Improved Mouse Look Camera Smoothing

[AverniteDF]

This submission contains a reworking of the camera smoothing code located in PlayerMouseLook.cs. The purpose of this reworking is primarily to increase behavioral parity between the "smoothing" and "no smoothing" modes. Moving the mouse an inch in a certain direction should give identical yaw/pitch deltas (ultimately) for both modes, it's just that one mode is progressive and the other is immediate.

Note: To increase or decrease the camera smoothing effect you may edit the following value (located near top of class):

float smoothing = 0.5f;

For example, a value of 0.3f will give a very subtle smoothing effect and a value of 0.8f will give a very pronounced smoothing effect (at the cost of less responsiveness/higher latency). I have chosen a value of 0.5f because I feel it is suitable for production. It is possible that the "Mouse Smoothing" checkbox could be replaced with a slider ranged 0.0 to 0.9, in future releases.

[Interkarma]

Something I like about this change is the mouselook sensitivity feels equivalent with smoothing on or off. In the current implementation, mouselook sensitivity must be set differently based on smoothing.

This also raises a minor issue. Anyone with current smoothing on will experience a slower-feeling mouselook sensitivity once change goes live. Multiplying sensitivityX and sensitivityY by 2.5 - 3.0 lands about the same "feel" as the current mouselook sensitivity 1.0 with smoothing enabled. But not sure adding magic numbers is the best approach. Probably best just to increase default mouselook sensitivity and try our best to communicate change so existing users retune mouselook sensitivity.

[AverniteDF]

Thanks for the feedback!

One idea would be to inform players with an in-game popup message.

The popup message could explain the change and ask the user if they'd like to apply correction scaling to their mouse sensitivity (YES/NO). The invocation of this popup could be controlled by the presence/absence of a DaggerfallUnityVersion field in the settings.ini file.

If settings.ini does not contain that field then you know it was generated by a version prior to 0.14.5, therefore display the popup for sensitivity upscaling--but only if MouseLookSmoothing = True because those are the users who are affected.

Versions 0.14.5+ would record DaggerfallUnityVersion in settings.ini. Having this information could potentially be useful in the future for other unforeseen reasons as well.

If a user plays with 0.14.5+ and then goes back to an older version they will experience a mouse sensitivity increase but I don't think that's as big a deal.

[Interkarma]

One idea would be to inform players with an in-game popup message.

No need for anything like that. I'll communicate change via patch notes and socials, then support anyone who doesn't get the memo.

Please don't make style-only changes to existing code such as PitchMin to PITCH_MIN. I prefer contributors to match the style of original author and only make changes with a clear functional purpose.

Stripping this PR down to bare essentials of improved smoothing calculation, what's the minimum number of lines changed could this be accomplished in?

[AverniteDF]

Understood, Gavin. I'll look at putting together a minimum change version later today.

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On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 4:24 AM Gavin Clayton ***@***.***> wrote: One idea would be to inform players with an in-game popup message. No need for anything like that. I'll communicate change via patch notes and socials, then support anyone who doesn't get the memo. Please don't make style-only changes to existing code such as PitchMin to PITCH_MIN. I prefer contributors to match the style of original author and only make changes with a clear functional purpose. Stripping this PR down to bare essentials of improved smoothing calculation, what's the minimum number of lines changed could this be accomplished in? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#2441 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A3QEP2UYRVAFN36ESWWC5J3WCZYSPANCNFSM6AAAAAARAPKGB4> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[AverniteDF]

Minimal changes version is now up.

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On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 1:22 PM Rob Hewitt ***@***.***> wrote: Understood, Gavin. I'll look at putting together a minimum change version later today. On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 4:24 AM Gavin Clayton ***@***.***> wrote: > One idea would be to inform players with an in-game popup message. > > No need for anything like that. I'll communicate change via patch notes > and socials, then support anyone who doesn't get the memo. > > Please don't make style-only changes to existing code such as PitchMin > to PITCH_MIN. I prefer contributors to match the style of original > author and only make changes with a clear functional purpose. > > Stripping this PR down to bare essentials of improved smoothing > calculation, what's the minimum number of lines changed could this be > accomplished in? > > — > Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub > <#2441 (comment)>, > or unsubscribe > <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A3QEP2UYRVAFN36ESWWC5J3WCZYSPANCNFSM6AAAAAARAPKGB4> > . > You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: > ***@***.***> >

[AverniteDF]

Code changes for mouse smoothing slider are now up. The enable mouse smoothing checkbox has been eliminated and the MouseLookSmoothing field in settings.ini is now a float. DFU 0.14.5+ should probably examine that field to see if it has a boolean value. If so, then False would import as 0.0 and True as 0.5, or some other value you think is appropriate. It could have been left for backwards compatibility and a different field name chosen for the slider such as MouseLookSmoothingFactor. What do you think?

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On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 7:37 PM Rob Hewitt ***@***.***> wrote: Minimal changes version is now up. On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 1:22 PM Rob Hewitt ***@***.***> wrote: > Understood, Gavin. I'll look at putting together a minimum change version > later today. > > On Wed, Oct 12, 2022 at 4:24 AM Gavin Clayton ***@***.***> > wrote: > >> One idea would be to inform players with an in-game popup message. >> >> No need for anything like that. I'll communicate change via patch notes >> and socials, then support anyone who doesn't get the memo. >> >> Please don't make style-only changes to existing code such as PitchMin >> to PITCH_MIN. I prefer contributors to match the style of original >> author and only make changes with a clear functional purpose. >> >> Stripping this PR down to bare essentials of improved smoothing >> calculation, what's the minimum number of lines changed could this be >> accomplished in? >> >> — >> Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub >> <#2441 (comment)>, >> or unsubscribe >> <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/A3QEP2UYRVAFN36ESWWC5J3WCZYSPANCNFSM6AAAAAARAPKGB4> >> . >> You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: >> ***@***.***> >> >

[Interkarma]

SettingsManager will sync with player's live settings by removing old values and adding new values based on defaults. The best approach is simply to add the new setting with a different name to defaults.ini.txt and remove the old setting. There's no need to retain old values for backwards compatibility, this will be automatic if player runs an older version of the game.

Something like MouseLookSmoothingStrength or similar will do the job for new value.

Thanks for your PR. I'll review when I can. It won't make it into 0.14.5, as that version is already in testing. I'll aim to get it into 0.14.6.

[Interkarma]

This is looking good so far, thank you for all the work on this one. :)

I'll aim to complete review and have it merged ahead of next release. I'll let you know if any issues are found.

[petchema]

You should remove obsolete code altogether, if people are interested in old code they can have a look at Git history ;)

[Interkarma]

Fair point. I'm rather guilty of this myself. :)