Camera Controls for Planets

jbest · August 16, 2010, 10:12:51 PM

Hi,

Just a question about the camera controls.
The camera can move forward, backward, right, and left. However, this only applies to the planet you get when you open Terragen 2, "Planet 01." If I try making a new planet, the planet doesn't move at all when I move the camera forward or backward or right or left. If I delete "Planet 01" and make a new planet (showing the entire planet), then try to go forward, it doesn't work. The only way to go forward is to zoom, which isn't practical. If I just want to show the whole planet, do I have to zoom out of "Planet 01" all the way? Is there a way to connect the camera controls to different planets?

Thanks,
Jahnu

Kadri · August 16, 2010, 10:23:34 PM

I am not sure if this is what you mean , but i think you are too far away from the planet to see motion.
Click the small vertical bars on the move panel for the camera(right upper place on the 3d view window) and make them all dark gray (click on the last right one).
If you hold your mouse over it it says "Move fastest" . Now you will move very quickly.
Or look at the position of the new planet and write some coordinates that bring your camera nearer to the planet in the camera position.

jbest · August 16, 2010, 10:44:25 PM

Thanks Kadri, but ...

For some reason it just does not move at all! It only moves for "Planet 01." Is this a problem with the program or what?

I have tried nearly everything I could think of when it came to moving the camera (and not zooming in), such as changing the camera coordinates in the camera tab and heavily increasing the speed of the camera. It seems the only thing that can get the camera closer to the planet (it obviously actually doesn't since no matter how far I zoom in it doesn't get through the atmosphere) is zooming.

Kadri · August 17, 2010, 12:12:00 AM

Weird ! Didn't have (heard) such a problem !

Oshyan · August 17, 2010, 02:37:09 AM

There is no such restriction. I agree with Kadri, you're probably just really far way and not moving fast enough. One thing you can try is right-click a point on the surface and copy coordinates, then paste them into your camera node's position coordinates. This will get you over to the other planet so you can then position close to it where you want.

- Oshyan

jbest · August 27, 2010, 04:49:04 PM

The weird thing is that the camera IS moving - it is just that the planet is not. If there are lines or cubes in the picture, they move, but not the planet. For some reason only the default planet moves. Maybe I'm creating a planet the wrong way? *shrug*

Kadri · August 27, 2010, 05:19:17 PM

Quote from: jbest on August 27, 2010, 04:49:04 PM
The weird thing is that the camera IS moving - it is just that the planet is not. If there are lines or cubes in the picture, they move, but not the planet. For some reason only the default planet moves. Maybe I'm creating a planet the wrong way? *shrug*

Can you post the TGD here , Jbest ?

jbest · August 27, 2010, 05:24:13 PM

Yeah, if you want.

Kadri · August 27, 2010, 05:58:55 PM

I don't see a problem , Jbest !

Look at these 2 images. Are the nodes the same? Try to push the forward icon for a very long time (or the others where you want to go ).
At first it seems it doesn't move ; do not release the button instantly . Then a little time later you will see that it begins to move very faster.

Hetzen · August 27, 2010, 06:12:34 PM

Jbest. Sorry if this is sucking eggs.

Do you know about the camera control multiplier bar underneath the camera controls? The set of five horizontal HiFi bars. One of TGs strengths is being to be able to put stuff with galactic measurements into it's 'world space'. That's pretty awesome. Your multiplier bar will help greatly in moving the camera around to those sorts of scales.

Also, to move a planet you have to work out where in metres it would be, hence the "e+006" numbers you get in the planet's centre point. That "e+006" is how many positions you need to move the decimal point to it's positive.ie how many times you multiply it by ten.

jbest · August 27, 2010, 08:05:17 PM

Maybe I should try reinstalling Terragen 2? Seriously, with that planet, Kadri, I wouldn't have been able to do that on my computer. I'm really quite confused about this. After all, I don't seem to have a problem with the default planet.

@Hetzen : Do you mean those gray bars that make the camera move faster?

--Jahnu

cyphyr · August 27, 2010, 08:40:05 PM

Just tried it and it works fine.

Here's what I did.

Opened a default terragen scene
Selected the planet (Planet 01) and copied its coordinates (xyz: 0, -6.378e+006, 0) <<<these are the default Planet 01 coordinates.
Deleted the Planet (Planet -01)
Created a new planet (since I just deleted the Planet 01 its also called Planet 01) and pasted into its coordinates the data I'd just copied from Planet 01.
Holding down the "Alt" key I can still navigate about the scene with the left, right and middle mouse keys as I normally do.

The only difference is that the New Planet 01 has a default terrain attached to its internal network so you do get some very large scale mountains.

IF however you have not set the new planet to the same coordinates as the default planet then the cameras moves may be not as you expect.

The further away from the CAMERAS zero point the more amplified the cameras positioning becomes. The cameras zero point is on the surface of the default planet, 6.378x10^6 meters (default terragen unit) above the centre of the planet.

Assuming none of the above is not relevant, then all I can assume is somehow your key bindings have become corrupted and a fresh instalation would possibly help in this case.

Hope this helps

Richard

jbest · August 28, 2010, 05:30:33 PM

Thanks, Richard, this works.

jbest · October 01, 2010, 02:13:19 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm really dumb. I just figured out the real reason why the planets won't move. I should've listened to Oshyan and Kadri in the first place, but I didn't. The planets are really really big and really really far away. That's why they won't move. I made them closer and made them smaller, and I get to the planets.

Thanks for the advice, I need to take comments more seriously!

Kadri · October 01, 2010, 11:42:36 AM

Quote from: jbest on October 01, 2010, 02:13:19 AM
Hi everyone,
I'm really dumb. I just figured out the real reason why the planets won't move. I should've listened to Oshyan and Kadri in the first place, but I didn't. The planets are really really big and really really far away. That's why they won't move. I made them closer and made them smaller, and I get to the planets.
Thanks for the advice, I need to take comments more seriously!

No you are not dumb! You are only learning and not everyone would came back to his old post to say what he did wrong. This is very nice of you , Jbest

And for us and Planetside it is good to know that there aren't any weird kind of bugs here too.

Cheers !