Gimbal-less camera, and/or camera mode fixed to ship

[michelcolman]

Hi everyone,

Camera angles are driving me nuts. It can be quite difficult to rotate a large ship in such a way that some specific science item, near the top and far away from the center of mass, comes into view. To make the rocket rotate one way, sometimes you have to use the right arrow, sometimes the up arrow, and then when you almost reach the desired angle, rotation stops because the camera reached gimbal lock and you have to rotate 180 degrees right and then down again, looking at everything upside down but at least hopefully getting to see the item you wanted. And you get different results depending on the camera mode ("free"(?), "chase", "orbit",...) but never really quite the one you wanted.

Would it be at all possible to make a gimbal-less camera that just rotates left and right when you use the left/right arrows, and up/down when you use the up/down arrow? And rotate around the center of the screen either with a modifier key or by pressing two arrows together (up+down = clockwise, left+right = counterclockwise or something like that). Basically, at any given time, pretend the gimbal axis is going up/down on the screen. It would make it so much easier to move the camera!

And maybe "free" should be called "planet" or something like that, because "free" doesn't quite describe it. And you could add a "ship" one that is relative to the fixed axis of the ship instead of its direction of motion ("chase"). In fact, just that last suggestion would already solve a lot of my problems. When you're in space and want to conduct experiments, there should be a fixed camera gimbal that always looks at the rocket in the same way no matter which way it's going, which way it's pointing, or which orbit it's in. Top = capsule, bottom = engines. Pretty please?

(BTW I know you can move the camera using the middle mouse button, but I don't have a middle mouse button and anyway an easier way of rotating the camera would still be welcome in any case)

Thanks in advance!

Michel

[Claw]

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you mean by "gimbal-less camera."

However, there is a "Locked" mode, which orients the camera to the fixed axis of the ship (as you describe toward the end). This orientation is my preferred setup for docking, because the up/down/left/right RCS motions match up with the camera view, and with the navball. That may be what you're looking for when you say "fixed axis."

You can also bind the camera pan to the arrow keys (which I think it is by default). Keep in mind that some keyboards/laptops treat the numeric keypad differently, so you won't always get "arrow left/right, etc" from it.

If you're looking for a completely free camera pan, there currently isn't a way to do that in stock. It will always try to maintain some sort of focus on the active ship (although there's some target tracking stuff in there too).

[Warzouz]

@Claw, there has been a recent topic on camera. There were some good suggestions

 

[Claw]

@Warzouz Thanks for the link. Yeah, if there was any one-thing I would change about the camera, it would be the ability to change where it's focused (like the add-on linked in the other thread).

[evileye.x]

1 hour ago, michelcolman said:

 but I don't have a middle mouse button

You really SHOULD have mouse with middle button ( I mean wheel). No reason not to have it,  OMG

But camera need some love. Default chase camera sucks for example,  I cannot play without 

 

Edited March 21, 2016 by evileye.x

[michelcolman]

A, OK, "Locked" does indeed correspond to an axis of the ship. Not the most intuitive one for a rocket (full up shows one side of the rocket, full down shows the other side, so to look at the top you have to aim somewhere in between and then rotate until the top is at the top) but at least it doesn't move about while you're flying by a planet. So I guess that part is almost OK, I just wish they'd picked a different axis.

With gimbal-less, I mean that it shouldn't be based around some particular axis, like the gimbals of an oldfashioned gyroscope.

The camera currently works as if it were connected to gimbals. When you're in certain orientations, it becomes very difficult to rotate in a particular direction you want. For example, after moving the camera full up, if you then want to rotate the object sideways, you can't do that directly because left/right rotates around the center of the screen (you are looking along the axis of rotation). So you have to rotate 90 degrees around the center and then rotate up/down to look at the part you wanted to see. But if you now want to rotate this image around the center of the screen (for example because the particular part you want is obscured by a window), that's impossible again because now left/right does what you wanted it to do in the first example, rotate the view sideways. In fact there is no way of getting the object into the orientation you really want.

Just take a tall rocket and try to get a particular side of the capsule into view (for example the door of the capsule visible somewhere around the right hand side of the screen). It's really, really hard if the gimbals are pointing in an awkward direction. Very often you just want to rotate "up" a little further but you can't because you're already fully up.

I wish there would be a way of controlling the camera that worked like w-a-s-d on the attitude indicator. Pitch and yaw rather than heading and inclination.

[michelcolman]

16 minutes ago, evileye.x said:

You really SHOULD have mouse with middle button ( I mean wheel). No reason not to have it,  OMG

I use the track pad on my laptop. Clicking with two fingers is like a right mouse click, but I guess I have to download some utility to allow a center click.

[evileye.x]

3 minutes ago, michelcolman said:

I use the track pad on my laptop. Clicking with two fingers is like a right mouse click, but I guess I have to download some utility to allow a center click.

Gaming on track pad is beyond my understanding...  All problems you have described easy solved by having mouse... 

[michelcolman]

No, the mouse rotates the camera exactly like the arrow keys do. You still can't rotate the view sideways while looking at the top, or rotate around the center while looking at the side.

Just to make it more clear: imagine in the map view you would like to look at the side of the solar system with the orbits going up/down. That's impossible, you can only go from circles over ellipses to horizontal lines and then back via ellipses to circles again. No way of getting them to vertical lines.

Now of course there's no need for that in the map view, but when looking at your rocket you sometimes really want to point it in some orientation which is rendered impossible because of how the camera works. No matter whether you're using mouse or keys. Sometimes the only place I can get to see the mystery goo is right behind the attitude indicator (OK, I can hide it, but still).

[pizzaoverhead]

Quote

Would it be at all possible to make a gimbal-less camera that just rotates left and right when you use the left/right arrows, and up/down when you use the up/down arrow?

I've dealt with creating a freely rotating camera before for Free IVA, so the answer to this is yes. This is something that could be done in stock or a mod. You can try out Free IVA to see what it would feel like. It has the yaw and pitch axes bound to the mouse, but you could easily use the keyboard instead.

[Kenny Kerman]

On 21/03/2016 at 5:25 PM, evileye.x said:

Gaming on track pad is beyond my understanding...  All problems you have described easy solved by having mouse... 

Gaming without a joystick... o_O

[evileye.x]

1 minute ago, Kenny Kerman said:

Gaming without a joystick... o_O

If you will ask me, I fly in KSP with flightstick.

Also I have throttle, pedals and freetrack, but don't use it in KSP....

[Red Iron Crown]

On 3/28/2017 at 2:12 PM, Kenny Kerman said:

Gaming without a joystick... o_O

Bumping a year old thread to make this comment? Why?