camera-systems

1# Camera systems
2 
3The camera is the player's window; bad camera work makes a good game feel awful. This skill
4covers the engine-neutral camera techniques — smooth follow, deadzones, look-ahead, bounds
5clamping, third-person orbit with collision, first-person look, and multi-target framing — and
6maps them onto each engine's camera node or rig.
7 
8## When to use
9 
10- Use when a 2D camera should follow the player smoothly, stay inside the level, lead the
11  player's motion, or ignore small movements (deadzone).
12- Use when building a 3D third-person orbit camera (mouse/stick look, collision push-in) or a
13  first-person look controller, or framing multiple targets at once.
14- Use to fix camera jitter, snapping, motion sickness, or a camera that shows past the level edge.
15 
16**When *not* to use:** for the *magnitude and trigger* of screen shake and impact juice, use
17`game-feel` (this skill exposes the shake offset hook it drives). For the engine's concrete
18camera node/component setup, use `godot-3d-essentials` (Camera3D, environment) or the engine
19skill. For player movement itself use the engine movement skill (`godot-2d-movement`). For
20performance of many cameras/render targets, see `performance-optimization`.
21 
22## Core workflow
23 
241. **Decide what the camera serves.** Platformer (lead the jump, see hazards), top-down (center
25   with deadzone), third-person (orbit + collision), first-person (look only). The genre sets the
26   rules.
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