Sure would like to see an external camera view that was useful -- many, many flight sims have great examples of these. Emulate any of them and I'd be happier. The external camera views in VO right now are pointless. These ships look cool -- and I bet even cooler ships are in the pipeline. Would love to see them whilst flying without having to point my ship at them, and would love to see my own ship cruising thru space.

My ideal view would be an external camera that uses the same commands we bind for zooming to set the cam's distance from our ship, and the same commands we bind for strafing to move the camera around our ship, whilst the camera remains pointing at our ship.

Meh. No doubt they could be better, but I really don't think there's anything wrong with the way the external cameras work now. IMO this would go into the catagory of "nice things that could be done if we had ten times as many devs".

Just a few things though, that I think you could clarify: are you wanting an external camera view that would actually be useful for piloting in combat, or just nicer external views for taking screenies? If the former, then it's just my opinion, but I hate 3rd person view flight-sims. 3rd person view is great for some things, but flight-sims is not one of them.

As for "My ideal view would be an external camera that uses the same commands we bind for zooming to set the cam's distance from our ship"

That wouldn't work well. The zoom is done by setting the fov CVAR, which is the Field of View. Basically, it's the vertical angle in front of your ship (or camera) that is displayed - a lower fov angle is "zoomed in" because a smaller section of space is stretched to fill your screen. There's really no way that that command could really be used to change the cameras position to the ship. What would be possible would be a different command that changed the cameras position, and then we could make a somewhat complex alias to switch binds between zoom & the camera position command, when we changed camera modes. Anyway... also, just a quick note that right now, you can "zoom out" from your ship in external view, by setting a larger fov. But be careful, if you make the fov too large, things can get funky.

"and the same commands we bind for strafing to move the camera around our ship, whilst the camera remains pointing at our ship."

There is already a external camera mode where you can use many of the same controls to move the camera that you usually use to fly your ship, that could be used for this fairly easily. It doesn't force the camera to always be looking at the ship, but you can just use your mouse for that. The one big thing that I'd really like to see added to that mode is rolling the camera. But it's not too important.

The Ace Combat series for Playstation and Playstation II have really good 3rd person views. Unfortunately, I forget what exactly they looked like atm.. I'm thinking the fighter was locked to the bottom third of the screen, and the camera was locked pointing forwards.

It had a pretty good view of the fighter, and it was still possible to fight in it.

Errr, I think Vendetta already has that. Hit F2 (IIRC) to change camera modes; there's a first-person cam, two chase cams, and a fixed (positionable) camera.

i think its F9 now.

it's F9, but the problem with the first 3rd person view is that the fighter isn't locked with the camera, and the crosshairs don't stay aligned with the nose of the fighter, but rather stay in the center of the screen, so it's weird to use in actual combat because it's tough to tell where your nose is actually tracking.

The original poster's description of his ideal camera is easily done -- I think I will replace the camera mode which simply spins around your ship at a fixed distance with one that you can move around using your strafe keys - so that if you hold down 'A' while in the view it does the same thing it does now (except now if you're moving forward fast enough it fails to spin around the front of your ship - I'll fix that if it's adjustable).

The other external camera view is weird, yes. Since it isn't locked to the camera, there's no correct place to put the crosshair.. Theoretically the crosshair is centered at an infinite distance in front of the ship, which is probably not on the screen in most circumstances in this view. So I'm not sure where moving the crosshair to would help.

So a1k0n, how's that new camera mode coming?

Thanks, A1kon. I don't much care about the crosshairs -- however you work that out would be a good start. Being able to see all these cool ships, see the ships behind me, ... now that would be cool. Being able to leave that camera in a position that would give me a 'rear view' glimpse would be especially cool, sometimes, like when a pirate's rockets are closing in on me. So ... is that maybe gonna happen?

btw i think the date on this thread is wrong, because I remember making this post in the past month or so, not back in Feb.

[edit] Oops, my bad -- the post I made recently was actually here...

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11668

I've been waiting for a useful external view for years, well, a year and a half or so. I was a subscriber for about a year, and asked a few times for this feature. I got an encouraging response from a1kon in Feb 2004 that it might be done sometime in the future, and then ... I feel it's been ignored since then.

I saw "external view" mentioned in the News, so I tried a trial and found it's still the same old views. I chatted about this with some helpful folks, and they thought it might be worth posting to the suggestion forums, even though I've tried a few times over the past year to get this view mode without success.

I was all ready to re-subscribe. The lack of an external view in a flight game is crazy. I can't understand why you’d go to all this trouble to make a game with semi-airplane-like flying, cool sci-fi ships, but not a movable external camera view like we see in so many other good flight sims and space sims. Instead, we get this crazy spinning camera. I’m getting dizzy while my camera spins out of control around my ship.

All these beautiful ships, and you hardly ever see 'em, and just about never get to see yours. Just letting ME control that darn rotating camera would make so much more sense, and you wouldn't have to take anything away. Just add a view mode for those who want to use it. The current rotate view is just silly. It's no wonder hardly anyone ever uses it.

All of other the new stuff looks good, but I want the external view, so I'm not re-upping today. That’s a shame. I stuck with you for a year, & would have upped for 6 mos. right now if a decent external view had been added, and probably stayed for years, like I almost did before I got the sense that you were never going to change that silly spinning camera view or give me a useful alternative.

I don't want to nag you guys, but I want to let you know I wish I could freeze that spinning camera, in relation to my ship, anywhere in an imaginary sphere around the ship. Zooming should be up to me. Camera always points at my ship, but the view angle is set by my mouse [or POV, or whatever]. Ship controls would be normal, except I’d have to give up, say, the use of my POV switch while I was in that special camera mode, or I could assign keys just to rotate the view.

How hard can it be to implement that? A1kon once said “…easily done -- I think I will replace the camera mode which simply spins around your ship at a fixed distance with one that you can move around using your strafe keys…” Even being able to freeze the camera in that imaginary circle [that it dizzily traces now] would be all right, if I could zoom the camera at will.

Devs, are you interested at all, or should I give up and go away? I really like the game, and the people who play it, and I’d like to be a long-term subscriber, but not without an external view that, IMO, is a pretty common feature and a reasonable request for this kind of game. I wish you’d just tell me “no” if you don’t want to do it. I was patient enough to subscribe with you for a long time, courteous enough not to nag you constantly about my request, and even took the trouble to check in with you again. I’d appreciate the courtesy of your definitive answer, please.

Thank you,

Waleran

I'll take that as a no. Bye.

I wonder how many other MMORPGs he's quit because "the Developers didn't listen to him"?

In a game like Vendetta, it's very difficult to come up with an external view that is actually conducive to combat. I tried duelling with it once, and failed miserably--mouselook is absolutely HORRID when not in first-person. But then, that's to be expected, because one is moving the mouse around the center of one's ship, and in the third person views, that's not anywhere near the center of the screen. If one were to change the position of the ship as a fix, it wouldn't help much because the ship itself would be in the way.

There are some games where third-person works, and some where it doesn't. This is one where it doesn't.

This one does not work cause the external view we have now is just not to fight. I mean try to put it at the top of the cockpit and let see how it goes.
I've been asking for years for that too, and I can't see nothing coming.
you know the Hud is nice and things but some of us need more graphic elements for their immersion.
I was asking for a customisable external view, now if the Devs could just put it at te top of every cockpit, it would match for me. At least to see what it gives.