Automated Camera Follows Your Avatar in SL for Machinima & Other VR Fun

Tryptofaa Sands built an amazing SL camera device that follows you wherever you go, cutting between angles to get the best point of view, and it's a brilliant tool for SL machinima makers, because it looks like this:

As the video mentions, there are no cuts or post-production edits to this video, for what you see is what you get. It was so impressive that when I first saw this video, I assumed they had built a roving camera system to make it work.

Not so says, Tryptofaa, not so:

"[B]asically it makes use of llCastRay to find positions with an unobstructed view of your avatar and allows the user to prioritize their preferred camera angles for automatic changes and use keyboard shortcuts to switch between camera groups," Mr. Sands tells me.

llCastRay is a fancy heavy duty ninja term, so I asked Mr. Sands how exactly that worked:

"Sure," he said. 'llCastRay allows you to specify a start point and an end point in 3D space between which a "ray" is fired. The key of any objects or avatars the ray hits along its path are reported back, along with various optional data such as the position and surface angle of the impact point. In this case it allows the HUD to determine when there is an object between your avatar and your camera position that could be obscuring the view."

 

So there is that. And many game developers and machinima makers are sure to follow.

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Comments

[Adeon Writer]

Brilliant! Excellent work. :)

[Chantal Harvey]

Excellent camera system; i tested it and it does everything it promises!