Camera position and movement.

Can some one give me some guidance or pointers on moving the camera in demo edits. I've been fooling about to see if I could manipulate the camera but my results have been both random and undesirable. I have seen camera work in various videos ranging from the functional to down right spectacular. How is this done?

figuring out how to change the position of the camera is easy. Understanding that, is something I still working on.

There are 2 parts of the data to camera movement. here is an example:

POS 100 100 100
PYR 0 0 0

The first line (Marked as POS) is the 3 demensional possition relative to the map being used. Simple right? well, here's the catch: That bit of data is is Map based, meaning 100 100 100 will put you at one location ins Atlas park, but not the same position in Mercy Isle.

The second line is the PYR data. PYR stands for Pitch Yaw and Roll. If you ever played a good Flight simulator, you already know what these mean, but I'll explain anyway.
Imagine the camera is an airplane. By raising the Pitch value, the nose of the plane raises up, and by lowering the value, the nose lowers.
The Yaw rate controls left right orientation of the camera. Possitive is right, negative is left.
The final value is the roll. Using the plane analogy agian, roll is literally the roll of the plane across it's wingspan.

for reference sake, the PYR values are based on Pi values. the full range of each value is -3.14 to 3.14. Anything more or less is simply going back around the circle. Hope this helps.

Oh, one other note. I have yet to find a lower limit to the increments the game engin can recognize for the POS data. I mean if you need to change the POS data by .00001, you can.

For more help, I would point you here: Demo Editing at Paragon Wiki

What kind of movements did you have in mind? A straight track or dolly, a spinning shot, or something more free form flying?

Linear isn't too bad. I think there's a wizard in Balth's demo editor for the spinning camera....the freeform...last I checked, was more in the 'nightmare' category.

No looking too much for free form. I have some spin shots in mind. Dolly is what I need/want the most. Even if I could set the camera and have characters move in front of it, instead of with it. I also want to be able to focus on the feet, or torso instead of mid back.

I have not tried Balth's demo editor yet, will give it a shot.

Try Balth's demo editor and play around specifically with the wizards. I think they'll do what you're looking for.

My editor can be downloaded here. Version 0.9.1 is the most recent version.

You'll probably be most interested in the interpolation wizard and the "Generate PYR relative to POS" wizard. The interpolation wizard will create POS commands in lines, parabolas, and circles. The other wizard can automatically point the camera either in the direction of motion or at another entity in the demo. You can also put in offsets that will point the camera (for example) three feet above the entity's position, so you can aim at their waist.

Feel free to bug me if you have any questions about using the program.

Thanks Balshor. I can't wait to try this tomorrow.