VG and Video Game Photography

A little bit of background

I just saw an interesting Washington Post article about video game photography:
Link to article

It reminded me of the amazing shots posted in this thread:
The Beauty of Vainglory

And it made me think…

Should VG have some kind of contest to highlight how good its replay photography can look? Contests are fun, so why not?

And also, what kinds of features would make replay mode better for you?

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I just finished reading that article myself!

And an emphatic YES to the contest idea … as long as they fix the replay camera they broke in the last update :unamused:

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I think the new replay angles are amazing. I have made some good screenshots and it’s always fun to zoom in and see how detailed the models and animations are on this game.

The only thing that bugs me is that the camera controls feel a bit wonky imo. Having it so you need 2 fingers both to rotate and zoom in/out just causes the camera to go bonkers. Sometimes it’s just insanely hard to get the desired angle because you never know how the camera would react.

If suggestions are welcome I think a big part of this issue could be solved by getting rid of “pinch to zoom” and just control camera zoom with a slider. Simple and much easier to control imo.

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This exactly, whenever I’m watching a VG tournament I’m amazed at how good the cameraman is at what he does! Those slow zoom ins and outs seem impossible for my fat fingers to do :frowning:

I think Vainglory did have some cinematography like contests.

Remember the movie contests?

However, I think they squandered the opportunities those contests had because of wonky ‘replay’ camera controls on mobile, and also by not really showing much interest in the community’s efforts (e.g… slow to announce winners, not a lot of mentions of the contest around their social sites etc).

There is however a great opportunity for this to be remedied and expanded further - all thanks to the camera controls for replay mode on Vainglory PC.

Just look at these controls and shots this YouTuber made!

What I want to see SEMC do next is figure out a way to smoothen replay camera controls on mobile and provide an instructional video on how to use them.

As far as I’m aware, the only video that showed the replay camera controls on mobile came from this:

Even then, there’s no real instructions. It’s been like 2 years or so since 1.24…

In my experience:

  • Control is divide into 2 - one finger and two fingers controls.
  • One finger controls allows you to swipe/move camera and touch areas while messing with the U.I. display and replay speed.
  • Two finger controls allow you to alter camera angles and zoom.
  • The two finger controls are finicky, as they tend to glitch and mess your camera angle if you do not release the two fingers at the same time.
  • A solution to the above problem is to tap the mini map with one finger or touch the U.I. to focus on one hero.

i wish you didnt have to wait for 3 minutes everytime you want to rewind and also the time bar showed the actual time so you can go to the exact moment you want

They did have one a while back, didn’t they? There was that mannequin challenge thing, and then they had a few video contests (although those weren’t strictly art based)

True, they did. Just wondering if there were any other kinds of photography contests that might work.

Testing Camera Controls…

From down below…

Minions at an angle.

I’ll see if I can get some good ones.