CnEY's Camera Utilities

Synopsis

GZDoom scripts to help with capturing smooth camera movement.

(Inspired by Nash Muhandes' BTOrbitCam, which gave me enough of a starting point with ZScript to make this work; I had originally wanted something like this for my music video for Major Arlene's map The Deep.)

Installation

1. Download the PK3
2. Load it into GZDoom however you like to load things (e.g. ZDL)

Walkthrough

1. The default toggle keybind is J but you can configure this in the controls menu under CnEY's Camera Utilities
2. The first time you press the toggle key, game time will stop and the mode will activate (see below for details)
3. Press the toggle key again to return to the player position and restore game time

Controls

While in camera mode, the following in-game bindings control the camera:

• Move forward/back keys to increment speed forward or back (relative to base angle)
• Strafe left/right keys to increment speed left, right (relative to base angle)
• Turn left/right keys to increment rotation speed left, right (does not affect base angle)
• Inventory next/previous keys to reset base angle to the next/previous 45-degree increment
• Center view key to reset pitch (useful if it wasn't centered when entering camera mode, but you want it to be)
• Use key to start/stop game time (e.g. to unfreeze thing animations; player will still be invisible)

Notes and Tips

• Press a movement or rotation key multiple times to increase speed in that direction
• Press the opposite movement/rotation key to decrement speed; upon reaching zero, subsequent presses will increment speed in the opposite direction
• Movement and rotation speed can be combined; movement continues along the base angle, unaffected by rotation
• Forward/back and left/right movement currently cannot be combined (one will cancel the other and reset position)
• Setting the base angle also resets position
• You can use noclip2 in GZDoom to fly to a position and start the camera mode from there

Changelog

Version 1.1 (April 24, 2022)

• Keybinds in camera mode are now based on other configured game bindings
• Default binding to toggle camera mode is now actually J as documented (it was H due to a typo in 1.0, oops)
• Adds support for snapping to cardinal/ordinal directions (using next/previous inventory keys)
• Entering camera mode now preserves your current pitch (so you can take up/down-angled shots to show off scenery/terrain; you can also reset it in-mode by pressing the center view key)
• Toggling camera mode shows a message indicating its current state (this was supposed to be in 1.0 but I apparently never repackaged it)

Version 1.0 (April 17, 2022)

• First release; supports movement, rotation, and time start/stop