[RELEASED] Camera Management, Presets & 6DOF Controls - GFlight Camera for MSFS 2024

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GFlight Camera for MSFS 2024 – Camera Presets, 6DOF Movement & Native Free-Look Switching

Hi everyone,

We recently released GFlight Camera, a standalone camera management utility for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 on PC.

I wanted to create this thread not only to introduce the application, but also as a place for questions, feedback and feature suggestions as development continues.

The basic idea behind GFlight Camera is simple: spend less time managing camera menus and more time flying.

It lets you create, save and manage your own cockpit and external camera positions from a single interface. Camera setups are stored separately for each aircraft, so every aircraft can have its own set of views and controls.

Main Features

  • Unlimited custom camera presets
  • Automatic aircraft-specific camera profiles
  • Cockpit and external camera management from one interface
  • Smooth transitions between saved camera positions
  • Keyboard, joystick and yoke button assignments
  • Adjustable transition speed
  • Adjustable camera movement sensitivity
  • Zoom / FOV control
  • Automatic reconnection to MSFS
  • Continuous 6DOF keyboard camera movement
  • Fully customizable key assignments
  • GCAM ↔ NATIVE FREE switching via keyboard or joystick hotkey

6DOF Keyboard Camera Movement

GFlight Camera allows continuous camera positioning directly from the keyboard.

You can move or rotate the camera in all six degrees of freedom:

  • Forward / backward
  • Left / right
  • Up / down
  • Yaw left / right
  • Pitch up / down
  • Roll left / right

Simply hold the assigned key to move the camera smoothly, release it when you reach the position you want, and save that position as a preset.

Default controls include:

Shift + W / A / S / D / R / F / Q / E
Shift + Arrow Keys

All assignments can be changed, including the option to use single-key bindings if preferred.

GCAM ↔ NATIVE FREE

One of the newer additions is the ability to switch between GFlight Camera control and MSFS native free-look.

You can hand camera control back to the simulator at any time and use the normal right-click free-look. When you find a view you like, save it as a preset and switch back to GFlight Camera with your settings preserved.

A keyboard key or joystick button can be assigned to switch between the two modes.

Aircraft-Specific Profiles

GFlight Camera automatically detects the aircraft currently loaded in MSFS 2024 and loads the corresponding camera profile.

So your camera setup for one aircraft does not need to be shared with another. Each aircraft can have its own cockpit views, external views and control assignments.

Smooth Camera Transitions

Saved positions can be recalled using smooth movement instead of instantly jumping between views.

Transition speed and camera movement sensitivity can both be adjusted depending on whether you prefer faster view changes or slower, more cinematic movement.

Platform & Availability

Platform: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 – PC

Official website:

SimMarket:

All updates are free for existing customers.

Feedback & Feature Suggestions

I’d like this thread to be more than just a product announcement, so feedback from other MSFS users is very welcome.

I’m particularly interested in how people currently manage their camera views in MSFS 2024.

Do you mainly use:

  • Keyboard shortcuts?
  • Joystick or yoke buttons?
  • A controller?
  • Native free-look?
  • The built-in camera menus?

And if you could change one thing about the current MSFS 2024 camera workflow, what would it be?

Questions, feedback and feature suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks,
GFlight Simulator

Support: support@gflight.com.tr

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UPDATE: GFlight Camera v0.2.1 is now available

A quick update for everyone following this thread: version 0.2.1 is now live, and most of the changes come directly from user feedback.

What’s new

  • GCAM ↔ NATIVE FREE hotkey
    You can now assign a keyboard key and/or joystick button to switch between GFlight Camera and MSFS native free-look without using the mouse. This works with any aircraft.

  • New Profile page
    The account icon in the top bar now opens a dedicated page where you can manage your account, the new mode-switch hotkeys, and all 12 Keyboard Nudge assignments in one place.

  • Wider zoom range
    The minimum zoom level has been extended down to 0.25x.

  • Clearer interface feedback
    Added progress indicators for sign-in, account creation and sign-out, along with new tooltips for presets and SIM mode.

  • Reduced background network activity

If you already own GFlight Camera, the latest version is available from your SimMarket account:

Your feedback is shaping the next updates

Since the original post, I’ve had feedback from users about joystick POV hat switches and Xbox controllers, and I’m currently looking into both.

If you use either of these for camera control, I’d be interested to hear how you would ideally expect them to work. For example:

  • POV hat directions for quick views?
  • Thumbsticks for smooth camera movement?
  • Hold-to-look or toggle behavior?
  • Any particular camera workflow you currently find difficult in MSFS?

I’m also working on MSFS 2020 support, so if you still fly MSFS 2020 and would like to use GFlight Camera there, feel free to let me know.

As always, questions, bug reports and feature suggestions are welcome here or at support@gflight.com.tr.

Thanks to everyone who has tried it so far, and happy flying!

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You asked which one thing I would change. I’ve been saying this a long time, but I would ask for realistic dynamic air-ro-air motion, for which I have not found any satisfactory solution since the demise of FS Recorder. I talked about it in the video below (it refers to Chase Plane, but that’s not relevant).

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Thanks for sharing this, and for bringing up FS Recorder!

It sounds like you’re looking for genuinely dynamic air-to-air camera movement, rather than simply smooth transitions between fixed camera positions. That’s an interesting distinction.

This isn’t something GFlight Camera currently offers, but it’s exactly the kind of feedback we want to hear as we think about future improvements.

Just to understand your idea a little better, is your main priority having a camera that tracks another aircraft with natural relative movement, or being able to create those kinds of shots during replay?

Thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts!

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For me, it’s the replay that is important as I would use if for creating videos. I never use the external views if I’m actually using the sim for flight simulation! A long time ago I used to do aircraft reviews and also a particular kind of barnstorming hokum, but I would always strive to make the external shots interesting. Some of the shots in the video I shared above are clipped from my old videos. I will share another couple below. There was a guy years ago (15-20 years!) who posted some brilliant work-in-progress videos of a realistic chase camera, but it never made it into the mainstream and I’ve lost the links now :frowning:

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Thanks for clarifying, and for sharing these videos!

Now I understand what you’re looking for. It’s not really about changing camera views during a flight, but about creating cinematic footage during replay, with a camera that moves naturally as if another aircraft were filming the action.

That’s a very interesting idea, and quite different from simply switching between saved camera positions.

GFlight Camera doesn’t currently offer this kind of functionality, but it’s definitely something worth investigating for future development. We’d first need to understand what’s technically possible within MSFS 2024.

One question: would you prefer a camera that automatically follows the aircraft with natural movement and a little inertia, or one that you can manually control and reposition while the replay is running?

Thanks again for the detailed feedback. This is exactly the kind of discussion that helps us understand what the community is looking for!

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I think both of those ideas would be useful. Let’s start with a dynamically-bobbing camera that just adds the option for some natural variation in the existing camera position (with realistic dynamics, inertia, etc.), which would be a great feature. If you could nudge the camera position on the fly with a hat switch, say, that would be even better. Nudging (moving) the camera position in this way would need to conform to how fast a chase plane coudl realistically change its relative position to the other aircraft - this is partly a matter of inertia, but also performance. (You might allow us to select the kind of chase plane/camera: e.g. same-as-target, fast-jet, helicopter, drone, UFO, etc.)

Even with a basic ‘dynamically bobbing’ camera, perhaps you could have some simple ‘nudge’ controls - e.g. press a button and the chase plane (camera) bobs upwards and maybe gradually returns to station; likewise for down / fore / aft excursions. (I think it’s important to emphasize that even if you’re not actively nudging the camera, it would still bob around as a natural chase plane would.)

Next level is to allow us to trigger a chain of such excursions from a button click: bob-up, bob-up, drop-back, drop-back, bob-down, rejoin. (Or something like that.)

Beyond that, you might have a feature to define different stations (camera positions) and allow programming of a sequence that cycles through a number of stations. This one would be more difficult, as you don’t want those transitions to be too clean, like the regular ‘fly-by’ type of view. An important principle would be that for any transition or sequence of transitions, whether programmed or activated ‘live’ from buttons clicks, the movement needs to stay seamless and natural. There are so many videos where the camera view moves abruptly between positions and the illusion breaks down. (I don’t know the camera system well, but if you select the external camera and switch between Quickview 1, 2, 3, etc., that’s the kind of movement we don’t want to see during a shot!)

So there’s a lot of options, some of which it seems to me would be relatively low-cost to add without overhauling the basoc camera systems, and some more challenging.