Getting Started. Camera Project

Our Team has chosen to use git for the repository and after some instruction on that I have access to the code base. And with some instruction from our team lead who wrote the code base. I'm moderately caught up to speed on how the base of our 3D ninja game works. 

I have recently been given the charge to work on the camera function of our game. Something that I've never realized is a big factor in how a 3d game plays is how well the camera works. So I've been going through different games just playing around with the camera. Some examples that I've observed are: Mario 64, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Starwars Force Unleashed 2, Darksiders. I have plans to look at more. Some on my list are: Assassin's creed (which I know Blake Sleight our team lead is looking into since I don't own a copy), Batman Arkham Asylum, and I'm finding more games to add to this list to check out camera function. 

Of most of the games that I mentioned that I played just paying attention to camera movement I found that there were times in all the games that I felt the camera hindered my game play. They also are all very differently paced games. Force Unleashed is very fast pace hack and slash game, and the camera got disorienting at some times. Mario and Zelda were more relaxed paced games, but they also were for the N64 and used directional buttons for the camera. We are using the Xbox controller which allows us to have the right joystick to help with directional movement. The camera controls that I've liked so far is Darksiders. It has full 360 control of the camera and the movement of the character is based off of the direction the camera is facing. This is the movement that has already been placed in our game via the prototype made by the aforementioned Blake Sleight. Some of the things that I'm going to be working on is making the camera know when there are obstacles in the way of the camera. So it doesn't go through things. This causes a zooming in effect when the camera is next to a wall. Also if the player goes around an obstacle good camera's do a simple pathfinding to go around the obstacle. These are all things that I plan to implement into our camera. 

My plan of action:

-Do I little more research to know exactly what works and what doesn't.

-Really because super familiar with the code that is already in place and layout a plan to add and tweak it to make it better

-Program/Debug

-Tweak and get a super smooth and smart camera.

As far as the whole team project. We are have decided on the core game mechanics that we can start implementing and that it is a 3D Platformer. For core movement mechanics we have running, jumping, wall running, edge hanging, double jump. Similar to the movement mechanics in Prince of Persia. We still have yet to decide on what the overall goal concept of our game. The panel we pitched to shot down our area battle idea so we have to come up with a new concept. 

Overall, I am excited to work with this team. Our team leads are great at what they do and are strong leaders. Our art and engineer team have so much talent. This is going to be a busy yet awesome year.