Cameras and Framing

about 8 hours 13 chapters

Make one level, The Lookout, a night town and the castle above it seen from the side, to the last camera control: a camera that follows a watchman and draws crisp pixels in any window, walls and rooms that hold the view, layers of depth, shots a script cuts to, a demon whose stomps shake the screen and a second camera a script switches to; then a map in the corner, a lens and a portrait on a wall, water and hot air drawn through shaders, and a gallery of eight small cases.

The watchman runs east along the mossy cap of the town’s street under a night sky, his red cape flying. At the start the west wall’s dark stone is at the left edge of the picture, and it slides out of it as the camera follows him, with more street ahead of him than behind. Behind him the rooftops, the grey houses, a church tower, the dark forest and the mountains go by, each at its own pace, while the sky stays still. In the top right corner a round map in a brass frame keeps its place, a small red figure in it, and the street inside it slides under him

On this page

The Lookout
What you need
Three parts
How each chapter teaches
The camera tools
How long it takes
The chapters

The Lookout

Cameras and Framing makes one level, The Lookout: a night town and the castle above it, seen from the side. A watchman runs along the town’s street, about eight screens wide between two walls, in front of seven layers of night that go by at their own pace. The camera follows him, runs a little ahead of him and never shows past the walls. A lever far along the street raises the bars of the castle’s gate, and the game looks at the gate while they rise. Through the gate is the castle: a great hall, a stair shaft he climbs by its ledges, a cistern whose water wobbles what lies under it, a lens room, and the beacon room, where a demon squats whose stomps shake the screen. In the corner of the screen a map in a brass frame shows the ground round him; in the lens room a lens shows a square built out of his sight, and a portrait of him hangs, painted once.

You start from a starter with the town and the castle built and the watchman walking, and no camera in either. By the end, the town’s camera follows him and draws crisp pixels in a window of any size, and the castle holds its view inside each room. The camera pulls back to show the castle as he reaches the gate, cuts to a tilted shot of the demon as he comes near, and hands the game to a second camera at the gate while the bars rise. The corner of the screen holds a map of the ground round him, and a wall of the lens room a lens and a portrait. The finished game is exported and runs on its own. A last chapter builds eight small cases of their own, a security monitor, a doorway onto a far side, a spyglass and five more, each a recipe to take into your own game.

The tutorial is for learning every camera control to the end. Every field of the eight components that frame or draw a view (the Camera, the Confiner, the Parallax, the Pixel Perfect, the Camera Rig, the Viewport, the Screen Copy and the Shader Material) is defined with what it does, its unit and the value The Lookout or the gallery gives it. Every option of the Scaling, Update and Ease dropdowns, and every camera builtin a script calls, is in the table of tools below, linked to the chapter that defines it or the script that calls it.

What you need

Rengy, installed, on Windows or Linux. Getting started installs it and shows you round the editor.
The starter, cameras-and-framing.zip: the town and the castle, built, with no camera in either; the watchman with his clips and his graph; the lever, the gate’s bars and the way into the castle, each with its script; and the pictures: three from the download, the watchman, and eight drawn for these tutorials. Unzip it somewhere outside your other projects; in the editor’s launcher, choose Open project… and pick the cameras-and-framing folder.
The download below, as the chapters ask for it: Night Town’s seven layers and the castle’s wall in chapter 6, and the demon and his fire in chapter 8. Each chapter that needs files lists them and where each is in the download.
Nothing else. Part 1 is clicks, with no script. The scripts after it are Rengy Script, which the editor runs as it is, with nothing to install.

Download	By	What the game takes from it	Needed from	Licence
Gothicvania Patreon’s Collection	ansimuz	The street’s stone and the castle’s halls, the rooftops’ pieces and the hall behind the gate, Night Town’s seven layers and the castle’s wall, the demon and his fire, and the hero the watchman is made from	Chapter 6	CC0

The download is in the public domain (CC0). Three of its pictures are already in the starter: the street’s stone and the castle’s halls, the sheet of pieces the beacon and the rooftops are cut from, and the hall behind the gate. The watchman is the collection’s Gothic hero, made once in the editor: his idle, run, jump and jump-climb sheets are packed into the one sheet the starter holds, with his clips and his graph, and are not copied. The gate’s bars, the lever, the mist, the arrow, the map’s frame, the lens’s bezel and the cistern’s water and its surface were drawn for these tutorials, and are in the starter too.

Three parts

You can stop after any of them: each leaves you a town and a castle that work. The chapters below are listed by part.

Basic, chapters 1 to 5: a camera that works in any window, all clicks. A first camera and how to look through it; the same street at any window’s size and shape; pixels that stay crisp; a rig that follows the watchman and leads him; and walls and rooms that hold the view inside the town and the castle.
Simple, chapters 6 to 9: a deep town and a camera that scripts use. Night Town’s layers going by at their own paces; a vista of the castle as he reaches the gate; a demon whose stomps shake the screen; and a script that asks the camera what it shows, and switches the game to a second camera at the gate.
Pro, chapters 10 to 13: second views of the world. A map in the corner, a lens on a square built out of sight and a portrait painted once; water and hot air drawn through shaders; the game exported; and a gallery of eight cameras and views put to other uses.

How each chapter teaches

Every control is defined. A list of terms in each chapter says what a field does, its unit, the range that suits The Lookout and the value The Lookout gives it.
Motion is watched. Where a chapter says something about motion, such as the camera staying still until he leaves its dead zone, it plays a recording of the game with a line under it saying what to watch, and the same in words for a reader who cannot see it.
The camera is seen too. In the pictures of the editor, the camera’s frame shows the view the game shows and the Camera tab’s rows show its numbers, so a picture of the editor tells the same story as the game.
Who moves the camera. The camera’s parent, a rig’s framing, a Confiner, a script’s anneal, a shake and a switch can each move the view. Two of them at once is the mistake that is hardest to see, so every chapter says who moves the camera now, and shows the Problems row where the editor catches it.
Each thing you build ends in a table of its values, so you can build it again in your own game.
Every picture is a capture of the editor or the game, and every animation a recording of the exported game, never a mock-up.

The camera tools

Besides the eight components, the editor and the scripts have tools of their own for cameras. Each is taught where it is first needed. The options of the three dropdowns that choose how a camera or a view behaves, and the five builtins a script calls, are a row each, so the one you are looking for is a link away:

Tool	Where it is	Taught in
Look through, the game as its camera draws it	the toolbar	Chapter 1
The size picker: the game at a window size you choose	the toolbar, beside Look through	Chapter 2
The camera’s frame: bold round what the game shows, thin where the camera rests	the Viewport	Chapter 1
The Pixel Perfect’s reference rectangle: the size the game is designed at, inside the frame	the Viewport	Chapter 3
The rig’s gizmo and handles: its dead zone, its soft zone and where he sits	the Viewport	Chapter 4
The Confiner’s Bounds and the handle on each corner	the Viewport	Chapter 5
A Parallax plane’s home and the rulers on the axes it repeats on	the Viewport	Chapter 6
The camera’s numbers: where it rests, the view, the zoom, its room, its shot and its shake	the Camera tab, under the Viewport	Chapter 1, chapter 4, chapter 5
Make current, which makes a camera the one the scene is drawn through	the Camera, in the Inspector	Chapter 1
Cut to live framing, the rig’s button	the Camera Rig, in the Inspector; it acts in Play	Chapter 7
The rows for a camera set up wrong	the Problems tab	Chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 9
New render target, in the list of a Viewport’s Texture	the Viewport, in the Inspector	Chapter 10
New shader and the Code tab	the Assets panel’s Create menu	Chapter 12
Pixels	the Camera’s Scaling	Chapter 2
FixedVertical	the Camera’s Scaling	Chapter 2
FixedHorizontal	the Camera’s Scaling	Chapter 2
Letterbox	the Camera’s Scaling	Chapter 2
Always	the Viewport’s Update	Chapter 10
WhenVisible	the Viewport’s Update	Chapter 11
Once	the Viewport’s Update	Chapter 11
Never	the Viewport’s Update	Chapter 11
Cut	a framing’s Ease, in the Camera Rig	Chapter 7, chapter 8
Linear	a framing’s Ease, in the Camera Rig	Chapter 7
EaseInOut	a framing’s Ease, in the Camera Rig	Chapter 7
Overshoot	a framing’s Ease, in the Camera Rig	Chapter 7
`camera_view()`: what the camera the game is seen through shows	a script	Chapter 9
`camera_fit()`: how much of a box, given its middle and its size, is in view	a script	Chapter 9
`shake()`: the picture shakes, by a strength for some seconds	a script	Chapter 8
`cut()`: the camera goes to its live framing at once	a script	Chapter 7
`make_current()`: this camera becomes the one the game is seen through	a script	Chapter 9

How long it takes

The chapters take about 8 hours at the keyboard: most take under an hour, and the gallery of eight cases takes longer. Every chapter ends at a place you can stop, with a Check it works box that says what you should see.

The chapters

Part 1 · Basic

A camera that follows the watchman, leads him, stays inside the town’s walls and the castle’s rooms, and draws crisp pixels in any window.

Part 2 · Simple

A deep town, a vista of the castle at the gate, a demon whose stomps shake the screen, and a camera that scripts ask about and switch.

Part 3 · Pro

Second views of the world: a map in the corner, a lens on a square built out of sight and a portrait painted once; then water and hot air drawn through shaders, and the game exported; and last, a gallery of eight cameras and views put to other uses.

Start with chapter 1, A camera →