Dicey Table

CAMERA

CAMERA is the second of the two optional Engine components (tone="engine") an author can add to a table object — the other is LIGHT. It is absent by default and only appears once added from + ADD COMPONENT.

Source: CAMERA_FIELDS and the camera descriptor in packages/shared/src/componentInspector.ts; schema in packages/shared/src/objectComponents.ts (objectCameraComponentPropsSchema); guardrails enforced in TabletopRuntime.applyObjectComponents.

Why this component ships with guardrails, stated once#

PlayCanvas renders through every enabled camera, and the highest-priority one wins. An author who adds a camera component without understanding that could put every player at the table inside their prop with no in-band way back. Three guardrails close that hole, enforced by the runtime rather than left as advice:

  1. Added disabled. enabled defaults to false for camera — every other component defaults to true. Turning a camera on is a second, explicit action.
  2. Priority can never outrank the table camera. The table camera is priority 0; the runtime clamps an authored priority to Math.max(1, Math.min(31, …)) before applying it, so an object camera is pinned strictly below the one players actually play through.
  3. At most one object camera enabled at a time. If a second camera's enabled flips true while another object's camera is already enabled, the runtime forces the newcomer's effective enabled to false (the authored value is left alone) and logs "<label>'s camera stays off — another entity's camera is already enabled." once per object, rather than letting the two fight non-deterministically.

Fields#

Lengths are shown in your chosen unit. Every range and default below is quoted in world units (feet), which is how the file stores them. The field itself shows and reads whichever unit you picked in File ▸ Preferences — so a Range of 8 reads as 2438.4 with millimetres selected, and is still 8 in the file.

Field Type Range / units Default Runtime effect Replicates
Projection select Perspective, Orthographic perspective Chooses between FOV-based and fixed-volume projection. Yes — TableObjectState.components[] (opaqueEq)
Field of view slider 1–179°, step 1 45 Only shown for Perspective. Vertical FOV. Yes
Ortho height number 0.01–1000, step 0.5 4 Only shown for Orthographic. Half-height of the orthographic view volume. Yes
Clear color color hex #rrggbb #0d0d10 The color drawn where nothing else is rendered, when this camera is the active view. Yes
Near clip number 0.001–100, step 0.01 0.1 Nearest visible distance. Yes
Far clip number 0.1–10,000, step 1 1000 Farthest visible distance. Yes
Priority number 0–31, step 1 (int) 0 Authored value; the runtime clamps the effective priority to 1–31 so it can never reach the table camera's 0. Chooses between object cameras when more than one exists — it cannot promote one above what players actually play through. The Inspector's own hint states this plainly. Yes

Field of view is visible only when Projection is Perspective; Ortho height only when it is Orthographic — the same visibleWhen mechanism LIGHT uses.

The component header#

Same enable checkbox + kebab menu (Disable/Enable, Reset to default, Remove component…) every optional component gets — full detail on inspector/add-component.md (not this page). The one CAMERA-specific nuance: enabling it here is the second of the "added disabled" flow above — adding the component and enabling it are two separate clicks by design.

See also#

  • light.md — the other optional component, and the sibling this page's visibleWhen pattern is shared with.
  • The scene model — why camera is optional rather than intrinsic.
  • Mod scripting API — ObjectComponentState, the camera variant's replicated props.