How to change camera settings in the new Hogwarts Legacy? Why is the camera so close and how can you change the distance? This may be the question asked in the last few days by one or two players who have bought the new Harry Potter game for the PC, PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series. Depending on which games you have played before, the camera behind the character is sometimes too close for some players and obscures a large part of the view. But there are certainly camera settings that allow you to zoom out and change the distance, right?
Change camera settings?
In the current version of Hogwarts Legacy there are camera settings and you can change, among other things, the camera sensitivity and acceleration but also the field of view. Unlike what some people might know from other games, unfortunately there is currently no setting that allows you to change the camera distance. This affects both the PC version and the console version on the PS5 and Xbox Series. Anyone who plays on the PC can now download and install “camera mods”. There are already a number of camera mods and these not only include mods that offer additional camera settings so that you can zoom in and out if the camera is too close, but can even switch to the first person perspective. A mod with useful camera settings and a first-person view is the mod called “First Person AND Customizable Cameras“.
Camera too close? With this mod you can change the distance
The mod can be found on the well-known mod website nexusmods.com. To install the camera modification, you have to download the mod and the tool “RE-UE4SS” in the description from the website. You then move the contents of the mod to the installation directory (../Hogwarts Legacy/Phoenix/Binaries/Win64/) and can then open the camera settings in the game using the F6 key and change the camera. Similar to other mods for Hogwarts Legacy, the camera mod can only be used in the PC version and not on the console.
If in the future there is a setting in the game that allows you to move the camera further away and adjust the distance to the character, then we will of course add the information here. So far the camera settings are very manageable, as mentioned above, with an FOV setting and a camera speed setting.
You may have noticed that there have been a lot of layoffs in the gaming industry in 2023. But with that year behind us, things don’t necessarily get better. Many gaming company executives expect all layoffs to make way for permanent closures by 2024.
It is estimated that more than 10,000 jobs were cut in the gaming industry last year, a trend that will continue in 2024. Moreover, it is likely to get worse, several CEOs of gaming companies told GamesIndustry.biz anonymously. One CEO calls 2023 the year of layoffs and 2024 the year of closures.”
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This applies to studios but also to publishers and other gaming-related companies. According to this CEO, there are “too many companies that don’t make a profit in video games.” The industry is facing “two painful years.”
Industry is struggling with a surplus of games
This has largely to do with the pandemic, according to another CEO. There was a lot of demand for games at the time, which meant that too many projects were given the green light at that time. Publishers are already signing up for fewer games, but for a healthier industry, the release calendar must return to looking like it did before the pandemic. That will take at least two years.
A similar statement was recently made by the CEO of publisher Nacon. He indicated that digital stores are flooded with games, making most of them practically invisible. Studios that make smaller titles need a specific, untapped niche to stand out.
Commenting on art in all its extensions sometimes has a component of leave the puzzle moderately done. Not completely, because you don’t have to reveal everything to the public either. But it is true that cultural criticism, in its role of bringing author and viewer closer by extending the conversations that are extracted from the work, ends up stripping the mystery of what it seeks to comment on and, consequently, a certain wonder is taken away.
There is, of course, joy in understanding images, in processing them within a general picture, extracting from them sensations or even experiences that you did not expect. Sometimes the best works are precisely those where you can’t stop remembering those images, those moments, but there is always the risk of taking away their strength through blunt commentary. It is something that Víctor Erice warns us about in a film that will necessarily be analyzed down to the smallest detail.
Open to the mystery
It’s inevitable, of course. ‘Close your eyes’ is the long-awaited commercial return of the Basque director in the form of a feature film. His latest work in this format, the exquisite documentary ‘The quince sun‘, dates back to 1992, and before that we had two films that fit perfectly into the conversation of the best Spanish film ever made. Since then, Erice has focused on making short films or video art that have had limited dissemination. But that does not mean that he has stopped being connected to cinema at any time.
His new film precisely tries to unravel the inexplicable but powerful relationship we have with the image, using cinema as a weapon to reach the soul and memory. The way he does it partially distances himself from the style that characterizes his other two fiction films, although there is something unmistakably Erice in each moment of exploration in a more linear journey than usual.
The film is marked by the disappearance of Julio Arenas, a famous actor played by José Coronado. The mystery around him remains an obsession twenty years after suddenly vanishing during filmingand a television and investigative program wants to solve the enigma by asking for the collaboration of his close friend and last director who worked with him, Miguel Garay (an extraordinary Manolo Solo and worthy of Goya).
Garay has to reopen the trunk of memories after voluntarily accepting ostracism after his failed film career and the disappearance of his friend. The process, which almost leads him to be the protagonist of an earthy detective film, becomes an attempt to unravel the guilt and pain of memories through interactions with people from his past. That first part feels extraordinarily personal, because of how Erice explores old age or loneliness in those intimate conversations, as well as how it begins with fragments of a fictional film where she tries to recreate that failed attempt to adapt it to film.The haunting of Shanghai‘.
It is in this part of the film where Erice establishes one of his main theses regarding cinema. Through the realization of this research program that becomes a parody with all the intention, or with that conversation with the character of Ana Torrent (whose appearance feels charged with feeling, although it is almost an illusion due to the connection between actress and director in ‘The spirit of the hive’) in the heart of the Prado Museum, leads us to consider the image as an element that must be deprived of mystery today. Something very contrasting to a beginning where the imperative need to look in a special way is expressed.
The subsequent development is Erice’s attempt to recover that mystique of what we see and hear, of how those small pieces become our best company even unconsciously, sometimes even without being clear about their true meaning. The film becomes more elusive, more liquid, as it progresses with that literary structure. Which can work against the rhythm of a film that in its first section is linking events, but in exchange can deliver magical moments like that moment where the character of Solo performs a song from ‘Río Bravo’ on the guitar.
It is daring to make a film like this, full of vulnerability and mystique, when it is going to be intensely dissected and contrasted with the resounding mastery of films like ‘The South’. It’s true that ‘Close your eyes’ is more imperfect than those two works, starting with a digital photograph with which Erice does not seem to feel comfortable creating images (hence the stretches of fictional 16mm film are aesthetically more successful) and with a length of footage of almost three hours, very opposite to the friendly hour and a half durations of the other films.
Even so, Erice manages to ensure that there continue to be moments, so that there continues to be space for humanity as well as for reflection in every interaction we see, whether dialogued or not. It is a film that is not very self-absorbed, which was a risk given the cinematic nature of the story. Erice emerges from that hole with the serenity and patience of a veteran master, delivering fallible works with an attitude expressed in the film itself: “Without fear or hope.” ‘Open your eyes’ is a very worthy film for an essential filmography that could end here and one could say that it has no blemish.
Lovers of Science fiction You are in luck in these times when productions that explore the confines of space and imagination. The entertainment industry has given us gems like Foundation on Apple TV+ and highly anticipated film premieres like The Creator. The thirst for distant futures and cosmic mysteries seems endless. In the midst of this panorama, we see a proposal that stands out for its originality and format. We are referring to Scavengers Reign, an animated series that promises to captivate us and restore our enthusiasm for exploration and discovery of the wonders of the universe.
It is curious that in the midst of this genre resurgence, at a time of spectacular special effects, they are betting on animation for a new production. Don’t get me wrong, I am a lover of animation and I think that in this format we have had some of the best contributions to the genre, from AKIRA to Love, Death & Robots. But traditionally it seems that the entertainment industry mainly associates animation with children’s contentwhere Scavengers Reign is a very interesting proposal.
Exploring the Unknown
Scavengers Reign immerses us in an unparalleled journey through space and time. The series continues the crew of the Demeter, a spaceship that, under mysterious circumstances, veers off course and ends up on a completely unknown planet. This world, as beautiful as it is relentless, it becomes his home and prison at the same time. To survive, the crew must discover the secrets of this planet and find a way to escape or be rescued.
The plot of Scavengers Reign is an interesting approach that is inspired by the work of Joe Bennett and Charles Huettnerwho adapt the series from their 2016 short film, Scavengers. Together with the teams at Titmouse Animation and Green Street Pictures, the quality of the creative team behind the series ensures that we are about to embark on a visually stunning journey.
One of the highlights of Scavengers Reign is its visual aesthetic. The series presents an animation style that reminds us of the iconic works of great talents of the European science fiction comiclike the teacher Jean Giraud “Moebius”especially in his latest forays into the genre, new works such as works like the saga Negalyod of Vincent Perriot, or the maximalist and colorful science fiction illustrations of Killian Eng. This combination creates a world full of dreamlike and psychedelic images that will captivate viewers from the first moment.
This unique artistic approach brings a new dimension to the series and differentiates it from other science fiction productions, perhaps more focused in recent decades on the world of purer 3D animation. The attention to detail and the overflowing imagination of the series’ designers immerse us in a tremendously interesting universe on a visual level.
The animated paradox of HBO Max
It is fascinating to see how HBO Max is betting on risky productions like Scavengers Reign at a time when audiovisual entertainment seems to want to break away from the most commercial schemes in search of more diverse and experimental inspiration. However, this commitment to the unusual is also accompanied by the inexplicable removal of animated classics from its catalog, like Beyond the Garden. It is an interesting paradox: while they are getting rid of internationally recognized productions valued by critics and viewers, they are willing to open the doors to new and exciting worlds of animation.
Although the exact date of its release in Spain it has not yet been confirmed At the time of writing, Scavengers Reign is scheduled to premiere on HBO Max next Thursday, October 19.
Since the beginning of the space age, engineers have banged their heads over and over again against the same problem: the technical impossibility of building an engine that would be both efficient in the atmosphere and in a vacuum.
So much so, that we only managed to fix it by mounting two-stage rockets: one with nozzles for the atmospheric phase and another optimized for outer space. The “middle” thing is a matter of brute force.
Is it inefficient? Yes Do we have another option? Not at the beginning.
“In principle”? Well yes, because for more than 70 years there has been no shortage of experts who thought that the solution lay in something very simple: form. As Darren Orf pointed out a few months ago, “whether it’s the German V-2 rocket, NASA’s legendary Saturn V or SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, all rocket engines share a common attribute: their exhaust nozzles are bell-shaped. “. But what if they didn’t have it?
Essentially, the function of a nozzle is to direct the flow of gases in the direction that interests us. It seems obvious, but it’s key. Above all, because the mixture of propellants at very high temperatures generates a lot of force, but the movement of the gases is (to a large extent) random. The conventional nozzle has proven very effective in converting all that randomness into a “jet” efficient enough to put the rocket into the air. The question is, then, how do we do without it.
That’s where the ‘aerospike’ comes in: a type of engine that “would maintain its aerodynamic efficiency over a wide range of altitudes” by changing precisely the shape in question. That is, the gases are launched “along the outer face of a wedge-shaped solid volume” (the spike) and the result would also efficiently reduce this randomness.
It sounds good, very good. At the end of the day, all of this that we have explained would translate into being able to reduce the total weight of the ship and, in the process, increase the useful load. The problem? That doesn’t work.
The eternal promise of space exploration. It is true that NASA tested a prototype in the 1990s, but the result has always been the same: the different companies or agencies that have opted for the aerospike have ended up signing checks that they have not been able to pay.
And what has changed that we are talking about this? Germany has passed. In April, Berlin awarded a military contract to Polaris, a start-up dedicated to this type of technology, to investigate the possibilities of using such an engine in a space plane. The news now is that Polaris has just completed the first series of test flights of one of the key prototypes.
We are talking about 15 tests between the end of August and the beginning of September. And it is true that the MIRA-light (which is what the prototype is called) measures only two and a half meters long and is very far from what we are looking for; but the sensations are good and that has caught the attention of many people.
Does that mean we will (finally!) have an aerospike engine? At this point in the game, the most reasonable thing is to think that no, that there is a lot of work ahead and that, even in the best of all possible worlds, its effects are not going to be immediate. However, innovation in the world of engines is excellent news (and even more so if the tests go well)
