Suggestion- Gears of War-style camera with crosshair enabled?

Is it possible, using scripts (preferable for netplay) or SOCs (meh), to change the camera to an over-the-shoulder view, while keeping the crosshair visible on-screen? I would really like to try this, and I know the view is possible, but proper mouselook controls might suffer. Regardless, could anyone help me figure out if this is possible?

SRB2's camera is too flexible to have accurate third-person crosshairs.

EXE modifications make this possible, but I have no idea how hard it'll be.

How do you mean, "too flexible"?. Do you mean that it is too sensitive to mouse movements? Otherwise, flexibility would be a good thing...

Uhh...In gears of war, that camera angle works because you are moving at a somewhat slow pace (unless you're sprinting), so your accuracy isn't affectied.

But in SRB2, where players are constantly thokking, spindashing, and generally rocketing about all over the place at the speed of sound... It would make either aiming, or movement difficult, I would think.

It's not possible, the way one would like it. Crosshairs can't be displayed in third person, for one -- for another, the third-person camera actually really stinks in netplay. In laggy (and even non-laggy) games, the camera will often get stuck in mid-air, so it won't be following you all the time. The aiming will be all junky.

SOCs wouldn't be helpful, but you can certainly position a third-person camera over-the-shoulder using a console script. Commands like CAM_DIST, CAM_ROTATE, and CAM_HEIGHT should work out. Anyways, as it stands, third-person aiming ain't possible; sorry!

In that case, would it be possible to incorporate such a camera into a future version? And, regarding scripted cameras (which I've tried) over the shoulder, though distance and height work out fine, I can't get it to pan sideways along the X axis. Is that possible? Then, combined with that, would it be possible to create a faux crosshair using HUD graphics via WADs/SOCs? Then all I'd have to do is edit the mouse sensitivity up/down...

That's some great thinking -- you can absolutely create a faux crosshair by editing the HUD graphics. You'd do that using WADs, and by editing a certain HUD graphic. I think you'd edit the one that says SCORE -- stretch that out to 320x240 dimensions, and add the crosshair in the middle.

It requires some trickery, but that's one way to do it. I wouldn't put the effort to it, though, because the camera's still problematic in netgames. If the camera is faulty, then the whole thing won't work, right?

By "panning sideways" you mean strafing/side-stepping left and right, instead of turning? Yeah, that's possible. Edit your controls -- there should be an option there.

It's possible to incorporate a built-in over-the-shoulder camera, but I'm not sure if the developers want to put forth the effort. Give it a shot -- make a post in the Suggestions topic.

Thank you very much for the complement! I have indeed posted this in the suggestions topic.

But in response to your question, no. I meant for the CAMERA to be offset to one side,so as to actually be over the SHOULDER, as opposed to a fudged above-the-head view. I do not know of any console commands that could do this...

That's not possible, then. Sorry :)

Thank you for the support, Digiku.