Cool mod. General question, is there a way to make the crosshair 'accurate' without it constantly dancing around as it picks up new targets? As an Ogryn the 'central' view is basically unusable (big boi is big) but the offset views make the crosshair barely usable as it doesn't show what you are ACTUALLY aiming at.
I know perspectives are tricky, doubly so when you are modding a first-person game to be third-person, but the crosshair jittering and not showing what you are actually aiming at for close / medium range is holding me back from using this mod more. If anyone has any little tricks to make this less clunky, that would be cool too.
Again, the mod itself is cool and works well, especially for the lil 'uns, but the crosshair is just a bit too much.
The crosshair moving around is handled by DynamicCrosshair, not Perspectives. The reason it moves is so that it does show you what you are actually aiming at. If the crosshair stayed in the center of the screen, it would always be wrong.
Fundamentally, it's mathematically impossible for the crosshair to be correct in the center of your screen unless the camera is directly behind the player (which would be unusable). The difference between the center of your screen and where your character is actually aiming in 3D space becomes more pronounced as the camera offset and distance to the target become larger.
Got two hands? Put one hand in front of you and point it at something. Bring your other hand right next to it and point at the same thing. If what you're pointing to is really far away and your hands are relatively close together, your fingers will be almost parallel. If what you're pointing to is really close and your hands are far apart, they'll be at completely different angles. With this mod, your character is pointing one way and your screen is offset, pointing in a parallel direction. So the crosshair has to move to indicate where you're actually aiming. This is pretty clear if you go into the Psykhanium and look at the edge of a pillar, then go in and out of third person.
This phenomenon is not unique to this mod, and is actually present in all third-person shooters. Some of them "cheat" and have your gun literally shoot from the center of your camera, though that's obviously not possible for this mod to do, as DT mods are incapable of actually affecting gameplay. It comes with weird side-effects for obstacles that are near you, like being able to shoot around corners. Other third-person shooters will have your character dynamically adjust their aim to point at whatever the center of your screen is hitting in 3D, which essentially reverses the problem you're experiencing; unintuitive and clunky problems appear when aiming at things close by. This is technically possible for a DT mod to do, but it would be cumbersome and janky, as a lot of things are dictated by which direction your character is facing (eg which direction you move when you press forward). A lot of third-person shooters (maybe most of them?) will actually do exactly what DynamicCrosshair is doing - moving the crosshair to match what your character is looking at. Some might do some kind of composite thing, like moving the crosshair and moving your character's aim to minimize the downsides of either process, but that's just a guess.
Fantastic summary. I was aware of some of it (though obviously not in as much detail as you went into here, so thanks for the indepth explanation :) ), and the issue is mostly exasperated by how big the big boi is. While I knew it was optimistic to believe there was a full solution, I was mostly hoping I'd missed an obvious trick to make it less noticeable, haha.
Thanks again for the work you've put into the mod. I'll probably still use it on the lower difficulties as it does give the game a new 'feel'. I kinda guessed this would be the approximate answer I'd get, but I appreciate the informative response on the nitty gritty.
There's currently no sound when revving up the chainsword. They changed the sound files for them, and it seems they no longer work in perspectives. Is there any way to fix this?
It's not really a bug, per se. If I recall correctly, they were always extremely quiet in third person, so I don't think there was a change. When you go to third person, you hear what everyone else hears; eg if your teammate revs up, it'll be at that extremely quiet volume.
Picking out specific weapons to change how they look or sound in third person is outside the scope of the mod imo
I don't think Perspectives is causing this error message, as it doesn't do anything with a hook called "is_loading_done". I'll need a console log to pinpoint the issue; here's more info on the DMF docs.
Replying here in case other people run into this issue.
The error is caused by DarkCache, which is almost certainly also what's causing the crashes. It's had issues for a long time now. For future reference, most error messages will tell you which mod is causing them (if the error appears in the chat, it will be in purple at the beginning of the message).
Sorry if I was trouble, I can see youve worked hard on this mod, I was able to figure it out, it was the mod's load order, I simply typed it wrong, but I figured it out, thanks for your quick help :)
Is there a way to auto-adjust the FOV when switching to third person? The code already seems to be in the game; when you're in the hub, the third person FOV is automatically lowered.
If you open up CameraTree.lua in the mod files, there are two constants you can edit to your liking: FOV_NORMAL and FOV_ZOOM. Changes will be reflected after reloading mods, eg by restarting the game. The current values are based on the game's normal third-person view, eg when getting incapacitated.
The Force Greatsword when charged and shown in 3rd person causes the blue light indicating charge to be floating off by itself over the characters shoulder. The light is visually distracting and doesn't look good especially considering how seemless every other weapon transitions between 1st and 3rd perspectives visually. Not sure if it'd be possible to temporarily disable the light in 3rd person as it seems to be tied to animations taking place from 1st person.
Thank you! This is by far one of the coolest mods out there for Darktide, and am super grateful for the ability to play the game while looking at my character!
205 comments
I know perspectives are tricky, doubly so when you are modding a first-person game to be third-person, but the crosshair jittering and not showing what you are actually aiming at for close / medium range is holding me back from using this mod more. If anyone has any little tricks to make this less clunky, that would be cool too.
Again, the mod itself is cool and works well, especially for the lil 'uns, but the crosshair is just a bit too much.
Fundamentally, it's mathematically impossible for the crosshair to be correct in the center of your screen unless the camera is directly behind the player (which would be unusable). The difference between the center of your screen and where your character is actually aiming in 3D space becomes more pronounced as the camera offset and distance to the target become larger.
Got two hands? Put one hand in front of you and point it at something. Bring your other hand right next to it and point at the same thing. If what you're pointing to is really far away and your hands are relatively close together, your fingers will be almost parallel. If what you're pointing to is really close and your hands are far apart, they'll be at completely different angles. With this mod, your character is pointing one way and your screen is offset, pointing in a parallel direction. So the crosshair has to move to indicate where you're actually aiming. This is pretty clear if you go into the Psykhanium and look at the edge of a pillar, then go in and out of third person.
This phenomenon is not unique to this mod, and is actually present in all third-person shooters. Some of them "cheat" and have your gun literally shoot from the center of your camera, though that's obviously not possible for this mod to do, as DT mods are incapable of actually affecting gameplay. It comes with weird side-effects for obstacles that are near you, like being able to shoot around corners. Other third-person shooters will have your character dynamically adjust their aim to point at whatever the center of your screen is hitting in 3D, which essentially reverses the problem you're experiencing; unintuitive and clunky problems appear when aiming at things close by. This is technically possible for a DT mod to do, but it would be cumbersome and janky, as a lot of things are dictated by which direction your character is facing (eg which direction you move when you press forward). A lot of third-person shooters (maybe most of them?) will actually do exactly what DynamicCrosshair is doing - moving the crosshair to match what your character is looking at. Some might do some kind of composite thing, like moving the crosshair and moving your character's aim to minimize the downsides of either process, but that's just a guess.
tl;dr
unfortunately no, not really
Thanks again for the work you've put into the mod. I'll probably still use it on the lower difficulties as it does give the game a new 'feel'. I kinda guessed this would be the approximate answer I'd get, but I appreciate the informative response on the nitty gritty.
Picking out specific weapons to change how they look or sound in third person is outside the scope of the mod imo
The error is caused by DarkCache, which is almost certainly also what's causing the crashes. It's had issues for a long time now. For future reference, most error messages will tell you which mod is causing them (if the error appears in the chat, it will be in purple at the beginning of the message).
In all seriousness, this mod will not affect the size of your character at all. If they are abnormally large, it's not a result of this mod.
Thank you! This is by far one of the coolest mods out there for Darktide, and am super grateful for the ability to play the game while looking at my character!
Emperor Protects!