I remember I once composed a FPS viewing transformation, as a composition of 3 rotations, each with an angle as a parameter. The first angle specified the left/right rotation around the y-axis, the second angle the up/down rotation around the x-axis, and the third around the z-axis. The viewing transformation was therefore specified by 3 angles. Naturally, this transformation had a gimbal lock, depending in what order the transformation were performed. What should I look at to derive my viewing transformation without the gimbal lock? I know the "lookAt" method already, but I consider that cumbersome.

EDIT:

MY first guess is to do the first 2 transformations to get a viewing direction and then the axis-angle rotation on this axis.