0-degree camera needed more than ever

[(TLL)CapperDeluxe]

Couldn't we just implement a rear view mirror type thing?  Maybe bind it to a key?

Hit the key for it and a little window pops up that shows what is behind you.  Could also be useful for tanks.

Not sure how costly this would be to code though.

As Leer said, rendering both at the same time would be very costly performance wise

Thus far, the only way that we have to create a true "alternative camera" view is to render everything that the second camera sees.  This means that the player computer would have to render everything on the map, twice.  Given the scale and complexity of MWLL this would cripple performance for all but the most powerful machines.

[IG142]

A weapon-disabling freelook would be great, especially for 360-twist mechs to watch where they're going. One of these, the Vulture, also happens to have a very good topside head location for a wide range of vision.

[Flyingdebris]

all i want is a rear view toggle  :/

not a rear view mirror, just, literally switch entire view to look out of a rearview camera and disable weapons at the same time. like what mw4 did.
just a nice cheap way to check your 6 without having to turn your entire torso or turret around.

[VictorMorson]

This comes up all the time, but like it was said, it's just difficult to do with the tools they have (if not impossible).  In short, it's not the team having anything against rear cameras but entirely a technical issue.  I think this thread comes up every two weeks.

[Blu C]

Perhaps there is a happy middle ground to get then.  Would it be possible to create a binding that would rotate your turret or torso (as applicable) to look either right ahead or straight behind quickly?  Maybe all weapon fire is disabled while the turret/torso is turning, but it would be a way to quickly reorient your turret/torso to peek behind yourself and see what you are caught up on.

[Frostiken]

all i want is a rear view toggle  :/

not a rear view mirror, just, literally switch entire view to look out of a rearview camera and disable weapons at the same time. like what mw4 did.
just a nice cheap way to check your 6 without having to turn your entire torso or turret around.

I'd like it to have a downward-facing bias. Last night on Mirage I died twice because once my stupid fapping Morrigu got jammed up on some bizarre terrain feature, and a second time my Mad Dog kept getting tangled up in chain link fence hell.

[CHHš Siege]

all the "camera" and "mirror" suggestions i think are what kinglear mentioned, they would require 2 renderings at the same time. a free look on the other hand, i would hope would not. can someone give a explanation how the view for mechs is different from the vehicles in crysis? and how adding a dummy passenger seat to have a free look (like in the crysis humvee things) is not as easy as it sounds?

Crysis vehicle code is already buggy, and the mechs don't really properly exist in the game as a single entity: Crysis as a separate game, along with its vehicle assets, has little to no bearing on many of the implementation details of battlemechs, as Crysis was never designed with bi-pedal vehicles in mind, among other things.

Also, among other things, our mod is more demanding of render engine and network performance, as never in Crysis' wildest dreams did they imagine the amount of weapons fire we display, nor the amount of serialization across both assets and connected players. Hence, any attempt to liken or compare anything in Crysis to MWLL is futile, since there are lots of things that just don't translate properly for any of a huge number of reasons.

Don't get me wrong, some of the ideas mentioned here were some of the very first things I asked about when I joined the alpha team. I can't speak for the leads in what (if anything) they intend/want to implement at some point - nor when - but yeah, it's pretty well on the backburner, I think, in favor of more important and readily achievable goals.

[benben10]

many thanks Seige. i had assumed that the mechs were simply vehicles like in crysis. i'd like to know more for the sake of my curiosity but i dont need to waste any more of your time.

[Blu C]

Side note here:

I know that Crysis 2 is supposed to be less demanding on the Cry engine.  If what MWLL does stresses things so much beyond what was originally intended do you think it may be possible to get the mod working in Crysis 2 (assuming it can be done so without too many problems).

[Frostiken]

Never going to happen.

Think of it like this - MWLL is molded around the framework that is Crysis, which itself is molded around the framework that is Cryengine... 2 or something. You can peel off the MWLL mod, but it still retains that mold. You can't just set it on top of another game because the mold doesn't match up, nor can you peel off the Crysis mold and stick that elsewhere (plus they dont' have the capability to do that).

The reason they were able to change to Wars is because Wars is pretty much nearly identical to the multiplayer that shipped with Crysis, and it's still on the same foundation.

It would be so far beyond impossible to port the mod to a new engine and game that  it will never, ever be a possibility. They would literally have to design the entire backend code from the ground up again.

[JONTUX]

Well back to the double rendering issue which sounds like the core of the problem.  If you do a small popup window in the main screen, you would be rendering a small percentage of the resolution of the actual screen (say 600x400) on a 1920x1080.  So although there would be an impact, it would not be a doubling requirement.  And you are talking about a short time.

I mean no one here said it had to be a good picture.   I think it fits the feel of cctv to have grainy bad resolution.  I would even suggest minimal rendering settings, although I doubt thats possible to have seperate settings just for the "camera" view vs the gameplay.