Tracks and waypoints

"Stand where the camera goes. That is the whole trick. There is no other trick." — Holorecordist Ban Sethi
Verified

A track is a numbered list of camera positions. You build one by standing where you want the camera and saving the view you can see.

/camera is hard-locked to director mode by default. Even a leadership admin is refused unless they have taken the director's chair.

What it does

There are 5 tracks, numbered 1 to 5, and each one holds up to 5 waypoints. A waypoint stores the position of your eyes, the direction you are looking, your field of view and an optional hold time. Tracks last for the session and are saved into a scene.

The one rule to remember. Only add, clear, cycle, play, test and path can leave the track number out and fall back to your active track. remove, still, dwell, lookat, view and box always need the track spelled out. This stops remove 2 ever being read as a track when you meant waypoint 2.

Leaving the track off a command that needs it gives you a usage line rather than a guess:

Choosing a track

Set an active track first, and every command that allows it will use that track from then on. This is what makes single-key binds like bind x "camera add" work.

Run it bare to be told which track you are on without changing anything.

Placing waypoints

Adding a waypoint

Stand where you want the camera, look where you want it to look, then add. The waypoint takes your eye height rather than your feet, so what you see is what the shot frames.

With no waypoint number the first free slot is used. Name a number from 1 to 5 to overwrite a particular slot, and add a hold time in seconds as a fourth argument:

The waypoint also captures your field of view at the moment you place it. Change your FOV before you add rather than after. Anything outside 1 to 160 falls back to 80. The PHOTO MODE panel on the ESC menu drives the same cvar with its field-of-view slider. A waypoint added while photo mode holds your view captures the slider's value, not your usual one.

Client-side. Sets how wide your view is, and a camera waypoint copies it when you place the waypoint.

Removing a waypoint

Removing a waypoint drops its hold time with it.

Clearing a track

Timing and framing

Holding on a waypoint

A dwell makes playback stop at a waypoint for a set time before moving on. Use it to let a line of dialogue land.

Seconds are clamped to 0 to 30, and 0 clears the hold.

Keeping someone framed

A look-at target overrides the stored angles during playback and points the camera at a player or an NPC instead. The track is always explicit here, because a target can itself be a number.

Seeing what you built

Previewing a track

A preview draws the track in the world for you alone, so you can see the shape of the move while you build it. Adding a waypoint turns it on by itself.

Checking one shot

view glides you into a single waypoint so you can judge the framing. Nobody else is moved. Run it again on the same waypoint, or with off, to come back to your body.

Locking everyone to one shot

still is the broadcast version. Every player is pinned to that waypoint until you release them with /camera stop.

Listing tracks

Every track prints, empty or not. The columns are the waypoint number, its position, its pitch and yaw, its field of view, and its hold time where one is set. A look-at target is named in the track header, and any camera boxes get their own section below.

Things to note

  • 5 tracks, 5 waypoints each. There is no way to raise either number.
  • Adding to a full slot overwrites it silently. /camera add 1 2 replaces waypoint 2 with no warning.
  • Roll is thrown away. Only pitch and yaw are stored, so a waypoint can never be tilted.
  • Tracks do not survive a server restart on their own. Save the scene to keep them.
  • A scene load clears every track. It wipes the camera before it rebuilds.
  • A player with sf_killcamera 1 refuses every camera override. They stay in their own body through a still, a cycle and a flight, and you get no warning.
  • view is yours alone, still is everyone. Mixing them up puts the whole room in a shot you were only checking.

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