Choosing a style
Twelve camera styles ship with Blendable, each a preset with its own Rigs, shakes and lock-on. Find the one nearest your game and start there.
A style is a Camera Preset: a set of Rigs for a whole kind of game, with the shakes and the Lock-On Preset to match. Each one lives in its own folder under the plugin's Presets, so tuning one never reaches into another.
At a glance#
| If your game is | Start from |
|---|---|
| a third-person action or adventure game | Third Person |
| the same, with the character nearer the middle | Third Person Alt |
| a close, over-the-shoulder story game | Cinematic Action |
| about travelling through big spaces | Cinematic Exploration |
| slow, tense and close | Survival Horror |
| the same, where the camera only moves when the player moves it | Immersive |
| fought across open ground, reading terrain and crowds | Action RPG |
| about crowds coming at you from every side | Hack and Slash |
| seen from high overhead | Top Down |
| seen from overhead at an angle, on a grid | Isometric |
| side-on: a platformer or a side-scrolling brawler | Side Scroller |
Tight Squeeze is the twelfth. It's made for a volume in a corridor or a crawlspace rather than a whole game.
Third Person#
Third Person is the shipping third-person camera: 3.5 metres back on an 80° lens, with the character on the left third. It has aim, ragdoll and slide states, third- and first-person views, separate gamepad and mouse Rigs, and an idle drift after ten seconds. Its shakes are the Steadicam operator and the default body motion.
Third Person Alt puts the character nearer the middle, catches up more gently, doesn't hang back at speed, and swaps you to the other shoulder at a wall instead of sliding the shot across. Same states, views and shakes.
Cinematic#
Cinematic Action is close over the shoulder, 1.6 metres back on a 72° lens, with the character high in the frame. Its shakes are the whole camera operator: breathing that rises with the action, walking with you, floating behind every start and stop, a beat late on every pan and a jolt on a whip pan. Its lock-on sets the two of you wide apart, with 2.39:1 bars and a dolly zoom as it takes hold.
Cinematic Exploration is a high, wide shot for travelling: ten metres back and two and a half up, with the character pulling ahead as you move. It shares Cinematic Action's aim, lock-on and operator.
Survival Horror#
Survival Horror is tight over the shoulder, 1.4 metres back, for slow, careful movement. Its shakes are a simple walking bob and the faintest breath, so it feels like your own steps rather than a camera operator.
Immersive is Survival Horror with the automatic follows switched off. The camera only moves when the player moves it, which is what makes a corridor feel like a corridor.
Tight Squeeze sits 60 cm back, almost centred, and swings no more than five degrees either side. Put it in a volume where the space closes in.
Action RPG#
Action RPG is a centred orbit, 4.5 metres back on a 72° lens and looking down a little more, tuned for reading terrain and crowds rather than faces. It recentres behind you after a pause, on yaw only, and hands the shot to its own lock-on Rig when you hold a target. Its shakes sit halfway between Survival Horror's and Cinematic Action's.
Hack and Slash pulls back to six metres with a wider lens, so you can see enemies on every side. It follows like Action RPG but never recentres on its own, so the way you turned to check on someone stays put. Its shakes are kept to the faintest breath, with hits and impacts at half strength.
Held angles#
Three styles hold their own angle, and the mouse and the look stick leave it alone. Movement stays relative to the camera, so up on the stick is up on the screen. Bind Rotate Camera to an input to turn the view: smoothly from a stick, or 45 or 90 degrees a press. They keep the angle through aiming, ragdolls and slides, carry no body or handheld motion that far out, and still let hits land. Their Rigs take two seconds to come in, so craning round from behind you never whips the view.
| Style | The shot |
|---|---|
| Top Down | 13 metres out, looking almost straight down, north up |
| Isometric | 20 metres back on a long lens, steep, held on the world diagonal so a level built on a grid runs corner to corner |
| Side Scroller | side-on, 11 metres out, with +X running left to right. It leads the way you run, swings over when you turn round, and is slow to follow a jump so the camera doesn't bob up after you |
Held angles explains how they work and how to make your own.
Locks to go with them#
Every style has a Lock-On Preset in its folder that frames a fight the way the style frames everything else. Eight more are named by what they're for: Duel, Arena, Giant, Ranged, Finisher, Soulslike, Skirmish and Standoff. A Lock-On Preset works on any camera, so a Duel lock suits Third Person as well as Cinematic Action. Lock-on presets has them all.
Making it yours#
You can also mix styles. A preset is just a list of Rigs, so your preset can borrow another style's aim Rig, and a Camera Preset Volume can switch style for one part of a level: Tight Squeeze in the vents, Cinematic Exploration on the bridge.
On an engine that installs without the content, rig values builds every style from published values, step by step.