Viking Eyes — True First Person

A very detailed first-person mod for Valheim. Not just a camera moved into your head: you look out of your Viking's real eyes, your whole body is there under you, and every dip, sway and jolt on screen comes from something that actually happened — a footstep, a landing, a swing that bit into wood, a hit you took.

See Valheim through Viking eyes.

First release (0.3.0). Eyes, body, movement and combat are in. Many more updates are on the way — see Coming in future updates below.

What makes it different

Most first-person mods solve where the camera sits. Viking Eyes is about how it feels. Three rules decide everything in it:

• Every motion has a cause. No sine-wave head bob, no canned shake. Each movement comes from a real footstep, landing, swing or hit, and stops when its cause stops.
• Springs, not lerps. Motion settles with a touch of weight and overshoot instead of lagging behind you.
• What you look at stays still. Gaze stabilisation holds your focus point steady while your head moves, the way real eyes do — so the world can move without making you queasy.

Features

Your eyes

• The view sits at the real eye point on your Viking's head, not inside the neck, with a neck pivot so looking down moves your eyes forward and down like a real head.
• A small presence lift that fades out as you look down, so your body sits under you instead of below a ghost.
• A 72° field of view by default (about 104° across a 16:9 screen, adjustable 60–80°) for a natural sense of scale; nothing ever narrows the view below it. Held items, torches and grass are drawn at a realistic size for your own eyes only — other players see everything as normal.
• Wall collision: pressed against a wall you see the wall, never through it.
• Smooth glides between first and third person — never a hard cut.

Your body

• Feet and legs when you look down, arms that follow your gaze, and a shadow with a head — your helmet, hair and beard still cast shadows; they are only hidden from your own eyes.
• The body faces where you look while moving, using Valheim's own strafe and backpedal animations.
• Arms that swing too close to the eyes, dodge rolls, your own status particles and your own damage numbers are kept out of your face.
• Your weapon is held in view: the weapon at the lower right, a shield low at the lower left with just its rim showing, a torch at the right edge. Blocking raises the shield into a guard you look over. Two-handed weapons keep both hands on the grip.

Movement

• Footstep bob driven by the game's own footsteps: a dip and a weight shift onto each foot as it lands, deeper for jogging and sprinting, small and slow when sneaking.
• Heavier steps in heavy armour, when over-encumbered, and when your stamina runs low.
• A slight lean when you set off, one small settle when you stop dead, a lean into climbs, and a touch of roll into strafes and fast turns.
• Landings by fall speed: a push-off on jumps, a springy dip on landing, and a hard drop you feel in your knees.
• Stairs and rocks without step pops.
• Swimming: your eyes ride the waves just above the waterline, with a lift on each stroke — and go under with you if you dive.

Combat

• The camera answers the hit, not the button. A short camera freeze on contact, then a kick in the swing's direction, sized by your weapon and what you hit — flesh, wood, stone, ore, metal or earth. A miss only drifts.
• Wind-up leans per weapon class, a push when you block, a lurch when your guard breaks.
• Parries get their own moment: a brief slow-motion beat of the camera (never game time) and a small FOV pulse.
• Taking hits jolts the view away from the blow, scaled by how much health it cost; heavy hits add shake and a blink.
• Dodge rolls tilt toward the dodge. Bows, crossbows and staffs fire from your eyes to the crosshair.

Comfort and tuning

• One master intensity slider and per-layer intensities.
• Presets: Comfort, Natural, Cinematic and Trailer — and you can save your own and share them as files.
• Every value is live in Configuration Manager (F1): change a number and see it on the next frame.
• A debug overlay (F10) shows each motion layer's live output and the last events.

Controls

Steps out to third person automatically where Valheim is built to be seen from behind: building with the hammer, at a ship's helm, during emotes and on death. The hoe and cultivator stay in first person.

Compatibility

• Replaces Survival View (same author). The two cannot load together; your Survival View field of view and height are imported once on first launch.
• Realistic Running: its exertion FOV swings still apply in first person, above the field-of-view floor.
• Other first-person and camera mods are detected at start-up and named in the log. Use one first-person mod at a time.
• Multiplayer safe: everything is local. Other players see your normal third-person animation.
• Built for Valheim 1.0.20.

Install

Install with r2modman / Thunderstore Mod Manager, or manually: put VikingEyes.dll in BepInEx/plugins/VikingEyes/.

Requires BepInExPack Valheim. Configuration Manager is recommended for live tuning (F1).

Coming in future updates

This is the first release of a much bigger plan. Next up:

• Perception — eyelids that blink on heavy hits and squint into the sun, eyes that adapt from daylight into a crypt and back, stress vision that softens the edges of view while moving creatures still cut through, breath vapour in the cold, smoke that stings, shivering when freezing.
• More context — sea legs on a rolling deck, a saddle that moves with your mount's gait, a natural look range when seated, lying back in bed with your eyes closing.
• Audio — your own footsteps, swings and armour mixed close to you instead of beside you, ringing ears after a big hit, wind in your ears at speed and altitude, muffled sound underwater.
• Integrations — partner hooks for Realistic Running and the author's other survival mods, and a full performance pass.
• Plus tuning from your feedback — tell us what feels right and what doesn't.

Feedback

Feel is found by playing. If something on screen moves without a cause, pops, feels late or makes you queasy, please report it with your preset and the values you changed.