bind mouse1 "+attack; spec_next; spec_mode 4"
bind mouse2 "+attack2; spec_prev; spec_mode 4"

altough sometimes this skips 2 specs at a time, don't know why \:D/

it's fine

Well it's a great way to see all of the action and catch sort of the "strategy" of the team and how they move together. However you're probably right in an FPS, aiming is half the game and probably more interesting for spectators.

I would guess most of your criticism is coming from games where the caster is also the cameraman. When I'm casting on my own channel, I try to do 50% free cam, 50% first person POV. And I still get people complaining. Everyone has their own preference, so it's ultimately what is easier for the caster who is also working the camera. Yes, it is a spectator sport and people want to see those huge frags, but it's also really hard on the caster who's doing camerawork to comment about the ebb and flow of action if she/he's just sitting on the sniper POV. Ultimately, having an independent cameraman is the ideal, so if anyone is interested, definitely hit me up on steam. We've been lucky enough to have Cold-- do most of the camera for our UGC Plat games, but as we're expanding our coverage, we've found that Cold-- cannot duplicate himself. Which is a pity.

EDIT: Also, just for clarification, free cam is probably what OP is referring to. "Third person" is "the over the shoulder camera angle," which is rarely used except when you're checking out hats.

I like free cam for midfights (demo pov is also nice for mids) and first person for everything else, except maybe a quick free cam to show how a team has set up on last or something like that.

how to cameraman
1) spec demoman rollout + initial stickies
2) spec roamer bomb
3) spec someone who goes huge
4) spec off classes

The occasional free cam mid fight is good but definitely shouldn't be used all the time

Highlander is hectic as shit for camera. In 6v6 it's a lot easier to capture everything, because you don't have 4-5 flanking classes doing their own thing in their own part of the map. You can stick with the combos, and alternate between them and the scouts/roamer and know you're not missing sniper plays or spy plays or reflects.

It's not easy and I applaud anyone who is dedicated cam for HL.

That is correct, I wrote this after watching an eXtv vod sleep depraved, so the phrases swapped around in my head.

Editted to clarify.

That's true. But it highly depends on how well are casters coordinated with camera man. For example, watching iT vs. anime was really weird from my standpoint. I noticed on mid Slin said something about "i'm gonna watch this guy, what he does on mid", shwan said he is gonna watch somebody else and camera was watching third player. I didn't make any sense, because casters were talking about shots from two different players we didn't see while watching something different. If you get coordination, i'd say even HL should be fine to cast.

I actually wanted to write bigger post why is casting tf2 very... special and difficult, but nobody wants to read rants.

Couple things...

I know there is definitely some personal preference here, and I know my personal preference swings more towards 3rd person. I doubt I'll completely change your opinion, but here's some thoughts.

Miek's SpecPlayer plugin doesn't work anymore. I messaged him a few months back when I had difficulties, he said he'd look into them, but I never heard back, and never followed up. My bad on the last part. That plugin is fantastic because it allows you to bind buttons to switch perspectives directly to who you want. The stock cvar spec_player requires you to have the players name directly as it's spelled and doesn't work if there are spaces involved. When live casting, and doing the camerawork myself, I don't have the time to rewrite my configs while producing and talking. Blue's advspec plugin doesn't have that command :/

The lack of being able to pick out who I want to go to is a major turn off for me when it comes to first person. There are some tricks, such as the fact that if you go into free-cam, then return to first person, it goes back to the player you were on before. I'll utilize this, but cycling through players frantically trying to find the blu medic or the red demo annoys me as a cameraman, and as a viewer when I watch games.

You're right, Highlander is a very frantic game. If it takes 2-3 seconds to adjust my camera back to a decent viewpoint after a player dies, then it's very hard to properly showcase the constant action through first person in the midst of a busy fight.

I really like 3rd person because it provides a continuity that hopping through different player perspectives doesn't offer. It really to me is the best viewpoint to showcase team positioning, co-ordination, and momentum. I think that TF2 is eXceptionally fun to watch in third person compared to other eSports, and that the third person camera is much more accessible to viewers who might be unfamiliar with the game.

You mention tribes, but tribes grandeur and distance is what made third person spectating terrible. It's a huge game with players railing off long distance disc shots and picking up a ton of speed through surfing. I tried to watch some tribes streams and tuned out immediately because it was hard to see what action was taking place or pick up the shifts in the game.

Especially with HL and so much going on, I call out stuff from the killfeed so that our viewers can stay focused on the craziness I'm capturing in the frame. There is a lot to digest, and while I get your point that you'd rather see that Sniper get the medic kill, 90% of the time if I'm trying to give a first-person perspective, we're going to miss that Shot anyways. If I stuck on Sniper POV for 15 seconds while there is an intense fight going on the cart, and the sniper does kill the medic, then I still missed MOST of the action that was going on at the time. Sure thats one big play I called out but couldn't show, but my camera in the meantime was capturing the majority of what was going on. If it's more of a slow tempo, I'll try to hop into the pov of pick classes, but again the obstacle of control is frustrating.

If I'm running camera and casting at the same time, I'll definitely rely more heavily on third person so that I can put sentences together instead of fumbling with the keyboard. c0ld performed camera duty while we had two casters for our other match, AG/Ginyu, perhaps that camerawork is more what you're looking for.

I try to use a lot more first person in 6s, and its a bit easier to either follow certain classes that you know are about to make plays, or showcase teamwork through where those classes are setup.

I appreciate the feedback, but honestly my enjoyment of doing third person camerawork of eSport TF2 is why I got my start doing eXtv and why I'm still here.

i dont watch some casts because of third person camera :(

That's definitely part of that influence on my outlook as well. When I'm doing the camera and casting, I know what the viewer is seeing. I know they didn't see the sniper kill the medic because I just read it off of the killfeed and didn't see it, but wanted to point it out so they can continue to watch the action.

The disconnect between cameraman and caster can definitely lead to confusion sometimes. It is something that is unique to FPS eSports as with RTS's/Mobas it's a lot more clear where the action is taking place as well as easier to move the camera suddenly to that location.

Trying to bridge that disconnect is why I like either doing post-produced solo casts, or dual casts with already completed camerawork. That way the viewer and the caster are seeing the eXact same thing.

I've recently started being a cameraman when casting South American matches and I'm going full POV, always keeping the camera on the combo in a push, flank in a stalemate and offclass when there is one. When I hear the caster talking about spectating some player, I always check him too. People aren't complaining :D

DJC explained how he casts/cameras to me in simplified terms once:

"Go to someones POV and talk about what they're doing."

This ensures the audience is always seeing what you're talking about and it's easy enough to weave in what the team is doing overall while your talking too. Doesn't particularly matter if the person is doing something hugely important at that instant if you're creative enough with your words.

The other theory is don't spend too much time talking about what's on camera, because people can see that for themselves. Talk about the consequences of their actions, how they fit into the larger action of the game.

Obviously there are many ways to cast and do camerawork and everyone has their preferences. It took me one year of casting to realize that you can't please everyone so you might as well pick a style that you can live with. This doesn't mean being deaf to criticism and feedback, but it does mean a certain amount of "I hear what you're saying, but I don't agree."

use sigma's big play tracker to find killstreaks

I like this. I started doing class-specific POV videos with commentary, and I'd love to extend this philosophy to casting. DJC needs to cast more! I think most folks will agree.

The spec player plugin we're using at TFTV works fine, you might be using an old copy or something. add me if you need any help.

"casting is the worst" -djc

I once specced a 6's match with 3rd person top view where the map looked like a blueprint. The 2 major probs were that I couldn't make out the players easily and missed out on plays up close. But it did give a very good feeling for flow in the game - positioning and pushes were a lot more entertaining - felt like watching a soccer match.

Obviously you can't use the same view forever but I was thinking if someone made some color coded image labels for that blueprint view and mixed it with some 1st person plays, it would be very accessible. Someone could just tune in and understand what's going on. They could see the game in its team-coordinated beauty and focus on whatever they want without having to miss the bigger picture.

I specced a friend's dota game recently and although I had no real clue what was happening, the bottom left map always kept me informed. I kept coming back to it and realized if tf2 casts had a similar feature, they could reach a wider audience.

Thanks for the offer dash. Added you.

My version is from 5/17/13... could be something on my end, but it'd be great to try out whatever version you got.

Big ups to dash for the help. I was putting the spechelper alongside the advspec plugin, but I guess it has to go to the original addons location, not the custom/ folder.

I'm good to go with Spechelper again, which will definitely lead to more first person pov shots since I can control where my camera goes instead of cycling through 17 players!

There was much rejoicing... yay.

Personally as a camera man, I much prefer first person POV, with a fair amount of switching, particularly between the flank and combo. Knowing where every individual player is isn't really necessary during a hold, and I am (or at least was) fairly decent at catching action during pushes. Free cam does have it's place, I do quite like using it on mids where so much happens at once that you can't hope to catch it all from POV. I usually take cues from the casters for mids, they might say "okay lets see what schocky does on mid" and I watch schocky that mid after the rollouts. Of course, taking caster cues isn't really possible when you're also the caster. The camera man job is much more involved and complicated than it might first appear. There is so much more going on behind the scenes than just watching a game. Trying to cast on top of that, especially solo casting, is something I can't imagine ever even attempting. If not streaming, from what I've seen most casters like to free cam their way around the map to not miss anything at all (unlike as a streamer where I know what I need to look at in advance), clip through walls, zoom in on players to see their name and that sort of thing. Trying to break out of that habit to get some decent camera work in and still cast is on another level. Props to anyone who can do it, like Byte at winter/spring LANs, Kip, eXtine and so on.

8 more months until I can stream again...

completely agree with the third person comment, when i was watching casts my favorite parts were always great shots and first person views. When i was doing cameraman for eXtv in the past i made a point to always do first person and pay attention to what the casters were watching.

Whenever I have been talking to shwan after his casts i always complain about the syncronization of the camera man and the casters. It really comes down to the cameraman paying attention to what the casters are talking about, and predicting the correct players to watch.

I've not had issues with spaces in the name. I use STVkeybinds

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/5589-repost-stvkeybinds-a-tool-for-stv-streamers

and it outputs individual files for every player with

spec_player "player name"

in it. I think you just have to enclose them in quotes and you are fine. Might be the way source deals with quotes in longer binds and aliases that messed you up.

This tool isn't for highlander, but I am working on a version of it that's expandable to highlander. I just really hate UI programming so it's taking a while.

Personally I like the third person/free camera predominantly because you get a wider view of the action as opposed to just the narrow field of view of one person. Even the big plays look better in third person/free camera with a larger view, at least that's how I feel. I just don't understand how you'd rather prefer one person's restricted FOV instead of a greater view of everything that's going on including team formations, strategy and team fights.

It's a fine balance Vish, honestly I don't think there is one happy medium because cameramen will catch flak either way.

When I casted I subscribed to the idea of "telling the story" of the match. This mainly involved calling the big plays as is, filling in the slow moments with back story or analysis of off-class movements, and recapping last round's cap play.

---

Now one thing that might be helpful is if cameramen could get access to the director feature of the Source TV server, and then the casters could set their view up to follow the director view. So at a minimum they're both on the same perspective.