Sorry for the length of this post, but I will try to explain all my settings and how I use them. That might help you see how you want to get yours to work. In some ways the camera system is too flexible - it takes getting used to understanding how it works and what you can do with it. So far, I’ve not found anything you can’t do.
For example, there is this post in the guides section for locking a cockpit camera on the outside of the plane…which might actually be what you want to do. [HOW-TO] Cockpit camera outside the cockpit
First off, here are my camera option settings:
Next, I have a Honeycomb Yoke, and this has an 8 way hat and 2 buttons that I use for views. See the bindings below (I’ve ignored external, just looking at cockpit views for now):
So if I’m in the cockpit, the default view looks like this (in the TBM):
There are then four diffrent views from the pilot seat, accessed using the NEXT or PREVIOUS pilot view buttons (mapped to POV up and POV down on my yoke). They look like this:
Out the window:
Wider version of default:
Default:
Instruments:
From the instruments one, I can press the POV hat left or right to cycle through views of each instrument, like this:
Right once:
Right again:
Right again:
Right again:
Right again:
Right again takes me back to the initial instruments view:
I can do the same going left if I want, but obviously in reverse order
From any of these instrument screens, pressing the reset cockpit view button (joystick button 2 in the mapping) takes me back here:
Then I can press up to look wider (once), out for landing (twice), or down back to the instruments
I use the mousewheel to zoom in if I need to, and hold right mouse and drag to pan around the cockit if I fancy it. So I might drag and pan for this view
And then zoom in with the scroll wheel on the FMC for this view:
Knowing that if I press joystick button 2, it resets back to the default cockpit view instantly
As we talked about before, I mapped a custom cockipt camera to ALT-1, and when I press it, I set it up to go to this view:
It doesn’t matter which view I am in from all the ones above, panned, zoomed, instrument view whatever, pressing ALT-1 takes me to that view every time
Once I’m in that view, the POV hat DOES NOTHING now. But if I press joystick button 2, it resets the cockpit view again to the default
So this is how I use it, and find that this works well. I think you could replicate all of that on a controller through the d-pad and one other button to reset the cockpit view. In effect (other than the custom view) I only use up, down, left, right and reset. In fact I rarely use the POV left because the instruments are all to the right and I never work back, I just press reset
The other thing I have is a further button on the yoke mapped to switch between internal and external view. These are the external view buttons I have mapped:
So Joystck Button 3 switches between cockpit and external and back again. Once in external I can use the POV hat to change the camera angle.
Joystick Button 2 again does the reset view - but this time resets the external view when external
Lastly, I use the INSERT key (by default I think) to switch between drone (showcase) and back again. If you are in the cockpit, press Insert to go to drone, press insert to go back to cockpit. If you are external, press insert to go to drone, press insert to go to back to external. In the drone cam, I use the xbox controller to fly the drone. It has lots of features, but at it’s most basic, left stick moves the drone left, right, forward, backward, RT goes up, LT goes down, right stick rotates. You can zoom, change speeds etc too, but I don’t really use that. You can press C to control the plane from the drone view - but remember this is a toggle and so if you go back to cockpit/external view and later come back to drone view, it will still be controlling the plane if that’s what you did last
I think a lot of this is personal taste to be honest. I’ve found this works for me. I did try the zoom function set to auto and focus mode not on toggle, but they seemed to do wierd things. I’ve just got used to working with what I use just now.
No idea if any of this helps you though.
Is my custom cam view the sort of thing you are trying to get? That’s this one:
I could zoom it in more, so you are basically hanging out the window, like this:
Let me know what you think