Calling all combat photographers!

[LoTekK 0]

With the obviously huge interest in combat photography and videography in the community, I thought I'd go ahead and make a nice, rugged camera to add as a "weapon" of sorts. I'm barely into the whole thing, having only managed to put aside a few minutes here and there yesterday for the modelling, I've knocked up a basic model. Behold, the Nikon D200 with a completely fictional telephoto lens in all its untextured glory:

I've got a couple of immediate issues that need looking into, though. As you might be able to tell from the pics, the camera model is actually rotated off vertical and to the right. This was the only way I could see to get the thing to sit "properly" in the player's hands (I'm currently subclassing it as a primary weapon), though it's still far from perfect.

Currently it's pointing about 10 degrees to the right, and 15 degrees up. It doesn't look too bad, and since it's not going to be firing bullets, per se, I'm thinking it might be okay to leave it as such. The question is, is there any way to alter the animation/pose of the wielder per weapon? I'd just need to move the player's left (supporting) hand down and to the left a little.

Obviously this sucker needs further modelling love, and a texture, but I was wondering what the interest level was like for this?

Oh, and how bout a little discussion as to how to make the thing actually usable in a mission? The initial thought was to just make it cosmetic, especially since there doesn't appear to be a built-in screenshot function in OFP. I had some ideas bouncing around in my head, though, but nothing concrete.

[finarvas 1]

Awsome, I was just thinking a few days ago about how to make a sneaky photograph objective mission and how sad it was that there was no camera addon for operation flashpoint. Would be great if you could figure out a way to make it work ingame.

[Shadow NX 1]

Reminds me on the camera addon for GR by the Spetsgruppa Vympel Mod

Nice Idea

[-HUNTER- 1]

I would like to see a MOUNTED camera on a bipod! With EXTREME zoom!

Thinks of photograhers at football matches, with the grey telelenses!!!

great idea!

[Sepe 1]

It's going to be great in WWII missions! Where did I put this document of US WWII combat photographers again...

And for cutscenes, yess! Imagine this movie-style scene of a man taking a pic of a group of soldiers, with the player's character in the picture, and first showing the group trough the lens of the camera... Then a sound of a picture being taken, and a change to the same picture in black and white, maybe a bit blur and even a little bit of tape that reads like "US 1st AirCav, Saigon 1968" etc.

[the_shadow 0]

this would be cool, and even cooler if it would save a screenshot everytime you fire it

heh, damn cool to have a real combat photographer to play with

[UNN 0]

What about one mounted on a rifle stock? Ok, so it's a Movie cliché, but isn't that half the fun of OFP

BTW FWatch could be rigged up for the screen shots.

[LoTekK 0]

Well hey, I guess there's some interest in this. With the nifty ideas here (the tripod-mounted camera could be fun ), this could turn into something a little bigger than the original scope of just sticking this one little camera into OFP. Might be fun to make cameras for different eras, even.

I actually had toyed with the idea of making a video camera (for obvious reasons completely non-functional as an actual video camera ), and subclassing it using the AT/AA launcher to use those animations. If that happens, it would likely be purely cosmetic (maybe say, for a cutscene involving a newscast?) because of the movement limitations of that pose.

UNN, I've never actually heard of or seen a camera on a rifle stock, movie or otherwise. Unless of course you mean those minicamera things that feed to a helmet-mounted display. Care to elaborate?

I just took a look at FWatch (for some reason I had always gotten it confused with that Addon Watcher utility). Holy crap, that thing is awesome. I gotta say, Kegetys has put out some amazing stuff, chiefly among them DXDLL and FWatch. Could anyone elaborate on how to get FWatch setup for screenshots? Because that would be nifty.

Now, missions-wise, a workable camera would be a little trickier, depending on how you'd want to set up the objectives. I had a couple of ideas in my head, but I'm a bit of a scripting and addon newbie, at least as far as OFP is concerned. So, questions and discussion.

Let's say you wanted to have a mission where the player's objective was to get recon photographs of some SCUD park, for example. Getting things setup so that you could check off the objective based on the photograph might be tricky. One idea I had was to use a fired EH to trigger a script to search the area in an arc in front of the player (is there a way to get up/down facing?) to look for the presence of the SCUDs. This is pretty simplistic, though, and would be a lot better if we could account for the current FOV (both for determining the check distance, as well as the arc to search). As far as I can see, though, there doesn't appear to be any way to determine FOV. This method also wouldn't account for objects or terrain blocking your view.

Another cockamamie idea I had was for the camera to fire a non-damaging projectile, and somehow use that to check for things. Maybe a combination of the two, so LOS can be verified?

I dunno, I'm rambling. I'm going to be out of town til next week, so if I don't reply (I may have my laptop with me) just keep the discussion going. I'm chuffed to see some discussion about this. I'll see if I can get y'all an update next week.

[akd 0]

Hey, how about the telephoto lens in the normal weapon slot and a normal/wide angle lens in the pistol slot? And here's an idea, but probably beyond scripting: your optic shows a standard nikon slr viewfinder image with appropiate symbology and zoom where applicable, but when you "fire" the camera, the viewfinder image is removed leaving only the mask and a screenshot is instantly saved?

[Sepe 1]

I think adding two "fire modes" (one with and without the symbology) with different sight optics would work, though the player would have to change 'em manually then. Though I'll be happy with just either having nothing or then having a the "corner" thingyes as optic.

By the way, wouldn't it be cool that the magazines weren't in crazy sizes but rather something like 30, so that when you fire it, a sound of a pic being taken comes and you'll have to change the film once in a while. Then we can also have a flash to take photos in the dark... Not too healthy in combat but who cares, it'll look cool!

[Hornet85 0]

a camera on a tripod is allready being made

[sanctuary 19]

I would like to see a MOUNTED camera on a bipod! With EXTREME zoom!

Camera addons (portable like a primary rifle, on a tripod, mounted on helicopter, with different effect) are available there , by the author of the Wanzer pack.

[DBR_ONIX 0]

Err :: http://ofp.gamezone.cz/index.php?showthis=8570

I never got around to doing a camera model/weapon for it, mainly due to the fact noone seemed interested (in this, or Fwatch )

Anyway.. Only bad thing about the program is it needs the VB Runtimes, but TBH a lot of PC's already have these, and if not, their pretty small, and ubobtrusive

- Ben

[Commando84 0]

hope you can make one that can be also added with addweapon "camera" something command to players choppers , aircraft , boats for those in first view action moments this could become a nice little camera pack to go really extreme a spy cam maybe too?

i think you should make the camera in different version like handgun and primary rifle cause what if you are going to be a spy and you need to have the camera as your main weapon, and a handgun as a extra, but if you are a black op or spetznas at least they carry some rifle like mp5sd or bizon sd or something and they would need the camera as a handgun think thats just my bunch of ideas , goodnight off to sleep now

[UNN 0]

Quote[/b] ]UNN, I've never actually heard of or seen a camera on a rifle stock, movie or otherwise. Unless of course you mean those minicamera things that feed to a helmet-mounted display.  Care to elaborate?

Well I can't find a suitable picture, or much info on the web. All I did manage to find was a review, describing the typical use.

Quote[/b] ]I should have known, damn it, I should have known.  Ewan McGregor – Codename: “Eye†- is pointing a high-tech rifle-ly gadget at a fat, bald business-oriented American engaging in illicit sexual activities in a window across the street.  We get the requisite electro-green through-the-sight view.  We the audience, seeing a high tech rifle-ly gadget, of course think that Eye is going to assassinate the target, but instead, he pulls the trigger and the rifle takes twenty or so hazy, low-quality photographs

http://www.mediajunkies.com/movies....0.shtml

That is an almost identical scene to the last movie I saw, using one I think the idea is it allows you to hold a camera with a large telephoto lens steady, without the hassle of a tripod. But from the point of view of the lazy movie maker, it's supposed to make us all think someone is about to be assinated.

[LoTekK 0]

Didn't have much time after my Bangkok trip to work on this much, but found some free time recently.

I'm probably going to end up scrapping the current camera and reworking it from scratch, since the mesh is a bit of a mess. I have gone ahead and slapped on a texture for the time being, though. Hasn't had much love, so seams abound, and there are blank areas. The pose in the screenshots is a static one at the moment, reworked from the DMA NextGen anim pack:

Also, spent a couple hours working on a combat correspondent (obviously still WIP). Both are roughly 1740 tris at the moment:

As for usability, I'd be interested in taking a look at DBR_Onix's camera utility for the screenshot functionality, but it's not available on ofp.info. Anyone have a mirror?

I've got some fairly solid ideas for how to get actual mission functionality for the camera, and I'll be working on that in addition to the art assets.

[DBR_ONIX 0]

http://www.dbrweb.co.uk/hosted/OFPCamera.zip

I'm 99% sure thats the same version, same filesize as the one submitted to OFP.info, so I'm pretty sure..

Anyway, the camera model is pretty nice, though the lens seems a bit on the large side (Lengh seems fine, but it's seems very wide), the photographer model looks pretty much perfect though

Obviously they could do with textures, but nevermind that

Good luck with it, if you need any help with using the OFPCamera thing, let me know.. Hopefully a full addon using OFPCamera (Thus fwatch) might make people pay attention to the otherwise ignored FWATCH ( )

*Kills post before it turns into a USE FWATCH DAMNYOU ramble *

Again, good luck

- Ben

[LoTekK 0]

Thanks for the mirror. Should prove useful.

Yeah, the camera lens is completely wonky. I didn't have a decent reference for a telephoto lens, so I just eyeballed it. Eventually I'm hoping to have a range of different cameras (if I have the energy I'll see about cameras from different eras).

The big dilemma, though, is that I'm thinking about creating a whole new set of animations for the addon, specifically for the photographer stances, not as static poses, but rather to replace the current combat poses. The obvious problem with that is that the animations won't look right with regular weapons. But, I reckon I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

[Jackal326 1181]

This might also spark some further ideas, maybe defining the video camera (TV Reporter style) version as a rifle?

OFP.info - GMI Camera Tool

[dvargar 0]

Nice camera, mate.

About the photographer, the legs are way to long, the clothes are too big, and the size of the shoes doesnt really fit into the proportions at all.

But other than that it'll be fun running around taking photos of combat.

[LoTekK 0]

About the photographer, the legs are way to long, the clothes are too big, and the size of the shoes doesnt really fit into the proportions at all.

Eh heh heh. Heh.

See, this is what happens when you decide to start something up at three in the morning instead of sleeping. Argh. Well, at least that'll be easy enough to fix.

[GoOB 0]

Looking great LoTekK! Keep it up

[LoTekK 0]

Good to see there's interest in this non-combat-focused project.

Been tweaking the photographer model, and got it looking a little better, and am in the process of fixing up the shoulder/armpit area. Will try and get some more progress done before I put up another shot.

Got a question for you photographer folks out there. I've seen pictures of journalists and photographers where their cameras have this large chunky thing attached to the bottom. An extension of sorts. What are those for, and how important are they? If they're important I'll probably have at the least an alternative or hidden selection including them.

Also, what would be the more essential camera accessories for someone covering, say, a conflict? I've got some ideas for other accessories like GPS, etc, from that war journalist action figure that came out last year (came across it while hunting down reference pics), but still a little clueless when it comes to the actual camera accessories.

[Hawkins 8]

Are you planning on making a 60's version of the camera and the correspondant?

[LoTekK 0]

Are you planning on making a 60's version of the camera and the correspondant?

Quite possibly, yes. I'm hoping to have a range of cameras to suit different eras. 60's and 70's would be an obvious choice, considering the impact war journalists made during the conflict.

As for the correspondent, whether earlier era versions end up being retextures of the current one or mesh reworks will depend on whether I can be arsed.