Character Camera Controls - I’m always studying how the 3C’s evolve. Two of the most memorable games I played around the same time were Tomb Raider II and Super Mario 64. I was fascinated by how much the addition of the analog stick and camera control changed what was possible. From tank controls to the foundation of the 3C systems we still use today.
I’ve worked on many character controllers over the years both in production and prototyping. Most of my shipped games featured physics-driven characters: pinballs, golf balls, or rolling circles like Nibble Nom in Cut the Rope. These characters don’t move by player input, things happen to them through the environment. The challenge is giving them a sense of agency, as if they’re reacting with intent, even though they have no real control.
In parallel, I’ve built a variety of direct-control character controllers in prototypes, both 2D and 3D. I focus on acceleration, air control, jump behavior, and responsiveness. Coyote time, input buffering, late jump windows those invisible systems are what make a character feel right to play.
In this prototype, I built a third-person controller that stays grounded and responsive while walking on a constantly moving airship. The goal was to keep player movement stable, readable, and consistent—even with physics and platform motion in play.
I’ve worked on all kinds of camera setups: top-down, follow cams, cutscenes, couch co-op, stereoscopic and more. Each with its own challenges. I’m meticulous about how cameras move and want full control over their behavior. I use diagnostic tools to catch subtle stutters or quirks that can break the feel. Camera issues are often hard to see, but easy to feel.
Good camera work should go unnoticed. Every movement needs a reason, whether it’s input, an event, or to show something important. Anything else is noise.
Built a flexible camera blending system, distilled from everything I found myself rebuilding in camera systems over the years. It handles clean transitions between setups, with support for tweens and Timeline. It's very flexible so you can build any custom camera rig on top.
I’ve worked on a wide range of control schemes: touch, controllers, virtual joysticks, remotes, even gaze and handtracking on Vision Pro. Each input method shapes what kinds of games feel right, and I love exploring that. One of my favorite challenges is adapting a game to a different input device: figuring out what breaks, what changes, and how to make it feel intuitive again.
I’ll do whatever it takes to reduce friction, tuning curves, hunting down latency, shaving off hidden delays. That last frame of input lag? I’m looking for it.
The challenge was to adapt a touch-based game to Vision Pro’s gaze-and-snap interface. With no existing examples, and limited API support at the time. As a launch title, we were figuring it out as we built it. Despite the constraints, the result felt intuitive and played surprisingly well.
