Making Little Nightmares Camera System

Development Cinematics & Media
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1

Hello all,
I am currently trying to design a camera system very much like the one in Little Nightmares 2. If you don’t know it, here’s a demo: Little Nightmares 2 Demo | Gameplay Ps4 - YouTube

Basically, my current strategy is to have a series of camera actors to fit each room, but somehow have them follow the player slightly. Ideally, the player could also move the cameras to look around.

Any tips or links to tutorials on how to do this would be much appreciated.

2

I didn’t watch the whole video but it looks like they are just sequences. This is just theory and I’m fairly new to this whole thing but I’m pretty confident this is how it works.

Create a camera sequence and make it pan left to right in a room. You can even move the location. I believe you’ll need to use a rail system for this too.

Now, in your level BP determine the position of your character from left to right of the screen. Use the percentage of left to right to determine the scrub location of the camera sequence.

[START__________50%__________END 100%]
^_____________________________^
Camera Sequence Frame 0 ___ | __ Frame 10000

(Edit: Had to use underscore, the forums deleted my empty spaces)

Let’s say…

Now just do basic math conversion from your 0 - 100% and you’re done!

Once you have the basic setup from left to right, you can try different techniques to make the camera feel more refined. Alternatively, you could just use a camera that is part of your playable character blueprint that doesn’t use sequences and I’m sure you’ll obtain the same effect.

3

how do you control sequencer time from a bp?

4

Another idea: once upon a time I made a camera rail system & combined it with actor components.

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  • above, actors with a volume are placed in pertinent areas
  • those actors add actor components to the player when they enter, and remove those components when the player leaves the volume; crude pseudoscript:

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  • below, a component reaches out to its new owner and modifies its and their camera’s behaviour

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  • the player’s camera follows new rules

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This way we can have numerous camera behaviour effects present at a time (or any other gameplay effects!). Or have them last X seconds after which the component removes itself once its timer has expired. (don’t trust the tooltip of Destroy Component, it’s not telling the whole truth…)

Disclaimer: may or may not work as advertised for you :wink: I liked it, flexible & scalable once the upfront cost of setting it up has been paid.

1 Like
5

Great, I’ll try that. Thanks!