Camera placement

[Cas]

I decided to make a thread for this even though it's not really useful like resolving the opponent's path is. I previously found a solution to how Stunts decides where to place turning signs and at that time, I tried to solve this, but I couldn't. Uhm... maybe there already is a thread?  I couldn't find one. Anyway, if there is, let me know

Here's the riddle: How does Stunts decide on the placement of the cameras for F4 view?  I've been making tests and, by placing objects around, it's easy to see where the camera is placed if you follow a replay. But I haven't been able to find a way to predict this. I should have written down what I had tested, even though it was not a solution. It's not as simple as the corner sign problem I resolved. Cameras are sometimes placed on top of bridges and if you count the number of tiles between cameras, it appears like you could predict it at first, but sooner or later, the track has to turn and with turns, all predictability is lost.

Anyway, I'll keep on testing, but if anybody has an idea to add, here we have a thread

[Daniel3D]

I always found the distance between two cameras to far apart but I did notice something long ago.

The camera locations are always the same for the same track so either fixed or based upon a logical set of rules.

Camera activation is proximity based, sometimes a camera from a adjacent piece of track will pick up the car.

I had a track named bridges, that had with clever use of hills a condensed 3 layer knot of road. The f4 camera was jumping quite a lot in that.

[Duplode]

The camera locations are always the same for the same track so either fixed or based upon a logical set of rules.

Yup, the game computes the F4 camera positions for the track upon loading and keeps it in one of the track-related data structures that restunts calls "trackdata". That was one of the partial results from my lost 2016 investigations.

[Daniel3D]

I will try to recreate the bridges track (or something similar) and plot the camera positions on the map.
(And check if there are differences in versions)
En post the results here.

[Cas]

That would be very interesting to see!
And yes, I had been researching on this earlier too. I wanted to find a rule similar to that of the signs, but it's not that easy. Once the cameras have been placed, Stunts always selects the one that's closes to you. What I want to know is how they are placed. It seems that, like with signs, cameras are only placed by roads that are parsed by the path-resolving engine. Therefore, if you drive off road or take a disconnected track, the F4 view will pick you up from very far away!

[Daniel3D]

Hi, i made a quick track with 3 lanes
Drove a test round on the inner 2 (so i miss camera positions of the outer one)

general impression.
camera's are placed about every 3 track pieces (regardless the size) i think,
jumps and overpasses have alternate positions. Long corners have them on the middle outside.

[Cas]

I've been watching your test and now I made another, trying to simplify things as much as possible. Look at my very strange results:

I first made a simple closed circuit and placed some scenery to help me identify where the camera was placed. Then, I removed the scenery that was not in front of a camera. From the first test, it seems cameras are placed every three track elements regardless of the element size, starting with the start/finish line, but for some reason, not including the last corner.

Then, I replaced one of the straights with a 1x1 split. That should make no difference, right?  Or maybe it will. Worse!  It doesn't make a difference at the beginning, but it does make later on. Without any logical explanation, the first camera positions are the same, but after the corner, all are displaced one position further.

The yellow markings represent the tiles within which cameras are set.

EDIT: I just made one more test replacing the split with a crossroad. The camera positions result the same as in the first case, that is, same as if it were a straight, suggesting that splits play a special role.

EDIT 2: Now I confirm that placing a tunnel there also yields a result like the first one.

[Daniel3D]

Did some easy clovers,
did each track twice by moving the start/finish.
a pattern is starting to show..

[Cas]

That's a good test!  So... it looks like we have this:

- Cameras are placed almost always every three elements, but occasionally, it can be two or four
- There is always a camera at the start/finish line and from there, the pattern appears to follow forward
- Changing an element without changing the number of tiles may or may not alter the distribution
- Even without any special element (just straights and corners), irregularities can occur

For your tests we have:
Test 1: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 (12 threes, including arriving back at the finish line)
Test 2: The same, also 12 threes
Test 3: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1 (5 threes, 1 one, 5 threes, 1 one)
Test 4: 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4 (4 threes, 1 four, 4 threes, 1 four)

It occurs to me that perhaps each element adds a value to a variable. When the variable overflows and wraps around, a camera is placed, but each track element has a different value to add. But quickly I realise this cannot be the case, as 12 x 3 = 36, which is different from 10 x 3 + 2 x 1 = 32 and 8 x 3 + 2 x 4 = 32. I'm more lost than before!

[Daniel3D]

For your tests we have:
Test 1: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 (12 threes, including arriving back at the finish line)
Test 2: The same, also 12 threes
Test 3: 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 1 (5 threes, 1 one, 5 threes, 1 one)
Test 4: 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4 (4 threes, 1 four, 4 threes, 1 four)

In test 3 the camera on the crossing is not double counted like in test 4.
Test 3: 3, 3, 3, 3,*4*, 3, 3, 3, 3,*4* (4 threes, 1 four, 4 threes, 1 four)
I believe it is t place a camera at midpoint of the track.

[Cas]

You're right. That adds more consistency. Now I wonder why sometimes we get all 3s. Adding the numbers yields 32 when not all 3s and 36 when all 3s. It would make sense to me if they added to the same number.

[Daniel3D]

You're right. That adds more consistency. Now I wonder why sometimes we get all 3s. Adding the numbers yields 32 when not all 3s and 36 when all 3s. It would make sense to me if they added to the same number.

They do add up.
Test one and two are a longer track.

[Cas]

Oops!  It's true!

Anyway, when we get this 4 after a set of 3s, this suggests there's some mantissa being added, but if on some tracks, we get all 3s, then the difference has to lie in the contents, so the non-integer value for large corners must be different from that of straights.

[Duplode]

F4 camera positions for Default:



These positions were extracted with a debugger from memory, more specifically from trackdata09 (see this Wiki article for an overview of what Trackdata is).

(See also: the companion post about trackdata10.)

[Cas]

Fantastic!  I really want to be able to use that tool!

Notice how camera placement once the track element in question has been selected, is completely determined. For "horizontal" paved roads, for example, the camera is always "above". It doesn't matter in which direction the road goes. For "vertical" ones, it's to the right, not relative to the pipsqueak, but to the map. So each track element has a "position-for-camera" that serves as a potential waypoint. My guess is that this is established in the GAME resource files, together with the walls and that.

It occurs to me that, exceptions to the number of tiles before the next camera might be happening because Stunts could be taking the previous camera position as a vector instead of as a tile and then extending with a sphere of a certain radius and finding the next waypoint on the track that's closest to the sphere surface. That, of course, would make it a lot harder to predict by counting tiles, as it would also depend on these internally established potential camera positions for every tile. Since you've found PRNG calls for signs, which are very predictable, then perhaps the PRNG calls for cameras does not have to affect their position as much either. I don't know.