Torque3D Top Down Static Camera w/ Player Control

Recently I need a camera system for a proof of concept game I am working on that allowed me to have a statically fixed camera with a top-down view orientation, BUT still give me full control of movements of the player down below. It would mimic an old school 2D top down game but in 3D of course :)

Using just the vanilla Torque3D new project, I will show you one way to achieve this as I have using just simple Torque Script.

First, open up Scripts\\Server\\GameCore.cs

Scroll down around line 710, and place this as the last line in the function GameCore::spawnPlayer:

messageClient(%this, 'MsgPlayerSpawn', "", %spawnPoint.position);

This will force the server to call a function on the spawning client which we will utilize to setup our camera system and send the position of the spawn point. This will also be beneficial later on for executing anything we need to whenever we are triggered as spawning back up in game.

Finally, you need to select a file in Scripts\\Client to add our new MsgPlayerSpawn function too. I choose to place mine in Scripts\\Client\\serverConnection.cs, you may however place it where ever you like. Paste the following code in your selected client file:

addMessageCallback( 'MsgPlayerSpawn', handlePlayerSpawnMessage );

function handlePlayerSpawnMessage(%msgType, %msgString, %trans)
{
   %pX = getword(%trans, 0);
   %pY = getword(%trans, 1);
   %pZ = getword(%trans, 2) + 15; // Change the 15 to whatever height above the player you wish
   %rX = 1;
   %rY = 0;
   %rZ = 0;
   %dd = mDegToRad(90);
   ServerConnection.setFirstPerson(false);
   LocalClientConnection.camera.setOrbitPoint(%pX SPC %pY SPC %pZ SPC %rX SPC %rY SPC %rZ SPC %dd, 0, 0, 0, "0 0 0", true);
   LocalClientConnection.setCameraObject(LocalClientConnection.camera);
   LocalClientConnection.setControlObject(LocalClientConnection.player);
}

What I am doing in the top few lines of the function is creating a manual transform. I am using the position (x,y,z) sent to us from the server but adding 15 to the Z (up) vector so that it places us up in the air above the position. The next 3 lines I'm locking our rotation to the X axis so that we will rotate up/down or Pitch, with an amount of 90 Degrees down. Then I'm telling the camera to orbit around this fixed point and be locked or no movement. The last 2 lines is simply making sure the camera object is properly set and that we still have control over the player entity.

Now you should be ready to go. Try it out for yourself ingame! The camera should be stationed up in the air above the player spawn point and never move. Plus you have full control over the player running around down below you.

Hope you enjoy!