Fly the free cam

FREE CAM lifts your point of view off your character and lets you fly it. Your body stays where it was, and the view switches to third person so you can see what you are framing it against.

In the menus: ESC → + PHOTO MODE → FREE CAM

Fly the camera

Use your normal movement keys, or WASD and the arrow keys. Space rises and C or your crouch key descends. Hold Shift or your speed key to fly three times faster.

It clips the world like a small solid box and is leashed to 2,500 units from your body. At the end of the leash it stops moving outward.

Hold MOUSE2 and drag sideways to roll for an angle, clamped to 89° each way. Tap MOUSE2 without dragging to level it again.

Looking up and down is clamped to 85°, so the camera cannot quite point straight up or down.

Lock the focus

With depth of field turned up on the Photo Mode panel, the camera keeps focus on whatever it is aimed at. MOUSE3 freezes it, so you can hold focus on a character and reframe them off centre without the focus racking away to the wall behind. A second hint row appears under the first while the blur is up, and changes to FOCUS LOCKED once it is on.

Take the shot and land

MOUSE1 shoots from wherever the camera is sitting, then returns your view to your body.

ESC holds the camera where it is and reopens the menu. Select SCREENSHOT to capture that framing.

Closing the menu without shooting returns to your body, so the detached view cannot be left behind as a tripod.

For smooth spectator filming instead, use Film Mode.

Prefer the console?

/sf_freecam

/sf_doflock is the same focus lock MOUSE3 gives you, and it is bindable.