Camera

[Jin]

What exact does camera damping do?

Does anyone else feel vertical axis for camera move faster than horizontal?

[Donoghu]

If the name is based on its actual true definition in game development, the Camera Damping is the smoothness when starting and stopping to move the camera.

The damping is like a value that count when a movement starts or end. Think of it like braking with a car. The less damping, the faster the car brakes and becomes immobile while having high damping is like braking on ice.

In the case of a camera in game, damping helps to avoid micro-shake of the camera when you micro-move the camera control's source. If you slightly press the thumbstick on a controller that moves the camera, it might not move immediately at its exact speed as pressed, but might smoothly move from 0 in speed to whatever pressure you press it. It helps "smoothing" the camera movement and transition, but can also reduce the camera movement speeds and counter-rotation speed.

For example, if you turn left and quickly turn right, more damping means the camera will turn right slower, within the first moment of the movement, than with less damping but it will pick up the speed quickly afterward. It might seems useless to have damping, but it helps when you're easily affected by fast camera movements.

Note: What I explained is the actual meaning of camera damping in games in general. Sometimes, there's this mistake of inverting the damping effect in the script and, because of that in some game, less damping might means, like if it was more damping in others.

Simply test by moving the camera around and see if more or less is better for you. You might not even notice a major difference at all if you don't really have an eye for that kind of camera behavior.

[Jin]

I tested both minimum and maximum value, didn't notice any difference at all. But thanks for explaining.

[LightStriker]

At minimum, the camera is very close to a "stick camera", following almost exactly the player's motion.

At maximum, the camera is closer to Bloodborne camera, where the player can almost get out of the frame if he dodges sideway.

That specific damping is only about how fast the camera follows the player.