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The Theory and Practice of Cameras in Side-Scrollers

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Deozaan:
Here's an article that discusses in detail some of the theory and methods behind cameras in 2D games. I'd seen it quite a while ago, perhaps when it was first published last May, but I recently rediscovered it and thought it was worth sharing. What surprised me most about it is that complex camera systems in games mostly seem to come down to just a few simple (but clever) tricks, but when combined it results in quite elegant behavior.

A few years ago mouser posted about a video analyzing the camera behavior in Super Mario World. While hearing it explained while seeing the game was interesting, I found this newer article to be much more useful in seeing how things work because the areas of interest are visualized for us, like so:



It's a fairly long article, but it goes into some really useful detail analyzing how many popular/classic games have designed their camera system to allow the player to see important information in the game.

Highly recommended.

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/ItayKeren/20150511/243083/Scroll_Back_The_Theory_and_Practice_of_Cameras_in_SideScrollers.php

mouser:
Very nice article.  :up:

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