Blending between Simple and Third Person Cameras that use the third_person_rotation behavior?

[mikest]

I'm looking for a solution to the following:

I have static cameras which are placed around doors/stairs/other tricky interior features. I have a Third Person + Follow Target camera that is attached to the player. Area3D triggers will switch cameras as a player enters regions of interest.

What I would like to do is to preserve the angle for Third Person third_person_rotation rotation values when transitioning between a "Third Person + Follow Target" and "Simple + Look At" cameras.

I think I might need to do something like "when triggering a pcam change, check if the destination camera is a Third Person Camera and then adjust the third_person_rotation before the transition to match the current camera angle by reversing a look at," however, maybe there is a simpler way to do this?

I am hoping to find someone to give advice on how to approach this.

[ramokz]

If I understand it correctly, you basically want to have the Third Person Follow PCam to rotate itself so it matches the angle of the static PCams, so it effectively just transitions the camera's position in a straight line as it moves between them?

If so, and as you mention yourself, I would imagine it would be a case of capturing the rotation, e.g., the Quaternion of the static PCam and then applying it to the Third Person Follow PCam right before transitioning to it with the set_third_person_quaternion() method.

[mikest]

I can't seem to find a way to get a reference to the previous camera? There are signals but they don't include the previous camera.

[ramokz]

There is a signal for when a PCam becomes inactive (became_inactive), which sounds like it?

So in your case, it sounds like might be a matter of having a manager script that connects to the became_active signal of the Third Person Follow PCam.
From the same manager script, you then connect the became_inactive signal of static PCam as each becomes active, along with a reference for that given Node3D, which the Area3D should provide as part of the transition system you're using. When that signal is emitted, you store its rotational value in a variable. If the Third Person Follow PCam then emits the became_active signal, then you should now know the rotation that PCam should have, which you can set then.

I can see there being an additional signal for the PCamManager class that emits a signal, with a node reference, whenever a PCam becomes active or inactive. So one doesn't have to connect / disconnect the signal of every PCam in a given scene.

[mikest]

i looked at the code and it looks like the became_inactive gets called before the become_active so technically caching self in a global would work. however, i have like 30+ PCams for scenes (door transitions, stairs, interactive items, and so on.) that's a lot to keep track of.

i put in a feature request for a will_becom_active(prev) signal. until then i can try and hack something together.

[ramokz]

I'm guessing that there is a script on each Area3D, which is what changes the priority of each's associated static PCam? Where that the script is reused in each Area3D instance for all 30+ PCams, where each script has a reference to the PCam node it should control the priority of?

If so, it should just boil down to each script instance talking to a scene manager.

If you made a general reference to a scene manager from the shared Arera3D script using, e.g., a scene unique reference (%), which is just one line of code, then, when the static PCam3D of the Area3D emits the became_inactive signal, you can call a method from the scene manager, where you pass the rotational value of the now inactive static PCam as a parameter to that method call.

The scene manager should already have a reference to Third Person PCam, and so it can then apply the rotational value once that method is called.

Technically, you don't need to use the became_active signal in this case, as you're setting the rotation of a node, which is very inexpensive, and so can add as many Area3D + PCams as you want without having to add any extra logic.

[mikest]

i'm generally allergic to global state, but in this case that's a reasonable approach.

on a related note, i really appreciate how much time and effort you put into supporting your work. thanks for the advice!

[mikest]

I just found all the signals on the PhantomCameraManager and I'm so sorry, this is what I was looking for :0 I feel embarrassed now.

[ramokz]

No sweat, glad everything worked out in the end :)