Quick q: how can you move the camera closer or further from the plane when in external view? i don’t mean zooming (which distorts the view). simply moving camera closer or farther?
With Xplane, you simply use the arrow keys to move the camera in and out. I haven’t been able to figure this out yet in MSFS and it’s one of the only things keeping me from switching. I hate the external camera is fixed, but seems like a super basic feature. Hoping we’re over a year out now someone has figured this out.
Bottom-line up front: For the External Camera, you can’t do it interactively. You’d have to hard-code it then Fly.
It means you’re very limited in what you can do by manipulating the Cameras.cfg file in the sim. You can change the Initial Zoom value on any External Views Definitions (which I haven’t been able to translate what it means to from an actual Zoom slider view), but the bottom line is that since you cannot EASILY modify your relative position AWAY from the plane, it’s not a big return on investment so to speak. In Cameras.cfg, there is a InitialXYZ field for the camera. You would need to edit this for each aircraft file, then experiment depending upon size of the plane etc. You’d have to edit the file, load the sim, load flight. Experiment, and repeat. Very unwieldy. And would it get overwritten each time by the Updates? Unknown, but most likely.
The Answer is to use the Drone View. For that, I keep an XBox Controller nearby and use Set Pause ON/OFF to freeze the Decisive Moment.
are you still able to fly the plane from drone view? last time i tried using drone view as a solution to this problem I was unable to which made the whole thing moot.
Yes. Press C while in Drone mode to switch to plane controls, and you can control the plane either by your original controllers (i.e., yoke, joystick etc) or in the case of my XBox controller, it now switches to control the plane.
The key to that is to set the drone to be following (which it will by default) and set at the right view (i.e., 3/4 view from the left-front, slightly elevated, etc.) Once you have the perspective and the framing you want, press C and control the plane to do what you want. I don’t do this too much as I really need to be behind and slightly above in classic 3rd-Person View or inside the cockpit to fly it correctly. But it can be done.
Drone view does not keep the perspective like external view when the aircraft turns, so it’s not an ideal replacement.
I cannot understand why there’s no option for a distance setting Camera-Aircraft. It should be easy to implement. In VR there’s even no zoom function (which is understandable). They made a bad choice on this.
With drone view, you can set the camera zoomin level. To get a credible perspective, with objects on short distance (like your aircraft or the ground, during landings) I advise to use 75% zoom for drone camera.
or the ground, during landings) I advise to use 75% zoom for drone camera.