How to Make a Good 2D Camera

Okay - let's say you're making a 2D game and you 
need some kind of camera to frame the action.

No problem - just pin the camera 
to the main character, right?

Wrong!

Do this and you'll have a camera that's jittery, 
jumpy, short-sighted, and boringly static.

So let's fix it.

Here are five quick tips for 
making a much better 2D camera.

First, let's talk about lookahead.

Basically - if you keep the character in the 
middle of the screen at all times then you're

dedicating just half of the display 
to the stuff that's in front of you.

No surprise, then, why this happens so often...

So it might be better to focus more 
attention on the stuff that coming up,

and ignore the stuff behind you.

And there are a few ways to do it.

The simple solution is to simply 
zoom the camera out further.

That means even if the hero 
is dead centre on the display,

you can still get a good view of what's to come.

A more involved solution, though, is to 
shift the camera in front of the character.

If you can only move in one direction it's enough

to simply offset the camera 
from the main character.

That's great for endless runners and the like.

But if the player can travel both 
left and right then you'll need to

adjust the lookahead based 
on the direction of travel.

So in Cave Story there are 
two camera positions - one

when you're moving left and 
one when you're moving right.

They're both offset in front of the player,

which is perfect for a game about 
shooting targets in front of you.

When you swap direction, the game slowly glides 
to change from one position to the other.

New Super Mario Bros. U does something similar.

The camera is naturally biased on the 
right side of the screen, ahead of Mario.

But if you start to backtrack for a short 
period of time the camera will realise,

catch up, and swing further left of Mario.

And in Sonic Generations the 
camera reacts to Sonic's speed.

It settles on the hedgehog when he's stood 
still, but it moves further and further in

front of him as he picks up momentum 
- until it reaches a maximum position.

This is not just for platformers, 
though - in Hyper Light Drifter,

the camera is offset a few feet 
in front of the hero's head so

no matter which direction you're facing, 
the camera will frame what's coming up.

And in Luftrausers the camera tracks in front

of the player's plane - but only 
when the throttle is held down.

That makes it possible to do those 
sexy stall-and-swing-around shots,

without losing sight of your prey.

It's even easier to do this if the player has 
a method for aiming, like in Nuclear Throne.

By centring the camera somewhere 
between the character and the cursor,

you can get a better look at 
the enemies you're shooting at.

It's a very natural way of responding to the

player's intention and framing 
what they obviously want to see.

You can witness similar stuff in 
bullet-based roguelike Enter the Gungeon,

clone 'em up puzzler The Swapper, and 
blood-soaked rampager Hotline Miami.

Basically - ask yourself "what does the player

really need to see"? And then make 
sure the camera isn't hiding it.

Next up - let's talk about cameras and jumping.

Because if you pin the camera to the character

then it's going to move the 
screen every time you jump.

And if you're making a platformer - a genre that's

all about jumping - that's 
a lot of camera movement.

This can make the player feel nauseous, 
and make it hard to line up perfect jumps -

especially if the platforms disappear 
beneath the camera when you lurch upwards.

So, there are two main ways to help with this.

One is to ignore jumps until the 
player reaches a certain elevation.

In Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze 
the camera doesn't react to DK's leaps -

ensuring that the ground stays in 
the same position at all times.

However, when you land on a 
sufficiently high platform,

the camera tracks up and sets 
a new baseline to work with.

This means that the camera moves when you've 
landed, rather than shifting mid jump.

The camera can break these rules 
in certain circumstances, like when

you're climbing a rope or swimming 
- now it moves up and down freely.

Rayman Legends is similar: the frame 
doesn't need to lurch up when Rayman jumps.

It can just track up in certain, predetermined 
areas where the level goes beyond the frame.

The other way to fix this is 
through the level design itself.

In a game like Shovel Knight, the 
levels are designed with a maximum

height - which just so happens to 
be the exact height of the screen.

This means that the camera only 
needs to track left and right,

but never needs to move up and down - 
allowing the camera to stay still for jumps.

Go even further and you can keep the entire level

in a single screen, which means the 
camera doesn't need to move at all.

Which is perfect for precision jumping.

It also helps to offset the camera vertically, so 
the hero is closer to the bottom of the screen.

This gives more vertical space to play with 
and less need to move the camera up and down.

But perhaps the best tip to remember is that you 
don't need to treat both camera axes equally -

it can do completely different things when moving 
left to right, and when moving up and down.

Next - let's talk damping.

If the camera perfectly tracks the 
character then it's going to react

to every single movement, no matter how small -

and that can lead to a camera 
that feels erratic and jerky.

Especially when making precision 
movements to line up a perfect jump.

One solution is to use damping 
- simply have the camera ease

between its current position 
and the character's position.

This will make it follow events more smoothly,

and won't immediately respond 
to small shifts in position.

Though, be aware: if the camera is slow to 
catch up to the player's movements you can

end up with moments where the character 
is actually in front of the camera,

leaving even less screen real 
estate for looking ahead.

Another solution is to impose 
some kind of dead zone.

In Fez there's an invisible window where the

character can wander around freely 
without the camera moving at all.

But if you push beyond that 
window, the camera shifts.

This does mean that the character will be far 
beyond the centre of the screen when walking -

but the camera is so zoomed out in this 
game that it doesn't really matter.

So super responsive cameras can be 
good for retro-inspired titles

that want to capture that choppy 8-bit feeling,

but otherwise even a tiny bit of camera damping 
can make things feel more smooth and polished.

Now, the camera should usually 
be focused intently on the

character - but you'll sometimes 
want to frame other things, too.

So don't be afraid to move, 
zoom, or halt the camera.

For instance, you can use the camera to draw 
the player's attention to certain objects.

In the game Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet,

key areas like checkpoints and puzzle zones 
have a sphere of influence around them.

If the player's spaceship enters 
the sphere, the camera is told to

find the average position between 
the key area and the spaceship -

framing both on screen and adeptly 
drawing the player's attention.

The camera can also temporarily frame a scene.

Disney Illusion Island typically just follows 
Mickey's movements, but it can also zoom out and

settle on a predetermined position to completely 
frame a tricky platforming section or puzzle area.

When the player leaves, it 
goes back to normal tracking.

The camera may sometimes need 
to follow multiple things, too.

In the fantasy basketball RPG Pyre, the current 
character is equally as important as the ball - so

the camera zooms and moves in an attempt to make 
sure both are prominent on screen simultaneously.

You may also want to move the camera 
for dramatic, cinematic-style framing.

In Inside, the camera usually just 
tracks ahead of the player like a

normal platformer - but at key moments, 
like when you're being chased by a pack

of rabid dogs - the camera moves 
for a better view of your attacker.

You can also zoom the camera 
in and out for effect.

In GRIS, the camera sometimes 
tightly frames the hero,

and sometimes draws right out to 
reveal the grand scale of a building.

And you can also restrict the camera 
from looking at certain things.

Spelunky levels are surrounded 
by an impenetrable rocky picture

frame - and the camera is forbidden 
from going too far into this zone.

By locking off this section it means 
more of the frame can be focused on

stuff that's actually relevant to the gameplay.

Finally, the camera can also be used to add juice.

To make the game feel more exciting and alive.

For starters there's screen shake.

The ancient art of simply... 
wobbling the camera around.

This can be an effective way to sell an explosion,

an impact, a frantic struggle, 
or a heavy-footed boss monster.

You can tweak the intensity 
- and also the direction.

In Celeste, the camera wobbles in the 
same direction as Madeline's dash,

to really sell the speed and 
power of her special move.

There's also hit stop.

This is about adding a small freeze frame to the

game - which can subconsciously 
increase the impact of an action.

Check out Katana Zero - when you kill an 
enemy the action freezes for a split second.

The camera still shakes and 
some particle effects still

ring out - but the action is frozen 
in time, before starting back up.

When playing at normal speed this small hitch in 
the action makes every hit feel more impactful.

In Hollow Knight, the camera stalls for 
a long time when you, the player, take a

hit - which makes sure you register the mistake, 
and gives you a brief moment to collect yourself.

And finally, the camera can move and zoom 
for a short period to add further excitement.

In Dave the Diver, when you land 
a catch the camera will suddenly

zoom in and frame the epic battle between 
Dave and fish, before returning to normal.

All of these techniques add juice 
- but quickly shaking and moving the

camera can be troublesome for some 
people so providing accessibility

options - like turning off screen 
shake altogether - is a nice touch.

So to wrap it up - the camera's job is ultimately

to follow the main character and 
keep them on screen at all times.

But it can do so much more than that.

It can look ahead to focus on upcoming challenges.

It can ignore jumps to avoid endless movement.

You can add damping to smooth things out.

Use special rules to feature 
and frame important events.

And make quick adjustments for impact and effect.

But remember that there's no such thing as 
a perfect camera that works for every game.

it depends entirely on the thing you're making.

A slow and pensive platformer needs 
a very different camera to a twitchy,

erratic arcade thrill ride.

But hopefully these tips give you 
some good ideas for your own camera.

You can play with some of these concepts 
yourself in my interactive video essay

Platformer Toolkit, where you'll find 
a whole panel dedicated to the camera.

You can tweak the damping, zoom 
in and out, add some lookahead,

and choose whether or not to ignore jumps.

And if you want to find out how 
to implement this stuff yourself,

check the description to find links to resources

that provide more practical programming 
tips for coding the camera in your game.

Thanks for watching and I'll see you soon!