Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Just some thoughts on the camera

Hi all, first off i am enjoying this game much more than i thought possible, but my biggest annoyance within the game has to be the camera. I used to be one of those people who played MOBA's 24/7, so instinctively i wanted to use border pan as a method to direct my camera. I quickly learned this was a horrible idea, and i still have yet to find a solution although using WASD has helped, without a doubt. The reason i am still so frustrated with controlling the camera is even when using WASD, you have to be EXTREMELY deliberate with your inputs if you want to control it accurately(If you are holding D and press W thinking the camera would move diagonally, most of the time it just keeps heading right, sometimes it decides to go up)Anyways i know that came out as quite the rant, but thanks for reading and i am loving the game thus far.

I'm imagining that the camera functions are still quite restricted in Alpha and hopefully they will be more improved as time goes on.

The biggest things I am hoping for are: 360 degree rotation of the camera and the ability to pan up and down.

I really hope there is the ability to rotate the camera a full 360 like you mentioned. It is sometimes very difficult to see all items in a house, or enclosed area, with the limited current camera. It won't deter me from playing the game if they don't add it. If they do add it though, it will be such a huge improvement over the current system.

Thanks for the feedback! I agree that the camera controls could use some more fine-tuning. I'll see what can be done.

The in-game assets were designed to be looked at from a single angle, saving a lot of work for the level designers. This means that for example, houses may not have a "back" wall, which remains hidden from sight as long as you don't rotate the camera too much. In other words, adding 360° camera support means a *lot* of extra work from the level and assets designers. As this design choice is primarily one taken in order to save work & time, I personally highly doubt that Larian will have the time to add a 360° camera to the game.

EDIT: ninja'd by Joril

I would be more than happy for there just to be the tilt in there (I should make it clear at this point that I meant tilt in my OP rather than pan).

If the reasons are as you say then giving up the ability to tilt the camera by 90 degrees (flat horizontal to full vertical) then that should alleviate most of the view restrictions, especially inside buildings, without having to worry about us seeing the "back" wall.


On a side note, I have not see much about the editor but surely, when you create levels you will be able to move the camera 360 degrees so you can make accurate level designs, it would seem strange if all of the objects could essentially only be viewed from 2 sides.

Yes, in the editor you can freely rotate and zoom.

So I am guessing then that you can see all sides of a building, for example, in the editor. If that is true then maybe the rendering isn't a problem and I can hope that full rotation will be included.

Rendering isn't the problem. Because of the original decision to use a fixed camera angle, the artists were able to take shortcuts designing the environment (ie simply leave out walls that you couldn't see from that angle). There is a colourful tree north of Cyseal that was clearly designed to look good from a specific angle, which looks a little flat with the camera at a different angle. To completely unlock the camera, someone would have to go through and fill in all the details that the artists were able to hide out of sight before.

But presumably when you create your own adventures you will be able to view it from all angles when you play that adventure?

Again I'm only guessing but I would assume that all of the objects in the editor are completely finished from all sides, or is it that you can tell that only 2 of the sides are finished and so therefore know which way to have them facing?

The lack of full rotation certainly won't stop me from buying/enjoying the game but I still think/hope that the tilt on the camera shouldn't cause many issues though so I hope that gets put in.

Well, whether the camera is officially unlocked (or unlockable for mods), or not, someone at Larian did say that could probably be modded.

So wait, I'm not understanding about the camera not rotating 360. This game is made with 3D models and if at the right angle you can see the entire model, so I don't know what people are saying about the developers leaving portions of the models out.

I guess I just need proof that this was the developers decision.

For me a camera that rotates 360 would be great to have.

Here is an example of something that looks bad at the wrong angle


(Taken from http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=477200#Post477200)

That's just quick terrain lay work (I'll bet sloppy, but heh alpha) and even with the current camera scheme it don't hide it. If you were to rote the camera a full 360, you can see that entire tree, the mesh is done and is textured.

I think an excellent example of good camera functions would be the NWN games. That camera functions very well and is similar in style to Divinity Original Sin.

I do however like being able to move the camera with wasd, using the mouse at the edge of the screen is a little clunky right now and requires a couple retries (especially on the right side of the screen) to get working properly.

The camera in NWN is exactly what I had in mind. In my humble opinion it's still the best D&D game made and I think that a lot can be taken from it even all these years later.