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Is there a movable camera in FSX?

C

cvearl

Charter Member
I was wanting to plant camera along a runway in various places for filming. Kind of what ORBX in the PNW demo video on Youtube did. Cool flyby's that are less robotic and that kind of thing.

Is this simply I don't know the secret Camera SLEW modes or something crazy like that?

And the instant replays seem robotic to say the least. All the floatiness/flightness of the plane is gone and it seems to be flying along on a wire and jerky.

Any words of wisdom?

Charles.
 
If you just want to plant custom cameras along a runway and not have the camera itself moving, then extra cameras can be added by adding the camera information to a saved flight or FLT file.

There's a new way of getting different tower views in FSX. As you know, in FS9 you moved the tower icon around in Map view. In FSX you have to first create a "Saved Flight" or FLT file of the area you want the views to be in. Then you open the FLT file with a text editor and add fixed camera entries like this:

[CameraDefinition.001]
Title = Fixed Camera 1
Guid = {835BFC1C-1A03-994A-A176-49318FEB094E}
Description = Placeholder description
Origin = Fixed
InstancedBased = No
SnapPbhAdjust = None
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
Track = Track
ShowAxis = No
AllowZoom = Yes
InitialZoom = 4.0
SmoothZoomTime = 1.0
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = True
Transition = Yes
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Custom
FixedLatitude=N46.445267
FixedLongitude=W63.831362
FixedAltitude=6.0
InitialPbh=0, 0, 0


Each camera you add needs a unique GUID number and the Lat and Long. Notice that those co-ordinates are in decimal degrees. If your lat was N45degrees 30.00 minutes you'd enter N45.5

You can have as many fixed views as you have the patience to enter.

Then when you go back into the sim, you fly that saved flight. Under the view menu there will be a new entry called Fixed views, select one of the custom views you made and you have your new,custom tower view.
 
One thing i miss dearly in FSX is Active Camera. Even more dearly miss its 'Approach View' mode.

For non FS9 AC users : during replay of final approach/landing ( or take-off ), with AC's Approach View you could point & click a spot alongside the runway from within the VC from which you wanted to view your landing/take off as a spectator. Great fun, atleast to me, be it a Tiger Moth or a 747. I mean, when, in the RW are you allowed to stand alongside the runway, or even ON it, to get that most spectacular view of an aircraft taking off or land.

The Tower View in FSX is nice but hardly spectacular, is it... And what's more it's a fixed view so if 'the sun' happens to be in front of you all you see is a black blob. With AC 'Approach View' you can place yourself at any point alongside the runway, with 'the sun' in your back so your aircraft is nicely lit.

Surely something similar must be possible to setup in FSX, question is how. More than a year ago i asked around about that at the avsim FSX forum. A young guy by the name of Tom provided this clever solution which i have been using with great satisfaction ever since.

He replaces the totally useless ' Facilities Runway' view mode by a movable camera with which you can run around an airfield at your hearts content. Right click the screen and choose 'Runway' from the pop-up menu. Choose any of the runway numbers which will place you in the vicinity of that runway ( at normal standing height eyepoint ) With 'Ctrl/Back or Enter' and/or 'Ctrl/Shift/Back or Enter' you can either walk or run closer to the runway or any other spot you fancy. The longer you depress the key combo, the faster you run. You need to reverse the key combo to stop. Takes a bit of practise.

I have a switch on my joystick with which i can change the view to all available runways at a certain airport. After having adjusted all views to my liking ( you just use all available runway views to setup your cameras along the active runway ) i sit back and watch my aircraft approach and land via, say, 5 different camera standpoints ( you need a bit of luck as to how many runways there are ) just like in the movies ! :cool:

If you like to try it here's the camera deffinition that'll make it happen :

{CameraDefinition.009} -->>Replace {} with square brackets
Title = Facilities Runway
Guid = {607C4520-CA6F-4135-AE10-8BF28838068F}
Description = This is the description of the runway view.
Origin = Fixed
InstancedBased = Yes
SnapPbhAdjust = Swivel
SnapPbhReturn = False
PanPbhAdjust = Swivel
PanPbhReturn = False
TargetCategory = Container
Track = Track
ShowAxis = Yes
AllowZoom = Yes
InitialZoom = 1.0
SmoothZoomTime = 2.0
ShowWeather = Yes
XyzAdjust = TRUE
Transition = No
ShowLensFlare=FALSE
Category = Runway
CycleHideRadius = 7
ClipMode = Spot
CycleHidden=Yes

( of course you don't need 009 as CD number, just use a number that fits your camera.cfg )

While AC 'Approach View' was a little handier Tom's 'Facilities Runway' mod certainly is the next best thing to it ! Plus you can have as much camera's as there are runways. AC AV had only *one* camera standpoint.

Cheers,
Jan
 
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