote:
Cmd. Cheyd wrote:
It's not possible as an OXP. It would have to be done via change to the core (trunk) code.
Can this be done? using trunk code?

Although two other guys already answered, perhaps a clarification doesn't hurt.

I'm not sure whether you've fully understood what "trunk code" means. Your exchange of the verb "change" into the verb "use" indicates that perhaps not. So a little explanation here: What Kaks, Cheyd and the others are saying here is basically: The program "Oolite" is not written to support flexible camera views. If you want to include this as a feature, you have to completely re-write the program (or parts of it).

In other words: you have to be a computer programmer in order to do it. Not like the every day guy that uses software like "Word", "Internet Explorer" etc., but like the guys who created these software applications.

This is also very different from writing an OXP. An OXP may add a script, which is a set of commands which are executed by Oolite's code (the program Oolite.exe itself). No script, however, can change the code of Oolite.exe. But changing the code itself is exactly what you would need to do in order to re-program Oolite.exe to have a different camera system.

And our programmers (Kaks is one of them) have not said that this is impossible. They just said that for they time being they will not work on it.

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:20 pm

yeah, your talking thinking in hex. A good working knowlegde of how it works now and how it should work are key to getting a project like this done. Lots of on the fly calculations.

Any project that looks like magic is usually built from sweat.

Diziet Sma · Post by **Diziet Sma** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 1:13 am

ClymAngus wrote:
yeah, your talking thinking in hex.

Heck, back in my programming days I used to dream in hexadecimal...

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 1:39 am

<monty_python>Dream in hexidecimal! Luxury! When I were a lad, I had to get up at six, scrub valves clean, and then count out the ones and zeros before breakfast...</monty_python>

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 1:57 am

DaddyHoggy wrote:
<monty_python>Dream in hexidecimal! Luxury! When I were a lad, I had to get up at six, scrub valves clean, and then count out the ones and zeros before breakfast...</monty_python>

Ones and zeros? You were lucky! In my day we used decimal ring counters and liked it!

Website · Post by **DaddyHoggy** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 10:32 am

Nice link!

ClymAngus · Post by **ClymAngus** » Sat Jan 30, 2010 11:39 pm

Ahruman wrote:
DaddyHoggy wrote:
<monty_python>Dream in hexidecimal! Luxury! When I were a lad, I had to get up at six, scrub valves clean, and then count out the ones and zeros before breakfast...</monty_python>
Ones and zeros? You were lucky! In my day we used decimal ring counters and liked it!

Oh hark at him the unmitigated softness of decimal ring counters, we were up two hours before we went to bed, brushing the fluff out of Henry Prevost Babbages' difference engine with our oiled beards and lubricating the sprockets with a mixture of our own blood and sorrowful tears!

And WE, were lucky.