This is the reference for the Super Maria 64 camera - starting with the close up Mario Mode as described in "Game Feel" by Steve Swink
One 1998 Nintendo title made a permanent mark on cameras long before the third person action genre really took off - and it is not The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. While games like GTA III (2001) and Demon's Souls (2009) both have similar targeting systems to Ocarina of Time, these features were also present in GTA III's precursor Body Harvest (1998) so neither camera can claim as much influence.
I am talking, of course, about Super Mario 64, whose success allowed other influential third person games like Resident Evil 4 (2005) and Gears of War (2006) to create their own revolutions.
Remember that the N64 controller only had one control stick! The follow camera was a vast improvement from its contemporaries, which were often limited to static cameras as seen in Resident Evil (1996) and rail cameras like in Star Fox (1993).
The revolutionary feature in this game is a camera that slowly rotates behind the player to adjust to their movements - notably causing avatars to run in circles when running towards the camera. If you have ever seen this in a game, chances are that camera is a "follow camera" that was inspired by Super Mario 64.
There are two camera modes in Super Mario 64: Mario Mode and Lakitu Mode. My project, Super Maria 64, will focus on implementation of Mario Mode. See reference of a player completing the game in Mario Mode here. Lakitu Mode is preferred by many players and aged better with time, but it is basically another layer of features on top of the features in Mario Mode... so we will avoid that complexity.
I am talking, of course, about Super Mario 64, whose success allowed other influential third person games like Resident Evil 4 (2005) and Gears of War (2006) to create their own revolutions.
Remember that the N64 controller only had one control stick! The follow camera was a vast improvement from its contemporaries, which were often limited to static cameras as seen in Resident Evil (1996) and rail cameras like in Star Fox (1993).
The revolutionary feature in this game is a camera that slowly rotates behind the player to adjust to their movements - notably causing avatars to run in circles when running towards the camera. If you have ever seen this in a game, chances are that camera is a "follow camera" that was inspired by Super Mario 64.
There are two camera modes in Super Mario 64: Mario Mode and Lakitu Mode. My project, Super Maria 64, will focus on implementation of Mario Mode. See reference of a player completing the game in Mario Mode here. Lakitu Mode is preferred by many players and aged better with time, but it is basically another layer of features on top of the features in Mario Mode... so we will avoid that complexity.
Goal: Go from a blank UE4 level to a prototype quality camera
This post documents the first step towards the goal of the Super Maria 64 project, and provides readers with a quick mock-up of the camera lag seen in our reference. I will show video of the final result taken with Sequencer, as well as the blueprints.
I like to set the reference values in the Viewport component properties and create variables that refer to these values on Event BeginPlay
Contrary to my initial assumption, the movement for the avatar should definitely not be implemented similar to the twin-stick shooter template. Instead, follow a tutorial or copy the third person movement template without the camera and disable the "Use Controller Rotation Yaw" option on the Character blueprint's Class Defaults.
"Use Controller Rotation Yaw" should be disabled Once the Input and Character blueprint are set up, the next step is to change the lag parameters on the camera's parent Spring Arm to approximate the intended behaviours. In later installments, we may need to move the camera with linear interpolation or blending.
There are two conditions we need to evaluate. First, is the player falling or jumping? The camera should not follow the player, more specifically reorient itself to be behind the player, in these cases. Thankfully, the IsFalling component is sufficient.
Secondly, we need to know if the player is moving because typically Mario Mode does not adjust the camera when the player is moving. We will deal with the major exception case, when the player moves towards the camera, in the next installment.
There are two conditions we need to evaluate. First, is the player falling or jumping? The camera should not follow the player, more specifically reorient itself to be behind the player, in these cases. Thankfully, the IsFalling component is sufficient.
Secondly, we need to know if the player is moving because typically Mario Mode does not adjust the camera when the player is moving. We will deal with the major exception case, when the player moves towards the camera, in the next installment.
On Event Tick, we check the conditions and either set the Camera Rotation Lag Speed to its' default value or a low non-zero number
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