User:Scruffy/Pikmin 2 in First Person Tutorial

This is a tutorial for modding Pikmin 2 into a first person view! If you want to understand what each parameter does, CameraParms is a bit more in-depth. But this will provide values that I used to create a first-person perspective.

You will need a copy of Pikmin 2's files; I use Dolphin to run them. I cannot tell you where to acquire a copy, but if you have Pikmin 2 in Dolphin, right-click its icon and select "Properties." This will bring up an internal menu for the game. Head to the "Files" tab to see a directory of all Pikmin 2's files. Right click and select "Extract All Files," and select a location to extract them. Dolphin should include in that extraction a "boot.dol" or "start.dol" file which can be use to run this edited copy of Pikmin 2.

In your extracted files, go to user > Nishimura > Camera, and you will find 6 camera parameter files. For story and Challenge modes, edit the "caveCameraParms.txt" and "groundCameraParms.txt" files. In each file, there are two identical sets of parameters for the camera angle (in caves or above ground), and then a set of parameters for camera vibration. Only edit the first set of camera parameters and then one value in the vibration settings, that's all you need. The following is an explanation of what to change.

You'll notice as you open the files that values are categorized by camera angle. For example, in groundCameraParms.txt, the first group of parameters is for the Near(Low) angle. That's a near zoom at a low angle. There are eight parameters for each angle, and they're all in the same order. So I'll follow this same order for explaining what to change:

1. The first parameter (ends in "d") is distance from the leader! This can be negative and the camera will peer out in front of the leader. I found the value -12 to be appropriate.
2. The second parameter (ends in "a") is the angle of the camera above the horizontal. For most camera settings I kept this at zero, so the camera looks straight out from the leader. But feel free to try positive or negative angles with different camera settings to adjust your view.
3. The third parameter (ends in "f") is field of view, or how much of 360° your camera can take in at once. Try a value between 60-65° for normal-looking vision.
4. The fourth parameter (ends in "o") is vertical offset from the camera's defined position. In order to keep the camera above the ground, try setting this to 20 to offset it slightly above its position.
5. The fifth parameter (ends in "w") appears to be weighted distribution for the cameras. Don't mess with this value.
6. The sixth parameter (should end in "t") is how much the camera tries to include all Pikmin in the frame. Since this is first-person, set this to 0.
7. The seventh parameter (should end in "nc") is the minimum distance from the camera at which objects are drawn. Leave this at 1.
8. The eighth parameter (should end in "fc") is the maximum distance from the camera at which objects are drawn. You can afford to set this higher than its value; I have gotten away with a draw distance of 6800, but the higher it is, the harder the game will have to work to render everything in the distance.

And repeat for each angle in the block of parameters. The seventh angle, called "ZOOM," has three parameters that are, from top to bottom: distance, angle, and field of view.

Below all the angles is a group of parameters regarding collision and rotation speed. Collision should be turned off, so that the camera does not move to try to frame the active leader. {clcr}, {clms}, {clmh}, and {clnh} all control collision and can be set to 0 to turn collision off. The other six parameters control rotation speeds for different camera states. The exact definitions of each value can be found on CameraParms, but for now these values can be used:

• {cpmd} 4 0.75
• {cmmt} 4 0.15
• {cmft} 4 0.5
• {cmta} 4 0.5
• {cmtm} 4 2.5
• {cmtb} 4 0.15

Finally, the very last parameter at the end of file, "Vib Max Distance" in the vibration parameters, should be set to something smaller, like 100. This is to make the camera vibration less violent when a leader gets hurt or something causes the screen to shake.

Version 1.0, to be updated with custom texture instructions.