If Destiny has a screenshot mode, it needs roll.

In the wake of InFAMOUS Second Son's photo mode being received extremely well, any game with a photo mode that doesn't have roll is like a modern console FPS that doesn't support dual analog aiming, or a Halo game without bump-mapped specular reflections from dynamic spotlights.

Here's a screenshot I took a few minutes ago. Really simple framing, but you simply couldn't do it in this scene without roll (short of rotating the image in an editor, which is annoying).

Being able to do that on the fly while taking game screenshots feels liberating.

More fully-featured screenshot modes also help the internet market your game for you, as also demonstrated by Second Son.

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Even very few degrees can make so much of a difference to the shot.

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So you mean tilting the camera?

I wish this stuff was built into every game. Perhaps as a console feature... but you'd want the option to disable the HUD, etc. So perhaps a built-in console gimmick would be a bad idea when you think about it.

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So you mean tilting the camera?

Yeah, what do you mean by roll?

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So you mean tilting the camera?

Yeah, what do you mean by roll?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_principal_axes

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It's the only rotation axle we are locked in on most FPSs

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So you mean tilting the camera?

Yeah, what do you mean by roll?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_principal_axes

I'm familiar with it in that context. Just never heard it used to describe camera movement. Did Reach have it? I don't think so.

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Did Reach have it? I don't think so.

Nope.

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I want to be a virtual photographer... IN SPACE!

Aperture (Depth of Field) - this is how you get sexy blurred backgrounds to isolate your subject matter. Looks like Second Son has it from the pics I've seen.
Focus - with a small depth of field you need to be able to adjust focus otherwise what you want in focus will probably be just a blurry mess!
Zoom (FOV)- Every photographer knows that lenses make a huge difference to the look of photos: from exaggerating 3D features, to compressing them. Who wants to be stuck at the same focal length all day? Fortunately, unlike in the real world, getting different focal lengths in a game world is cheap, high-quality and easy.
Shutter Speed (exposure time) - for sexy motion blur effects. How can you know how fast things are if they're always perfectly frozen in time?
Sensitivity - to get dreamy washed-out looks, or broody darkened photos. Set to auto if you're a noob ;)
Lens-type - standard, fish-eye?
Aspect Ratio - Generally, cameras are 3:2, whereas games are 16:9. But why restrict yourself? Throw in some panavision (2.4:1) or some 5:4 for that 'old PC game' look.

Then of course, you can throw in the 'instagram'-style effects on top and ruin your photo all you like.

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I liked this post a lot.

However, except for aspect ratio, everything else would require some non-trivial work from the developers, unlike roll, which is simply restricted to mapping a button to it.

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However, except for aspect ratio, everything else would require some non-trivial work from the developers, unlike roll, which is simply restricted to mapping a button to it.

Real-time FoV modification is fairly trivial in most game engines.

Aperture and focus are sometimes going to be fairly simple to enable for a photo mode if a game already uses in-engine DoF.

Sensitivity and shutter speed might get tricky, especially if you want to account for camera motion, and who knows if it'll to interact nicely with DoF in screenshots.
Lens type could also get weird, though the game could render screens with perspective projection and reproject to get other projections (Destiny with 360-degree equirectangular screenshots would be nice), though that's a pretty high request.

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Lens type could also get weird,

From his description, when he says 'lens type' he just means FOV. A fisheye lens for example, has a really wide FOV. Telephoto has a narrow one.

The only type of lens that would get weird is if you were mimicking an anamorphic, because of what it does to the optics.

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Lens type could also get weird,

From his description, when he says 'lens type' he just means FOV. A fisheye lens for example, has a really wide FOV. Telephoto has a narrow one.

Not at all. Fish-eye lenses don't just have a wide FoV, they produce a projection very different from the perspective transform typically used in computer graphics. Almost all 3D games use a simple rectilinear transform* which preserves straight lines in a scene as straight lines in the image. Fisheye lenses project in ways that don't have this property.

Besides, why would RC have stated "lens type" and "FoV" if all he was asking for was "FoV"?

*Generally something that more or less boils down to {x',y'}={x/z,y/z}, where {x,y,z} are values in the 3d scene with camera at origin, and {x',y'} are locations in screen-space.

The only type of lens that would get weird is if you were mimicking an anamorphic, because of what it does to the optics.

???

Anamorphic basically just means the image is scaled along one axis, which is pretty trivial.

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The only type of lens that would get weird is if you were mimicking an anamorphic, because of what it does to the optics.

???

Anamorphic basically just means the image is scaled along one axis, which is pretty trivial.

That's not correct. A scene shot with anamorphics vs a scene shot with regular lenses would look completely different, if cropped to form identical frames. Because of the lens elements, light sources bounce very differently, bokeh is different, straight surfaces become slightly curved at the lens' edge, depth of field radically changes, etc. It's not just a simple transform since inside the lens the light is doing a ton of stuff bouncing between elements. Anamorphic has a 'look' to it. (Those streaky lens flares JJ Abrams loves only show up on anamorphics for example).

Also, you're right about fisheye lenses and stuff.

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That's not correct. A scene shot with anamorphics vs a scene shot with regular lenses would look completely different, if cropped to form identical frames. Because of the lens elements, light sources bounce very differently, bokeh is different, straight surfaces become slightly curved at the lens' edge, depth of field radically changes, etc. It's not just a simple transform since inside the lens the light is doing a ton of stuff bouncing between elements. Anamorphic has a 'look' to it.

Heh, if that's what you were referring to (as opposed to just the projection transforms), why say "the only type of lens that would get weird is if you were mimicking an anamorphic"? If the game actually accounted for those sorts of differences (which might not be a good idea even if practical, IMO, since it makes option types less orthogonal) I'd expect there to be similar considerations with any sort of lens. It's not like there's "most lenses" with one particular sort of bokeh behaviour, and "anamorphic lenses" with a different particular sort of bokeh behaviour, and nothing else.

Also, I'm curious as to what you're referring to when you say "light sources bounce very differently." Using an anamorphic lens certainly isn't going to impact how the photons zip and reflect their way around a scene, which is what is usually meant by "light bounces."

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Also, I'm curious as to what you're referring to when you say "light sources bounce very differently." Using an anamorphic lens certainly isn't going to impact how the photons zip and reflect their way around a scene, which is what is usually meant by "light bounces."

I'm referring to the bounce between the lens elements. It gives light sources and flares a unique look.

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That's not correct. A scene shot with anamorphics vs a scene shot with regular lenses would look completely different, if cropped to form identical frames. Because of the lens elements, light sources bounce very differently, bokeh is different, straight surfaces become slightly curved at the lens' edge, depth of field radically changes, etc. It's not just a simple transform since inside the lens the light is doing a ton of stuff bouncing between elements. Anamorphic has a 'look' to it. (Those streaky lens flares JJ Abrams loves only show up on anamorphics for example).

I thought those were added in postproduction.

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That's not correct. A scene shot with anamorphics vs a scene shot with regular lenses would look completely different, if cropped to form identical frames. Because of the lens elements, light sources bounce very differently, bokeh is different, straight surfaces become slightly curved at the lens' edge, depth of field radically changes, etc. It's not just a simple transform since inside the lens the light is doing a ton of stuff bouncing between elements. Anamorphic has a 'look' to it. (Those streaky lens flares JJ Abrams loves only show up on anamorphics for example).

I thought those were added in postproduction.

Well, that sort of thing can be added in postproduction. But I wouldn't be astounded if even JJ Abrams sometimes just picks it up with a lens.

That's how those effects as they pertain to computer-generated imagery were invented, of course. Even extremely exaggerated "omg bright lights" effects are usually pretty closely based on real-world optical behavior, in some qualitative sense.

(And this all includes eyeballs; I always get a kick out of people claiming that bloom lighting is bad because it's not a real effect experienced by human eyes.)

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Ever used the photo mode for games like Forza or Gran Turismo? Ridiculously cool, and include much of what you've mentioned. If you've never seen the results, a quick search will yield some incredible shots! Beautiful stuff.

Grim

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I've only played Forza a little, and never Gran Tourismo, but I've had a few editions of Project Gotham Racing and all of those had pretty fleshed-out photomodes.

I didn't really know what I was doing back then, but I still enjoyed playing with the sliders to see what kind of effects came out. My favourite kind of shot was probably a slightly-motion-blurred power-sliding-around-a-corner with a wide lens and blurry-background kind of look ;)

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If Destiny has a screenshot mode, it needs roll. (Destiny)

I agree