driveCams

Every camera a driving game needs, on one camera, switched with one word. Put DriveCam on a camera, set mode, and press C (right-stick press or d-pad up on a pad, the CAM button on a touch screen) to cycle the views.

First example

Paste this into any world and enter play. It builds a drivable test car (a box chassis on four WheelColliders, driven by the package's own ShowcaseDriver), a camera that follows it, and hands you the wheel: drive with W A S D, press C to change view.

local Showcase = require("driveCams.showcase")
local car = Showcase.makeCar({ 0, 1.2, 0 }, { controlSource = "input" })

local cam = entity.spawn("driveCam")
cam.component.add("Camera", { fov = 62, priority = 10 })
cam.component.add("DriveCam", { mode = "chase", car = car })

-- or switch from code:
cam.component.get("DriveCam").mode = "cockpit"

On a player camera, add it to the player prototype's camera rig and leave car empty: it films whatever the camera follows.

local rig = layers.active.camera.entity
rig.component.add("DriveCam", { mode = "chase" })

DriveCam settings

Methods: dc:cycle(dir?), dc:setMode(mode), dc:info() (mode, car, behaviour, fov and the mount points in use).

From code

local Cams = require("driveCams.cams")
Cams.modes()                            --> { "chase", "cockpit", "hood", "bumper", "orbit", "tv", "heli", "rear" }
Cams.set(cameraEntity, "tv", car)       -- car optional
Cams.cycle(cameraEntity)                --> "heli"
Cams.mounts(car)                        --> { seat, hood, bumper, rear, half, source }

set and cycle write a camera's DriveCam when it has one (so the choice sticks) and otherwise switch its behaviour directly.

Trackside TV points

tv uses, in order: every entity named TvCamPoint in the scene (place them where a broadcaster would: outside corners, on a bank, over a jump), the entities in TvCam.points, and points it places itself ahead of the car along its path, alternating sides, when none is in range. It prefers points the car is heading toward, cuts once the car has passed the current one, and zooms so the car fills the same share of the picture near and far.

Mount points

Cockpit, hood and bumper stand at the car's own values car.mountSeat, car.mountHood, car.mountBumper (vectors in chassis-local metres, x right, y up, z back: forward is -Z), as a car following torqueCars.package/CONTRACT.md writes them. A car without them gets points worked out from car.size, else its BoxCollider, else its bounds. Speed for the chase FOV is car.speed, else Physics.vehicleState.

How it moves

Chase, cockpit, hood, bumper and rear are the builtin @builtin::controller.chase and @builtin::controller.mount rigs; orbit is @builtin::controller.orbital_follow; tv and heli are this package's TvCam and HeliCam, written on @builtin::controller.camera_rig. All of them read where the car is drawn (Physics.drawnPose), so the car holds steady on screen at any frame rate. A camera is per player, so nothing is synced.

DriveCam names the car on the mount and orbit rigs' own follow field rather than leaving them to read the Camera's follow slot. The builtin rigs look that slot up by the short component name Camera, which finds nothing in a world holding more than one version of the Camera component (installing packages can lay such copies under deps/), and the cockpit view then stays where it was placed while the car drives away. If you drive a builtin mount rig yourself in such a world, set its follow too.

Showcase

showcase (a scene) has a car lapping a cone-lined oval by itself, four TV masts, a main camera (C cycles) and one camera per mode named DriveCam_<mode> for side-by-side captures:

layers.load(asset.ref("driveCams.showcase", "scene"), { additive = true })

What is inside

Known limits

• Builtin rigs and the short name Camera — the engine's mount and chase rigs find their subject through the Camera's follow slot by the short component name, which finds nothing in a world holding more than one version of the Camera component (as installing packages can leave under deps/). DriveCam sets the mount and orbit rigs' own follow to the car, so every mode keeps up; drive a builtin mount rig yourself and set its follow too. Reported to the engine team.
• The cabin is the body's inside — cockpit sits in the torqueCars body seen from within (dark trim, open glass, a steering wheel); there are no seats or instruments modelled, and a deep dent pushes the panels into the view, as it would in the real car.
• #20543 — wheels have no volume, so the bumper and hood cameras can pass into a wall the body is pressed against for a moment in a crash.
• #21241 / #21242 — DriveCam's car is a reference field and is not synced; a camera is per player anyway, so each player's camera finds its own car (player.vehicle).
• #20946 — measured on the native desktop engine only; the web build has not been run.