Video recording - scene drift

If you are into video recording and editing (as I am), and if you try recording No Man’s Sky (as I do), then you may have noticed a particular problem.

If you leave your character standing still, and record the scene around them, you will notice in the subsequent recordings that the character’s viewpoint gradually drifts up and down - by as much as 20 pixels.

It’s very slow, and it’s very subtle. It’s not noticeable in the game at all. It only becomes apparent when you try to match up two video recordings from the same scene.

It’s like the developers originally included a “breathing” head bob. And then didn’t like it. But rather than remove it, they instead slowed it down, and reduced the motion range to the point where you can barely see it in normal gameplay.

When trying to match up videos, it’s super annoying. Is there any way to turn this off?

4 Likes

I doubt this can be turned off through the settings in-game. Only way to possibly turn this idle camera motion off is through modding. There is the Reduced Camera Shake mod which removes the camera shake in a variety of situations and basically alters the GCCAMERAGLOBALS. According to a reply by the creator, the idle motion, can not be turned off. Not quite convinced myself though, as there appear to be variables for it: MinStationaryHeadBob and MaxStationaryHeadBob. If I can find some time, I will have a look and see if making any changes will stop this slight motion when idle.

1 Like

Oh, wow, what a super thorough answer.

You’ve confirmed that there is a head bob function working, which was something I only suspected until now.

It should be possible to set those values to zero, shouldn’t it?

2 Likes

Certainly possible to alter the values, but still no guarantee of this having the desired result. This is why I want to give it a try first and look deeper into it. Do you have any familiarity with the decompiled source or experience with modding?

Edit: I mean, if you want to give it a try yourself, I can recommend using https://nomansskymods.com/mods/nms-modding-station/ together with an updated MBIN compiler (emoose) by ‘monkeyman192’, which you can check for on Discord as it is still being worked on. See Github below (includes Discord link/invite):
GitHub - monkeyman192/MBINCompiler: A tool for decompiling No Man's Sky .MBIN files to XML format

1 Like

Not at the moment, no. Modding games is something I generally avoid. It’s a personal thing. In my view, if you’re going to mod a game, you shouldn’t be playing it in the first place. You should have written your own game.

But like I said, that’s a personal thing. It’s about what I do, not a judgement about what other people do.

5 Likes

I see modding as shaping the game to your own personal wishes. I don’t have any issues with players doing so as long as it only affects their own personal experience. I personally do not usually mod my game due to possible issues it may introduce. I like to experience the game it is supposed to be first before even considering mods. To each their own … I understand you are not judging for that matter, no worries.

In this/your case, a modification will have to be made however, to achieve the result you are looking for. Not even a guarantee it is easily possible, but I am sure it can be done somehow. Might be a useful mod, which can then basically be turned on/off as you please. Will let you know once I looked into it.

5 Likes

Just gave it a try by only changing the following two values found in GCCAMERAGLOBALS to 0:

  <Property name="MinStationaryHeadBob" value="0.003" />
  <Property name="MaxStationaryHeadBob" value="0.001" />

As expected, it actually works and removes the ever so slightly movement of the camera when standing idle in-game :wink:

@Polyphemus: Let me know if you wish to use this as a modification to your game. It is actually quite simple to mod and none of the actual source files need editing. Any mods go within their own folder and get loaded, to overwrite default behaviour. Remove the mod and all is back to normal again.

3 Likes

Well I don’t want to put you to a lot of trouble, but it would certainly be handy.

As things stand now, video within video is very hard to achieve, as the images keep floating around relative to each other. The movement is so slow that my image stabilisation doesn’t pick up on it.

So yes, a little mod to fix that would be very welcome.

2 Likes

Sent you a PM for download and instructions.

If anyone else wishes to use this simple mod, let me know.

2 Likes

Excellent. It works really well. Everything is rock-steady now, and there’s no obvious ill effects.

This is really useful to me. Thanks once again. :smiley:

2 Likes

I noticed this at launch as i wanted to make timelapses, it made them impossible, wait too long and yr character actually moves position gradually.

When 1.1 was originally introduced it also allowed you to remove HUD during gameplay,

surprisingly this also removed the motion bob.

Not sure if still works but try it out, ill share the time lapses i made en masse once i realised this soon (all made with ps4 video editor, so not as good as what i couldve pulled off with pc and adobe AE) @DevilinPixy @Polyphemus

2 Likes

I actually found these two on my ps4. One without HUD activated, and one with hud/head bob. Look at me, im ETARCing on a ps4 like a regular @MacForADay

3 Likes

You can still remove the HUD on PC, but doing so doesn’t cancel the head bob. @DevilinPixy’s mod does the job just fine.

Sadly, you can’t use it on PS4.

AFAIK, Sony has a deal with Bethesda that allows PC mods for Fallout 4 to be used on PS4 - it seems to be a question of both parties being willing, rather than any technical problem.

2 Likes