Positioning the camera news - Wincars Racer

Yes, by now you already have learned a lot of things about Formula Wincars. Different kinds of cars, strategy, fame... frenzy races full of dangers and even exploration in order to find every circuit's Wincar Emblem.

But we have never spoken about the camera so far, and it happens to be a very important element for every racing game.

Let's think about it for a moment, what is the first thing we need the camera to do? It must be placed behind the car and look forward. Let's take a look and see how it works.

It is pretty obvious that this is not good enough. It feels sticked to the car.

Let's add some flow. How about the camera moving further from the car when the car moves in order to translate speed to the players? Take a fast look!

For sure it works better now, but undoubtedly fails when the car turns. Unless the races were straight forward (and trust me, Formula Wincars' circuits are full of turns) we still lack something.

Well, let's see what happens if we ask the camera to show the car turnings.

Now it looks more like a proper racing game! But if you watched the video to its very end, you will have noticed that it could be better when the car descends through a slope. We need the camera to use terrain inclination in order to see the way properly.

Let's try again.

As you have noticed, our camera includes several combined behaviors. We have named them spring, turn, slope... and this is just the beginning! Those of you developers will like to know that these camera behaviors are implemented through mathematical functions, and the continuity of these functions must be guaranteed in order to ensure camera movements are smooth and without clipping. To achieve a live camera feeling, we have implemented a lot of additional details: rotation in turns or depending on the terrain, movement filtering so that none feels dizzy because of the bumps in the road, drifts, special effects... and all this so that when the race starts, we players only have to worry about driving and smashing our riv... er... playing fair . He. He.