Camera.sqs

It won't take you long to discover that the original Operation Flashpoint camera options which are found in the editor don't give you the same versatility that you have seen in the official missions or quality user-created cutscenes. The "editor driven cutscene" has long been frowned upon by serious mission makers and for good reason. Seeing the same spinning camera shot and slow zooms over and over make the editor driven cutscene instantly recognisable as novice and that's without mentioning the annoying split second delay before the cutscene gets going.

Thankfully BIS accounted for this by having its own method of creating camera cutscenes bypassing the editor options altogether. It is a script which simulates a real camera, which literally lets you point and click your angles, thus allowing you to create cutscenes with minimum fuss.

This script already exists within Flashpoint. By executing the script in-game you can activate a camera which is controlled using the keyboard. It can be moved into practically any position, and a 'snapshot' can be taken containing all the relevant information for that shot. The information can then be pasted into your cutscene script.

To execute the script create an object - doesn't need to be a soldier - and in its init field type

this exec "camera.sqs"

Now when you preview the mission you will see the cinematic border at the top and bottom of the screen and a view looking North from the object you created. There will be a crosshair in the centre of the screen.

Camera movement is controlled using the following keys:

W forward
E forward more quickly
A left
D right
S backwards
Q up
Z down

The camera can be rotated and tilted using the numeric keyboard:

8 tilt upward
2 tilt downward
4 rotate left
6 rotate right

There is also a zoom function, again using the numeric keyboard:

+ zoom in
- zoom out

Pressing L will get rid of the crosshair.

Finally, once you have framed your shot, press the right-hand Ctrl key. This stores the camera information in the clipboard. You can then press Alt+Tab to return to the desktop, and paste the camera information into a text-editor such as Notepad using Ctrl+V.

The result will look something like this:

_camera camSetTarget [104843.30,23202.12,-23940.18]
_camera camSetPos [9673.62,4028.58,12.44]
_camera camSetFOV 0.700
_camera camCommit 0
@camCommitted _camera

Note that the keyboard controls above are the default settings. If you have reconfigured your keyboard controls you'll have to find the equivalent keys.

For more advanced cutscene tutorials visit OFPEC