Lock-on presets1.3
The Lock-On Presets that come with Blendable, what each one is for, and how their lenses and distances were worked out.
Every camera style comes with a Lock-On Preset to match, in its own folder, and a set named by what you'd use them for lives in Presets/LockOn. Pick one as your lock-on's Base Preset, push one from a node for a moment, or give one to a boss. Each is a starting point: duplicate it and make it yours.
Whichever you pick, the camera stays behind you and the stick steers the shot and leaves it where you put it, the way a lock without a preset works. Soulslike and Finisher are the exceptions: Soulslike's stick switches target, and Finisher's places the target on screen. Top Down, Isometric, Side Scroller and Arena hold their own angle, so neither applies to them.
Where the stick steers, it stops where the target meets the edge of the frame, and the camera answers steering up and down with the player's camera's own Pitch Response, Looking Up and Looking Down. Only Finisher ticks its own; the rest answer the stick the way the player's camera answers a look. Tick Pitch Response or Composition As You Steer in a copy to give a lock its own.
One for each style#
| Preset | In | Frames a lock |
|---|---|---|
| Third Person lock-on | ThirdPerson | On the thirds through the style's own lock-on Rig, 70 degrees at 3.5 m |
| Survival Horror lock-on, Immersive lock-on | SurvivalHorror | Close over the shoulder, as those styles sit |
| Action RPG lock-on | ActionRPG | On the thirds, a little further back |
| Cinematic Action lock-on | Cinematic | Wide apart on the screen, 2.39:1 bars, and a dolly zoom as it takes hold: the camera backs away as the lens narrows |
| Hack and Slash lock-on | HackAndSlash | Pulled back with room on every side |
| Top Down, Isometric, Side Scroller lock-on | Their own | On the style's held angle: the view stays put and the middle of the shot slides in between you. Top Down and Isometric face whichever way your camera faced, so a lock from another style cranes up behind you rather than turning the world round; Side Scroller faces along the level |
Named by use#
| Preset | For | Field of view | Arm | The shot |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duel | A one-on-one fight | 54° | 5.7 m | Both of you whole, on the thirds |
| Arena | A fight seen from above | 40° | 20 m | High over the fight at the angle you locked on from, the whole group in view |
| Giant | A boss many times your size | 74° | 7.1 m | A low hero shot: the boss looms past the edges and you're small beneath it |
| Ranged | A fight at a distance | 40° | 4.5 m | The target in the middle of the screen, where your aim is; framed for where you're both heading |
| Finisher | A kill move's long-lens shot | 24° | 6.5 m | Pushed for the length of the move; the target out at the edge of the frame, a dolly zoom as it takes hold, 2.39:1 bars and focus pulled to the target |
| Soulslike | The genre's own lock | 70° | 3.5 m | Straight behind you, both near the centre line; a flick of the stick switches target |
| Skirmish | A brawl you steer | 45° | 5.9 m | A soft lock: the camera stays yours, and the framing pulls back to keep the whole fight in |
| Standoff | The moment before a fight | 45° | 5.9 m | A long lens, the group compressed behind the one you face, a dolly zoom and bars as it takes hold |
| Open World | The people you meet | 62° | 3.5 m | You and them either side of the middle of the screen, a plain dot on them; the stick only moves the lock to someone else |
| Dialogue | A conversation | 15° | 4.2 m | Over your shoulder, them head and shoulders on the right third and in focus, you soft on the left, bars across the screen |
Finisher is made to be pushed rather than set as a base: a Blendable Lock-On Preset Window notify over the kill animation frames the lock with it for exactly as long as the move plays, and lets go however the animation stops.
Go deeperHow the lenses and distances were worked out
The four newest (Duel, Giant, Ranged, Finisher) start from a film convention for the job, and the numbers follow from it.
The lens. Each is a focal length on a full-frame camera, whose gate is 36 mm wide. The angle it sees across is 2 × atan(18 ÷ focal length): 35 mm sees 54.4 degrees, 24 mm 73.7, 50 mm 39.6 and 85 mm 23.9. Unreal's field of view is that horizontal angle, so these are the presets' Field Of View values as they are.
| Job | Lens | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Duel | 35 mm | The usual lens for a two-shot in an action scene: both people whole, little distortion |
| Giant | 24 mm | Wide: from low down it exaggerates height, the classic way to make something loom |
| Ranged | 50 mm | The normal lens: a far target stays readable rather than shrinking into the distance |
| Finisher | 85 mm | The portrait lens: compresses the two of you together and flattens the background |
The distance. The arm is set by how much of the screen's height you take up, a shot size. On a 16:9 screen the vertical angle comes from the horizontal one, tan(v ÷ 2) = tan(h ÷ 2) × 9 ÷ 16, and the arm is half the height the screen shows at your distance divided by tan(v ÷ 2).
| Job | Shot | You take up | Arm |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duel | Full shot, all of you | 180 cm at 55% of the height | 566 cm |
| Giant | Long shot, small beneath it | 180 cm at 30% | 711 cm |
| Ranged | Medium shot, waist up | 100 cm at 55% | 449 cm |
| Finisher | Medium long shot, knees up | 130 cm at 84% | 646 cm |
Finisher was first worked out as a medium close-up, 100 cm at 80% of the height, which is 5.2 m, then pulled back to a full shot at 8.2 m, you head to toe at 92%, and tuned in the editor to 6.5 m between the two: through the same lens that shows 155 cm of height at your distance, you from about the knees up.
The same sum on the Soulslike lock (70 degrees, 3.5 m) puts you at 65% of the height, which is how the method was checked against a shot already in use.
The spots sit on the thirds, where the eye goes first, except Ranged's target, which sits dead centre because that's where a reticle is. The bars are 2.39:1, the widest film frame: 0.128 of a 16:9 screen's height each.
On engine versions before 5.8#
The presets come in the box on 5.8. On 5.3 to 5.7, lock-on preset values has every one as a block you paste onto a new Blendable Lock-On Preset, with the Rig it starts from and anything else the paste can't carry listed under it.