"Portrait" camera mode!

As somebody who enjoys creating desktop wallpapers featuring my game characters (bunch of them here at my DeviantArt gallery), I would kill for an in-game camera mode that would let me take true, full-screen-sized screenshots of my characters. By "full-screen-sized" I mean that, with my character's entire model visible from head to foot, their head would be just below the top of the screen and their feet would be at the bottom.

As it is right now, if my character is standing on a surface and their whole body is visible, their head never gets higher than the center of the screen. The only ways I've found to "trick" the camera to make my character model larger on screen is to either use an "upskirt" angle (which is occasionally amusing, but rather limited in artistic application, and in any case only works from behind the character), or else snap the screenshot while the character is flying/hovering or jumping (hence the number of those wallpapers showing a flying or jumping character). Either method is extremely limiting when it comes to trying to compose a shot with a particular pose.

So if I want to depict them being as tall as my screen, I have to crop the screenshot and then enlarge it. And no matter how high the graphics settings are, it's a sad fact that enlarging a bitmapped image results in some level of degradation, i.e. blurry edges and loss of detail. That essentially forces me to modify the image with artistic filters, as you can see in most of the wallpapers at my link. And while that's fine sometimes, there are other times I'd really like to use a nice, sharp, "un-retouched" image.

Basically, I'm asking for the ability to get costume-creation-screen-level zoom within the actual game world so that I can zoom in on my character without half (or more) of the model disappearing off the bottom of the screen. Along with the ability to pose the character any way I want (not custom poses, but poses using the emotes/animations normally available to me in-game).

It seems to me that this should be as "simple" (ha ha) as a toggle that would allow me to manually set the focal point of the camera. I base this on the fact that I can stand near another character (player or NPC) and zoom in to view them "full screen", but I can't do it to my own character because the camera is apparently tethered to my character's head. "Toggle On" = "Allow me to focus/aim/zoom the camera freely"; "Toggle Off" = "Resets the camera back to normal gameplay mode".

God yes please. I want this so badly. It will probably never happen, but I want to take head-to-toe shots of my sword/shield scrapper with her in some other pose besides the "generic combat ready" stance you can get in the tailor.

You can also trick the ingame camera by orienting yourself facing a wall/cliff/tree/statue and turning the camera around to face the front of your character. Granted this means you have to take pictures near something with collision detection, but you can get full-screen shots of your character.

You can also do demo records and change the numbers of your character's POS to get a better view.

Granted, both of these are workarounds, but until we have a way to do otherwise, that's all we've got.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

/Signed

I like your artwork.

Honestly, the only way I've found to get decent character screenshots is to sue a monitor with a large resolution and pull the camera back, then reuse the character like clip art. It's what I did in my ancient Dual Pistols highlight composite. I'm sure someone with better skills in something like Photoshop would be able to pull the actual character, not just square cutouts of other screenshots, but right now, it's the best we can do.

That said, I would LOVE to see a better "mode" for getting screenshots. Even if this removed our movement controls, I'd still like to see the ability to pick an emote/pose, then pan the camera around for the best angle. Regardless of what this says about me personally, I still find the camera controls in Illusion's Sexy Beach games to be the best around. Holding down the left mouse button pans the camera around the "focus," holding down right mouse button moves the focus left, right, forward and back relative to camera orientation and holding down middle mouse button zooms in and out, as well as moving the "focus" up and down. Considering all of the Sexy Beach games are ostensibly about looking at a character from all conceivable angles, it makes sense that their controls for this would be good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

/sign. The 2-feet-above-your-head perspective makes it really hard to take a good shot.

Aye, being able to enter some sort of "Floating Camera Mode", where you have more direct control of the camera, would be cool.

It really is a pain to get good screenshots of your character in-game.

Second accounts are free, hover is available at level 4.....

Only problem is you need a 2nd computer. It doesn't have to be a GOOD computer, just a computer. Log the 2nd account on your main PC to take the shot.

Again, it's a workaround, sorry. But it does everything you want it to with the camera angle. Just make the "photographer" minimum height.

You don't need two computers to dualbox, just not a bog-standard single computer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

Ooh, good idea. I have a second PC sitting in my ministorage. It's too underpowered to play the game on, but it would work fine for this. I'd need to buy a new flatscreen monitor for it, though - there's no way I want its existing 19", 50-pound CRT monitor taking up half of my desk space (and I would also want its screen resolution to be the same as my main computer's screen - 1280x1024 screenshots aren't going to do me much good when I'm making wallpapers for a 1680x1050 monitor).

EDIT:
Then again, I suppose it would be possible, since I'm on an iMac with an Intel processor, to set my machine up to run Windows and Mac OS X simultaneously, with CoH running under both OS's - then I could just switch between them. I don't think I have enough RAM or processor power to do that and still get any kind of actual playable performance, though.
END EDIT

The downside to using this method for screenshots, though, is that so many of the shots I get are "shots of opportunity", i.e. inside missions, or roaming around the city, when I find just the right lighting conditions combined with an interesting backdrop. And most of the time, at least outdoors, those lighting conditions don't last long enough to log in the other account and get the "photographer" character to the original character's location in time to take advantage of the light. So I'd need to have the "photographer" logged in all the time and set to auto-follow the other character everywhere, which might be tough on the photographer's survival (dangit, those snipers in Founders Falls just shot down my sidekick again!) Also, aren't free accounts limited to two characters total? I have characters on 5 or 6 different servers, so most of my characters wouldn't benefit. Unless I want to open 3 or 4 free accounts.

Is it me, or are the suggestions of "get a second computer or a computer that can run two CoH clients at once" and "upgrade to a bigger monitor" sounding a little unreasonable?

Hehe. This would be awesome. I've actually spent hours going to and from different zones, waiting for the sun to go up or down to ge tthe right setting/lighting for different costume shots.

Actually, what if this were in the icon/facemaker stores? You enter the stores, and see a 'virtual portrait booth.' It drops your character into a scene, and you can activate your powers as you maneuver the camera. In addition, you can change through a library of background scenes (city zones, hazard zones, mission maps, etc) and lighting, if applicable. (day, night, sunrise, sundown)

You can also recreate your character in AE, and take a picture of it on any map you choose. Granted, you may find it hard to get a good angle as you won't be able to easily position the NPC.