Imitation Of Life: CAMSync

Who never experiences those great moment in Second Life:

Camera shopping with a friend trying to localize where is that nice red outfit she is speaking of.
Building with your partner trying to understand which prim he is speaking about.
Visiting a new SIM and focus all your attention on where your guide moves,
Giving a building lesson and loosing time to explain where to look

How complicated it is sometimes to explain the evidence ! You just get it on your screen and cannot find the right words to explain.

CAMSync may help you in such situations. It is a handy tool for synchronizing camera back and forth between two avatars. This tool is shiped with two HUDs :

CAMSync (copy) is the main HUD you will wear, it is needed to initiate camera synchronisation,
CAMSync Free Client (copy/tran) you can send to any friend.

Camera synchronization can be done either between two CAMSync, or between a CAMSync and a CAMSync Free Client.

CAMSync Preview

Getting started with CAMSync

Wear you CAMSync HUD, if your friend doesn't already have the CAMSync Free Client then click on the green "On" icon. A dialog menu will popup, select the "Give..." command and her/his name friend in the list. Your friend will receive the CAMSync Free Client, ask her/him to wear it.

Once you received notification "[Avatar Name] CAMSync is online" you can initiate the communication between the both devices.

Select the "Connect" icon, select "Add..." button and finally select your friend name in list. You will receive a notification "[Avatar Name] CAMSync received connection request". A dialog will popup on her/his side asking her/him to allow the synchronization of her/his camera.

Once it is accepted your camera will be the master and your friend will start to see the world from your sight. You will receive a notification "[Avatar Name] CAMSync is connected."

Everytime someone is in slave mode CAMSync will warn with a private message "Press Escape to give access". Indeed for CAMSync to work the camera needs to be release to script control, if you use the shortcuts key to move your camera then you will need to leave that mode and give control to script by pressing Escape key.

At anytime you can change the camera master/slave mode

If you click on slave button then it will swap you in slave mode and your friend will be automatically be set in master mode.
If your friend click on master button then it will swap her/him in master mode and you will be set automatically in slave mode.
If you are in slave mode and click the slave button then your camera synchronisation will pause. It is useful if you need to move for instance. Once you want to be resynchronized with remote master, click on the slave button again.

Fully works in no-script area
If you attach your HUD in a script area and you move into an no-script area Q-Translator will continue to operate. The HUD interface will also work as you were in a normal script area.

Using the camera

Keys shortcuts

Here are the basic key shortcuts for moving your camera

Alt and clicking something focuses it to the center of the screen.
Alt and dragging the mouse zooms the camera.
Alt-Ctrl and dragging orbits the camera.
Alt-Ctrl-Shift and dragging pans the camera.

Difficult concepts to explain in words, so try it for yourself!

If you're on a Mac, Alt = Opt (also marked Alt on newer Macs).

You can also use: The directional arrow or WASD (with chat bar closed) keys instead of dragging the mouse. View menu > Camera Controls — I highly prefer keyboard shortcuts in most cases, as I find them quicker.

Looking Around with camera controls,
a video from Torley Linden

Disable Camera Constraint

When you are in slave mode make sure Disable Camera Constraints is enabled in your Advanced Menu. Indeed if the master uses it camera to move in an entire sim and camera constraint are not disabled, you wont see anything cause your camera by default is contraint to not move too far from you.

For disable the camera constraints, enable the Advanced menu while pressing Ctrl-Alt-D on PC or Opt-Ctrl-D on Mac. You'll see a new menu at the top of your screen on left of the Help menu: Advanced. Make sure Disable Camera Constraints is checked.

You can watch Torley Tips for a better understanding of this particulary point.
Tip of the Week: How to move your camera further and better

CAMSync Multi-Avatars mode

In fact you can use CAMSync in two synchronization modes:

either exchange camera with a single avatar in a collaborationg mode, the remote CAMSync can swap to master mode. This mode is called "Single".
or use CAMSync to control/teach several avatars in same time. All remote devices will be synchronized to your camera but none of them can swap to master mode. This mode is called "Multi".

Use the [Mode:] button in the connection Dialog to select synchronization mode before establishing the connection.

If you use "Multi" mode you can :

Request for a connection to all avatars wearing the CAMSync instead of selecting them one by one.
Add a new CAMSync to your current session at any time. If someone is coming in late no worry, just select Connect and Add the new avatar.

CAMSync command

You wont need to use the command directly except if you move to a no-script area. In such a case CAMSync HUD interface wont respond to any click, but the device is still active and you still can use it using the commands directly in public chat.

/8 channel <channel-number>
Will change the current channel using by CAMSync

Connection commands

/8 give [avatar name]
Shortcut command g can be use instead.
Give a CAMSync Free Client to avatar.
You can left avatar name empty, or use a partial or full name.

/8 giveall
Shortcut command gall can be use instead.
Give a CAMSync Free Client to all avatars within 96 meters range.

/8 mode <mode>
Select the synchronization mode
1 for Single
0 for Multi

/8 connect [avatar name]
Shortcut command c can be use instead.
Initiate the communication between two CAMSync
You can left avatar name empty, or use a partial or full name.

/8 connect all
Shortcut command call can be use instead.
Initiate the communication between your CAMSync and all the CAMSync Client within 96 meters range.
Use with multi-avatars synchronization mode.

Camera Command

/8 cs on
Turn on the CAMSync.

/8 cs off
Turn off the CAMSync.

/8 cs master
Set your camera as master, the remote camera will be automatically set as client.

/8 cs slave
Set your camera as slave, the remote camera will be automatically set as master.

/8 cs pause
Will temporary end up the camera synchronisation, this is useful if you need to take back control on your camera for mowing for instance.

/8 cs rel
Release the camera and stop synchronisation.

Miscellaneous

/8 help
Show this help

/8 men
Show the CAMSync menu.

/8 ver
Display current version number

/8 mem
Show memory usage of scripts

/8 hud autopos [on|off]
Enable/Disable the autoposition of HUD.
Default value is on.

/8 hud viewer [1|2]
Viewer 1.x and 2.x interface is slightly different
Unfortunately there is no way for a script to detect which viewer you are using
By defaut your CAMSync assumes you are using viewer 2.x to calculate the HUD position. With this command you can force the use of viewer 1.x parameters.

/8 reset
Reset script