You can disable the hud and fly around in an ESF. Not quite the same, but you can still get some drama shots if you are shooting a vid. If you are just looking to spy on the opposition I guess you could striaght 4th faction.
Observer Mode are "free movement" cameras. They are leased as far as I know. You should contact a Dev to get more info. RadarX read this forums, maybe he can help you.
Observer mode is reserved for devs, mods and livecasters I think. PooNanners was livecasting during the record smash, so I know it's not just for DBG. Very few players probably get a chance to even get permission for it.
There are technically two observer cam's the developers can grant you. One on the PTS server, which is enormously easier to obtain, and one on Live. The PTS server obs cam is given out more freely because there's really no possible gameplay abuse. It's a test server. On the other hand, for them to give you a Obs cam on Live they have to know your work, who you are and they also have to be able to trust you. There's then of course a huge line as they have a limited number of total slots (I believe). Observer cams are not a separate account. They flag your actual game account for an allotted time, and while you're flagged for access, at any time you can enter into observer cam and basically travel unrestricted and unmolested. 99% of observer cams, even PTS cams, are temporary. I believe I was just granted permanent Obs cam on the PTS, and I know Lilbabs and WafflesVFX have permanent PTS cams there as well. They will never give out permanent Obs cams on Live. Live Obs cam's usually last about 3 days, while PTS cams can run anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks to permanently. I've never been granted Live Obs cam access even though I'm probably responsible for about 200 messages sent to Radar/Higby/Luperza spread across a year or two, so don't sweat it if you don't get Obs cam anytime soon. I've personally spent about 6 months making cinematics before I got the nod and was granted Obs cam to help out with film making. Anyways, here's some tips or tricks you hopefully can put to good use. Use the infiltrator (stalker) cloak to sneak into the thick of battle and last long enough to capture anything usable. Use the LA class for any shots you require that need verticality within them, though your jets should be maxed to grab any shots longer than 5 seconds. For gameplay scenic shots of air combat, get a volunteer gal pilot to fly in a straight line, and to tip his nose down about ~5 degress. Turn off your hud and depending on the skill of the pilot, youll be able to grab some fairly smooth shots (the reason the Galaxy works the best is because the turning radius on it is so wide it really helps with the "smooth, slow" feel cinematics need. Also, make sure the airframe is stock and not extremely nimble. You are there to film, not fight and win). For some depth-of-field effects captured in-engine (saves you some compositing/rendering time in AE) simply use any 4x or 6x scopes and zoom with them. I find you should always film with a 2x scope so you have a natural camera sway, as well as a light DoF effect while still retaining as wide a shot as possible. If you need any falling-to-earth(Auraxis) shots (top down), don't forget you can always deploy off of beacons without a HUD, look down and you'll pretty much have the exact shot an Observ Cam would give you. If you capture at 60fps you can always slow down the clip (in half, to 30fps) to make it seem more scenic. For further effect, you can then reverse that clip so it would appear as if you're panning up, and zooming out. Always make sure your WP's are turned off (ask your SL/PL to remove them) before shooting as in-game WP's can be unimmersive, unless of course you want them in. Beacons should be removed as well (or just wait for them to be destroyed, obviously). You can achieve an upside down effect by flying a Scythe upside down, cruising at 30-40 and using your free look to look straight down to the ground. Air streams appear around the cockpit though so I don't recommend using this as it's not very immersive (Though I found you can actually eliminate most of the effect by upping the contrast in AE, rendering out to Vegas, then dropping the contrast back down to normal levels). For ground level cinematics, being in the backseat of a Harasser driving away from a battle can also produce some pretty cool looking shots. Most importantly - If this is the route you're going to take to film make in Planetside 2, you need to kill your sensitivity. Specifically the ADS sensitivity and the Scoped sensitivity options. Hope some of this is even a little useful to people - and good luck! If you have any more questions, feel free to ask them below! Would love to answer what I can. Edit: One last thing. Observer Camera does not instantly and automatically make your videos great. You can find great success in filming your videos without observer cam. Trust me. The only thing it does is give you a wider range of types of shots, and more variety. Please do not give up or feel disheartened if you don't see the inside of an Obs cam anytime soon, as again, they do not make videos great. You do. Cheers.
Id like to have spectator cam so I can get video of hackers. The good ol' days of CS:S Admin priviledges...
really, devs, livecasters and mods only? wow, what a load of crap...so basically, for those who learn by observing battles in general, or they just want to watch battles going on without participating, they just can't? let me tell you, it's not spying, because there's a huge difference in observing and putting it into practice, strategies always change so you can rule out "spying" already.
Players made and are still making tons of online guides, websites, tutorials, streaming. Or go Stalker.
