I''m a computer science student from the university of Utrecht starting on my thesis. The topic of my research is automated camera motion planning (third person view) in a virtual world. Papers written on this topic often use games as an example. For example Tomb Raider is often mentioned in this context. I have tried to find more detailed information on how games solve camera motion planning, but I can''t seem to find any interesting work on the topic. Could anybody give me some pointers where to look or who to ask?

My experience may be limited in this area, but I didn''t think there was much planning with third-person views. I thought (please correct me) that they usually just stuck the camera in a good position relative to the player, and only moved it if the camera was inside or was obscured by another object.

quote: ocgoeman:
The topic of my research is automated camera motion planning (third person view) in a virtual world.

Papers written on this topic often use games as an example. For example Tomb Raider is often mentioned in this context. I have tried to find more detailed information on how games solve camera motion planning, but I can''t seem to find any interesting work on the topic.

I can''t tell for sure since I haven''t found anything this topic for games.

However, after what I''ve read about camera motion planning in papers, I''m pretty sure that games like Tomb Raider use a system of some kind for camera motion.

Take for example occlusion (view obstruction by another object). Let''s say you are Lara Croft . The camera is following you at a comfortable distance. You are approaching a wall. When you reach it, you quickly jump behind it. If the camera system wouldn''t somehow anticipate this move, you would be out of the picture for some time. The camera would first have to reach the wall too to get you in the picture again.