These docs describe Fixed Angles and Blendshot, the next update, in development: everything in 1.3 and what it adds. 1.3 is in testing: read its docs.

The camera for dungeon crawlers and overhead action RPGs: high up, far back, on a long lens, looking down at the same steep angle whatever happens. The mouse is a cursor rather than a look, the stick moves the character across the screen, and the view only turns when the player presses a button.

The camera#

• 1

  Add the camera.

  A Blendable Follow Camera with the Isometric preset: 20 metres back on a 40° lens, looking down steeply along the world diagonal. For a view from straight overhead, use Top Down instead.

• 2

  Add the shakes.

  A Blendable Shake beside it, with its Body left empty. Neither preset carries body or handheld motion; from that far out it would only read as the world wobbling.

• 3

  Bind turning, if you want it.

  Call Rotate Camera from two buttons, with Each press and an Amount of 45 or 90, and a negative input for the other way. Leave it unbound for a view that never turns.

• 4

  Check your movement.

  Up on the stick is up on the screen, whichever way the view faces. If your character moves by the control rotation, as most templates do, it already works.

The mouse and the look stick don't turn a held angle, so a cursor never counts as the player looking around. Held angles explains the rest.

Lay the level on the diagonal#

The isometric view faces 45° in the world, so a level built on a grid runs corner to corner across the screen, which is what makes it read as isometric. Build along X and Y as usual. If your level runs another way, change Facing under Hold The Angle on the Rig; a turn the player makes is kept when they move between Rigs that face the same way.

Hits from twenty metres#

At this distance, a shake's movement barely shows: a few centimetres is nothing from twenty metres away. Tilt reads at any distance, so the hits and explosions that land here are mostly tilt.

• Explosions: Shake_World_ExplosionNear with Play Shake At on the blast. It fades with distance from the character, not the camera, so it's the same strength however far back the camera sits.
• Your own hits: start from Shake_Impact_HeavyHit and push its Tilt up rather than its Movement.
• A big spell: a quick lens kick reads well from above. Kick Lens on the Follow Camera widens the view a few degrees and lets it settle.

Lock-on and fights#

• Isometric lock-on keeps the held angle and slides the middle of the shot in between you and your target, so a fight stays framed without the view ever turning. Set it as the Base Preset on a Blendable Lock On.
• Arena is for a big fight seen from higher still, with the whole group in view.
• Every lock-on on a held angle faces the way your camera already faces, so locking on never turns the world round.

Going indoors#

A Camera Preset Volume can change style for one part of a level: Third Person in a tight interior, say, and back to Isometric outside. Held Rigs take two seconds to come in, so the camera cranes from behind the character to overhead rather than whipping round.