The console in Quake 2 and 3 allows you to change your yaw speed, the speed at which you turn while using the keyboard. Bring up the console with the tilde key (~), and type the following command:

] /bind c cl_yawspeed 25
] /bind d cl_yawspeed 140

Hit the tilde key again to return to the game. The default turning speed is 140, so turn left and right with the keyboard to acclimate yourself to the normal yaw speed. Be sure to note how jerkily you stop when you release the key.

Now hit the c key and try turning again. You’ll move much more slowly. Press d to return to your normal speed. You can even toggle between speeds as you’re turning.

The real trick is decreasing your turning speed in small steps. The easiest way to do this is to bind a series of unused keys all in a row to progressively smaller steps; we’ll use c, v, b, n, and m. We won’t bind anything to the comma key so as to leave a buffer if we overshoot the right keys in our excitement. Here are the bindings:

] /bind d cl_yawspeed 140
] /bind c cl_yawspeed 25
] /bind v cl_yawspeed 15
] /bind b cl_yawspeed 10
] /bind n cl_yawspeed 5
] /bind m cl_yawspeed 2

Feel free to experiment with these values, especially the normal yaw speed.

Now try turning and hitting the keys in ascending and descending order. With a little practice, you can ease into and out of a pan almost as if you had manual control of a camera. This is only the tip of the iceberg of the available console commands that may come in handy when recording machinima—or just playing games.