EgoMoose / patch-roblox-cameramodule

A module to patch access to the Roblox PlayerModule camera API

patch-roblox-cameramodule

Module that provides access to the CameraModule API in the Roblox PlayerModule

How to use

• Wally
• Releases

This module returns a function that should be called on the CameraModule before PlayerModule has had a chance to run. The easiest place to do this is in the PlayerScriptsLoader, but this may or may not be the right place depending on the rest of your project.

For example:

-- PlayerScriptsLoader
local PlayerModule = script.Parent:WaitForChild("PlayerModule")
local CameraModule = PlayerModule:WaitForChild("CameraModule")
local PatchCameraModule = script.Parent:WaitForChild("PatchCameraModule")

require(PatchCameraModule)(CameraModule)

local playerModuleObject = require(PlayerModule)
local cameraModuleObject = playerModuleObject:GetCameras()

-- the api is public!
print(cameraModuleObject)

-- can overwrite the functions
local prevUpdateFunc = cameraModuleObject.Update
function cameraModuleObject.Update(self, ...)
	print(...)
	prevUpdateFunc(self, ...)
end

A note on CameraModule descendants

When this patch runs it renames the CameraModule to _CameraModule and creates a redirection module named CameraModule that points to the new patched value. This is done b/c as a result of the patch trying to require _CameraModule will cause a infinite yield.

local CameraModule = require(game.Players.LocalPlayer.PlayerModule.CameraModule)
print(CameraModule) -- this works!

local CameraModule = require(game.Players.LocalPlayer.PlayerModule._CameraModule)
print(CameraModule) -- this will never print b/c the above line yields forever!

As a result of this an important decision needed to be made on the development end of this patch. The module named CameraModule returns the patched value, but it doesn't have any of the descendants that _CameraModule does. This is problematic if the user of this patch is trying to access any of those descendants by standard naming conventions.

-- This doesn't exist!
local TransparencyController = require(game.Players.LocalPlayer.PlayerModule.CameraModule.TransparencyController)
-- It's here instead!
local TransparencyController = require(game.Players.LocalPlayer.PlayerModule._CameraModule.TransparencyController)

You might just suggest to move all the descendants of _CameraModule to the new CameraModule and at the time of writing this that would work, but it could easily break in the future if any of the camera code becomes dependant on the expected parent-child relationship.

The solution I decided to use instead is to continue to use redirection modules and proxy values. Instead of moving the descendants out from _CameraModule I instead create a duplicate hierarchy under CameraModule with module scrips and values that redirect to the values under _CameraModule.

This is the best way to get behavior parity with the default CameraModule that I can think of at the moment. If you want to be extra safe you can always reference the path via _CameraModule to avoid worrying about the redirection modules and proxies.