Third person camera behaviour for Unity. Concept was inspired by Unity's Cinemachine, the code is entirely mine with exception for for the ShowIfAttribute and ShowIfAttributeDrawer scripts. Although inspired by, it is much more simple (and depending on your necessities, much more limited) than the original Cinemachine scripts. It gives you, however, the possibility to align the normal of the camera plane with the target's normal.
Paste the ThirdPersonCamera.cs and ShowIfAttribute.cs script into your project.
Paste the ShowIfAttributeDrawer.cs script into any folder named "Editor" in your project.
Attach the ThirdPersonCamera script to your camera and tune the attributes to your needs. Bind the Game Object which the camera should follow to the follow property. Bind the Game Object which the camera should look at to the lookAt property.
Note: the camera should not be nested in the
lookAtnor thefollowgame objects.
Most features are similar to the original Cinemachine scripts. The only difference is that the camera plane may be aligned with the target's normal. Basic settings can be configured in the inspector to your liking.
The camera uses three different orbits to position itself around the follow target. Each orbit can be configured regarding his height, radius and color in the editor through the inspector.
The height is relative to the transform of the follow target.
The camera circles around the target with a radius that is equal to the quadratic interpolation of the surrounding rings's radius and its height is clamped by the top and bottom rings.
The resulting rings are shown in the editor like so:
The position of the camera can be further adjusted with the following attributes:
| Attribute | Type | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
lockHeight |
boolean | false |
If set to true, the camera will not move vertically |
lockTranslation |
boolean | false |
If set to true, the camera will not rotate around it's follow target |
avoidClipping |
boolean | true |
Defines whether the camera should avoid clipping into objects, see the example below |
clipDistance |
float | 5 | The maximum distance of a collider to the camera's follow target to be considered as clipping |
clippingOffset |
float | 0 | The distance between the camera and any clipping objects if avoidClipping is enabled |
horizontalTilt |
float | 0 | The horizontal angle offset for the camera view |
horizontalOffset |
float | 0 | The horizontal offset on the camera position in unities |
verticalTilt |
float | 0 | The vertical angle offset for the camera view |
verticalOffset |
float | 0 | The vertical offset on the camera position in unities |
useTargetNormal |
boolean | true |
If enabled, the camera will align its normal with the follow target's normal, see the example below |
If avoidClipping is enabled, the camera will try to avoid clipping into the ground and other surrounding objects (as long as they have a collider) by moving closer to the follow target. An offset can be applied to move the camera further away from the clipping objects, which can help avoid seeing through objects, however it currently may lead to some glitches regarding the camera position. The following gif illustrates this behavior (true on the left, false on the right).
If useTargetNormal is enabled, the camera will align it's normal to the follow target's normal, otherwise it will use Vector3.up, defined by (0, 1, 0), as shown below (true on the left, false on the right).
| Attribute | Type | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
horizontalAxis |
string | "Mouse X" |
Defines the input axis used for the horizontal movement of the camera |
horizontalSensitivity |
float | 1 | The multiplier for the horizontal input value |
invertX |
boolean | false |
Defines whether the horizontal movement should be inverted |
verticalAxis |
string | "Mouse Y" |
Defines the input axis used for the vertical movement of the camera |
verticalSensitivity |
float | 0.8 | The multiplier for the vertical input value |
invertY |
boolean | true |
Defines whether the vertical movement should be inverted |
A few motion effects are available out of the box. Each can be enabled/disabled and configured as you wish. The effects and configurations available are:
Although I described this section as available effects (plural), as it is, there are only two effects available, zoom out on motion and motion shake. I expect to implement more in the future, for the time being, feel free to contribute!
Note: This effect depends on the target having a rigidbody attached to it.
The zoom out on motion effect is a simple way to make the camera zoom out on the target when the target is moving at certain speeds. This can help giving a sense of depth and speed to the motion. The configurations for this effect are:
| Attribute | Type | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
startSpeed |
float | 10 | At which speed (in m/s) should the camera begin to zoom out |
capSpeed |
float | 15 | At which speed (in m/s) should the camera stop to zoom out |
startDistanceRatio |
float | 0 | How much should the camera zoom out (in %) when it starts to move |
capDistanceRatio |
float | 0.3 | How much should the camera zoom out (in %) when it stops to move |
The effect is done by increasing the camera and the target by a certain amount, this amount is determined by a linear interpolation of the zoomStartDistanceRatio and zoomCapDistanceRatio with a value equals to the inverse linear interpolation of the target's speed between zoomOutStartSpeed and zoomCapDistanceRatio.
For example, suppose we are using the default configurations. If the target is below 10 m/s, the camera will be at it's default distance, as the target increases it's speed beyond 10 m/s, the camera will start to zoom out. At a speed of 12.5 m/s, the inverse linear interpolation value will be 0.5, so the camera will zoom out by a value equals the linear interpolation of the speed at 0, that is, 0.3, the equation is:
(v * startDistanceRatio) + ((1 - v) * capDistanceRatio)
with v = 0.5. The zoom out amount is represented by the percentage of the default distance that will be added, therefore the camera will zoom out by 15% of the default distance (115% in total). Past the cap speed of 15 m/s, the camera will always be zoomed out by 30%.
The result can be seen in the following gif:
Note: This effect depends on the target having a rigidbody attached to it.
The motion shake effect is a way to make the motion feel more natural and dynamic. The configurations for this effect are:
| Attribute | Type | Default value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
startSpeed |
float | 10 | At which speed (in m/s) should the camera begin to shake |
capSpeed |
float | 15 | Until which speed (in m/s) should the camera increase the shake intensity |
verticalStartIntensity |
float | 0.02 | How much should the camera move vertically as it starts to shake |
verticalCapIntensity |
float | 0.05 | How much should the camera move vertically at most as it shakes |
verticalSpeed |
float | 15 | How fast should the camera move vertically as it shakes |
verticalPhase |
float | 0.5 | At which point of the cycle should the camera start (vertically) |
horizontalStartIntensity |
float | 0.03 | How much should the camera move horizontally as it starts to shake |
horizontalCapIntensity |
float | 0.07 | How much should the camera move horizontally at most as it shakes |
horizontalSpeed |
float | 7.5 | How fast should the camera move horizontally as it shakes |
horizontalPhase |
float | 0 | At which point of the cycle should the camera start (horizontally) |
This effect is done by using a sinusoidal wave to move the camera vertically and horizontally. The vertical wave is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency of verticalSpeed and a phase of verticalPhase. The horizontal wave is a sinusoidal wave with a frequency of horizontalSpeed and a phase of horizontalPhase.
The phase must be between 0 and 2 (the reason being that it is going to be multiplied by PI and then applied to the sine function, as the sine wave has a period of 2PI, any value out of this range would be redundant).
The result can be seen in the following gif:
Bug reports, feature requests, suggestions (please create an issue) and pull requests are welcome.