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.

A lock is a moment in a fight, and these settings decide how it reads: the camera swinging round or easing in, bars closing across the screen, focus pulled to the target, a sound as it takes hold. All of them are on the Lock-On Preset.

Coming in and letting go#

Framing Blend Time is the lock's one clock. The framing, the lock's camera and its aim all take that long to come in and that long to go, so the lock arrives as one move. A lock that changes the camera's style, one of its camera and yours holding its angle and the other turning, runs on Changing Camera Style Takes instead, since a crane from behind you to overhead covers several times the ground.

Time Follows The Turn, just under Framing Blend Time, makes the clock longer the further the camera has to turn, so a lock onto someone behind you doesn't whip round in the time a lock straight ahead takes. The camera turns at Turning At, in degrees a second, never quicker than Framing Blend Time and never longer than No Longer Than. The turn is measured to where the shot settles with the two of you on your spots, which on most presets is a little past the target, so the pace holds whichever way round they are. Letting go doesn't turn the camera, so it keeps Framing Blend Time. It's on for every preset; switch it off for a lock that should always take the same time.

What the eye follows as a lock comes in is the target, so the turn carries the target across the picture to its spot in one move, from wherever it stood, on the lock's clock. A lens narrowing as the camera turns would otherwise push an off-centre target outwards, and the camera swinging round you would carry it the same way, so it would stall, or even drift the wrong way, before sweeping to its spot.

A dolly zoom moves the camera and the lens together so that one of you stays the same size while the world behind warps. Lens Changes Over The Zoom, on by default, makes the lock's own change of lens the zoom: the lens goes from yours to the lock's over the whole of Dolly Zoom Takes, starting the moment the lock does, and the size the framing gives you goes with it, so the camera backs away or comes in the whole time and never doubles back. Standoff is that alone: from the third-person camera's 80 degrees to its 45, over 2 seconds. Off, the lens changes over the lock's blend with the rest of the shot.

Dolly Zoom swings the lens out and back on top, degrees. The swing out takes the lock's blend as a lock starts (a quarter of the time on a new target), the way back takes the rest of Dolly Zoom Takes, and the slow way back is the part you see. Positive widens first, so the camera then backs away as the lens narrows and the world behind closes in; negative narrows first, so the camera then comes in as the lens widens and the world falls away. Cinematic Action widens by 25 degrees first, since its lens barely changes. Dolly Zoom Holds says which of you stays the same size. Lens Kick On Lock is a short kick of the lens as a lock takes hold.

A new target#

When the new target puts the camera on the other side of the line, the crossing and the glide go on the same clock, so the camera comes round once rather than swinging out and back.

Effects#

Each part of a lock can play an effect:

As One Envelope makes While Locked the whole of it: it rises as the lock starts and falls as it ends, and the start and end effects don't play.

Each effect Rises Over, Holds For and Falls Over its own times, along an optional Shape, at a Strength. What it plays can be any mix of three things. A look laid over the picture: a grade at its weight, and post-process materials whose parameters it fades from Off to On. A Letterbox, bars across the top and bottom. And Highlight The Target, which draws the target into custom depth so a material can keep it in colour or outline it (it needs Custom Depth-Stencil Pass set to Enabled With Stencil in your rendering settings).

Everything an effect plays is scaled by the player's Lock-On Effects comfort setting.

Show The Effects in the preset's Shot Preview plays them over the diagram at any moment of a made-up lock, scrubbed or played through, ended whichever way you pick. The test suite holds its bars to the game's, frame for frame.

Focus#

Focus On is what the lens keeps sharp while locked: The Camera's Own (whatever its rig keeps sharp, if anything), The Target, You, Both Of You, Whichever Is Nearer, Whichever Is Further, A Set Distance (At so many centimetres), or Nothing. It's the same list a point of interest focuses from, in the same words. Rack is how focus moves: Realistic Pull like a person pulling focus, a beat late and a touch too far, Slow Drift, or Snap. Rack Takes is roughly how long.

Stop Down For Both also closes the aperture until you're both sharp, no further than Close No Further Than. Keep The Exposure raises exposure to match as it closes, for manual exposure.

Focus On Named Events changes focus for a named event: a parry pulling focus to the blade, held for Holds For seconds.

Hooks#

Hooks run actions as a lock starts, moves to a new target, ends, breaks or loses its target, and as a group closes in or thins out. Four actions come with the plugin: Play A Sound, Spawn An Effect, Fire A Camera Event and Tell Lock-On Listeners, which calls the lock-on listener interface on any actor or component that implements it. First Time Only and At Most limit how often one runs. A Lock-On Target's Effects From plays another preset's effects and hooks for that target alone: a boss's own entrance.

Markers#

Markers on a preset put a mark over the locked target, and, if you like, over the next target and the other targets you could take. The next target is the one a lock would take while nothing is locked, and the next one either side while something is. Markers sit on screen by default and in the world on request. A duel can switch them off.

A look for each kind#

Each kind of marker has a look of its own: Locked Target, Next Target and Other Targets. A look can have its own Widget, Image, Shape, Size and Colour, and anything it leaves empty uses the markers' own. A Lock-On Target's Marker gives one target a picture or a widget of its own, which wins over both.

Without a widget or a picture the plugin draws the marker itself, and Style picks a shape for every kind at once:

A look's own Shape overrides the style for its kind: Corner Brackets, Reticle, Ring, Diamond, Dot, Chevron or Arrow Overhead.

Where it sits#

Place At says where on the target each kind's marker sits:

The body is the box the lock frames the target by: its bounds, or the Width and Height set on its Lock-On Target. From there, Offset moves the marker in centimetres the way the camera sees it: X towards the camera, Y to the right and Z up. Screen Offset moves it across the picture as well, in pixels on screen and centimetres in the world. A Lock-On Target with a marker Socket of its own keeps its marker on that socket whatever Place At says, and its own Offset moves it from wherever it sits.

Moves#

Each look moves at four moments. As It Arrives plays as the marker appears, or as the lock is made on the locked target. As The Lock Moves To It plays on the locked target's look when the lock switches to it from another. While It's Shown plays over and over. As It Goes plays as the marker leaves, or as the lock lets go. Each moment takes a built-in move with its Amount and Time (a loop has a Period), a Widget Animation of your own by name, or both.

The same Amount is pixels to one move and a share of the marker's size to another, so picking a move fills in its own Amount and Time, the ones in the tables below, and the panel names Amount for what it is to the move picked: Drops From so many pixels, Rocks By so many degrees. Pixels are centimetres for a marker drawn in the world.

Feels#

Feel fills every kind's moves in at once, as a starting point. Change any move after and the feel becomes Custom.

Snappy is the default.

Edits made while the game runs reach the markers already up. A loop changes as you change it, carrying on from where it was, and an arrival or a switch you change plays again once you stop changing it, so you can watch a move as you tune it without locking on again.

Your own widget#

A Widget Blueprint made from Blendable Lock-On Marker draws its own layout. The animations you name at each moment play on it, and its events fire as things happen: On Shown, On Locked, On Switched To, On Let Go and On Hiding. Kind, Target and Last Moment say which marker it is and what last happened to it. Play Move and Set Loop play the built-in moves on it from a Blueprint, laid over the moves its look already has.