Camera Movement

MeltingIce · December 23, 2006, 02:04:59 AM

I was wondering if there were any plans to change/improve the current system used to move the camera. I think a lot of users, including me, miss the ease of setting the camera's location like you can in Terragen 0.9. I know that the exact same thing would be near impossible in Terragen 2, but maybe if you could move the camera around like you can move objects around (with the colored x,y and z arrows) it would help a little. Just a thought, perhaps some other people have some better ideas?

jmaurer · December 23, 2006, 06:23:41 PM

I would agree here. The movement on the camera, while vastly improved in TG2 - still needs something extra. An easy way for it to snap to the terrain at a set Y hieght value. Say You can enter in a text box how high the camera is off the ground and it stays locked to that height as you move it around. But some form of a tool to get the camera in one click right off the ground would be huge.

Currently I guess you could just enter the Y value in, but you run into the possiblity of being under ground. I'm really big into camera systems in Maya... so I'll give it some more thought. But I do have to say - it is alot stronger than the previous version. Now if my little mac laptop would just run faster...

BPauba · December 23, 2006, 06:32:40 PM

I really like the new camera navigation. Once you get the hotkeys down (which takes a couple seconds) its pretty easy to manover around the terrain. What do you not like about it?

MeltingIce · December 23, 2006, 06:35:32 PM

Quote from: BPauba on December 23, 2006, 06:32:40 PM
I really like the new camera navigation. Once you get the hotkeys down (which takes a couple seconds) its pretty easy to manover around the terrain. What do you not like about it?

Moving long distances is kind of a pain because u have to click+drag, click+drag, click+drag over and over to get anywhere. Maybe if you could control the camera with the keyboard like you can in Terragen 0.9's 3D preview, then that would be awesome.

BPauba · December 23, 2006, 06:40:39 PM

Ahh ok ok, I can see why that gets annoying after awhile. One thing that you have to remember with the zooming is as you get closer to the terrain the dragging becomes more precise. So that is the reason for all of the scrolling! See, I never used the 3d preview, it was not to useful to me. So did you use the arrows to move around the terrain? Kind of like a game or something? I just see the mouse being a more native tool for me other then the keyboard. Just a matter of opinion i guess

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calyxa · December 23, 2006, 06:46:17 PM

Quote from: BPauba on December 23, 2006, 06:40:39 PM
So did you use the arrows to move around the terrain? Kind of like a game or something?

that's how MojoWorld works for exploring planets. I didn't ever use T0.9 much, but I did use it enough to know that one could drag the camera icon around on the plan view to find new viewpoints.

Moose · December 23, 2006, 07:34:29 PM

...well if this thread is going to turn into a user's suggestions / wish list type thread, I'll add my tuppence worth too.

In the overhead viewer thingy, how about utilising two camera fov widgets. One for the 'real' camera, and a second for an explorer camera - each coloured differently. The user goes looking for a nice shot using the explorer camera, once found they press "Set Camera" and the real camera fov widget snaps to the location of the explorer camera fov widget. This would dually serve as an additional visual prompt for the user to help better inform whether they've got the camera locked-off (which currently takes some remembering), as well as also allowing them to explore the terrain in the overhead view using a mouse to move the widget around without fear of losing the location of the real camera (ideally you wouldn't want to wipe it's position before you're certain you've got the new view that you want - currently you move the overhead view's camera widget and you lose the position of where your camera last was). Naturally, the 3D preview would work in a similar way - real and explorer cameras.

Also, sort of tied into this, having five or so small buttons in the 3d preview's toolbar to store and recall a bunch of views set from the explorer camera.

The return of the rmb to position the target as in old TG would also be welcomed - or are there plans to have the target linked up to a rotation handle instead / as well as?

Lastly, the thresholds for selecting any of the positioners / movers seems to be a tad fine - I usually need several attempts before hitting the sweet spot (don't know what others' experiences are like - I'm running at 1600*1200 res so maybe that affects it some?).

Those are just some of my pet niggles should they help any in gaging usability...

MeltingIce · December 23, 2006, 07:51:51 PM

Quote from: Moose on December 23, 2006, 07:34:29 PM
...well if this thread is going to turn into a user's suggestions / wish list type thread, I'll add my tuppence worth too.

In the overhead viewer thingy, how about utilising two camera fov widgets. One for the 'real' camera, and a second for an explorer camera - each coloured differently. The user goes looking for a nice shot using the explorer camera, once found they press "Set Camera" and the real camera fov widget snaps to the location of the explorer camera fov widget. This would dually serve as an additional visual prompt for the user to help better inform whether they've got the camera locked-off (which currently takes some remembering), as well as also allowing them to explore the terrain in the overhead view using a mouse to move the widget around without fear of losing the location of the real camera (ideally you wouldn't want to wipe it's position before you're certain you've got the new view that you want - currently you move the overhead view's camera widget and you lose the position of where your camera last was). Naturally, the 3D preview would work in a similar way - real and explorer cameras.

Also, sort of tied into this, having five or so small buttons in the 3d preview's toolbar to store and recall a bunch of views set from the explorer camera.

The return of the rmb to position the target as in old TG would also be welcomed - or are there plans to have the target linked up to a rotation handle instead / as well as?

Lastly, the thresholds for selecting any of the positioners / movers seems to be a tad fine - I usually need several attempts before hitting the sweet spot (don't know what others' experiences are like - I'm running at 1600*1200 res so maybe that affects it some?).

Those are just some of my pet niggles should they help any in gaging usability...

You could always just create another camera and call it your explorer camera. It won't come up in the preview as a different color, but it'll be a seperate camera

Moose · December 23, 2006, 08:10:56 PM

Nice trick - and so simple.

lonewolf · December 24, 2006, 08:41:35 AM

You can already see the last camera location. As long as you haven't pushed the set camera button, you can explore all you like, and then push view camera to go right back.

Oshyan · January 04, 2007, 12:05:27 AM

We do have plans to implement a top-down view and we will incorporate as many of the best parts of TG 0.9's functionality in it as we can. This will certainly include easy camera movement, height and position indication, water level indication, etc. along with object placement and other TG2-specific requirements.

- Oshyan

RedSquare · January 04, 2007, 03:38:31 PM

QuoteWe do have plans to implement a top-down view and we will incorporate as many of the best parts of TG 0.9's functionality in it as we can.

Yippee, wonderful news, I have previously grumbled about the camera movement options. I really like the fine control via the mouse. Accuracy and finesse spring to mind, but like others have remarked getting there is sooooooooooooooo painful.

Oshyan · January 05, 2007, 08:45:10 PM

One thing to be aware of is that camera movement is progressively faster the further you are from your terrain/planet. So if you want to move fast, get some altitude, then dive back down to get finer, slower movement. Using this approach I find navigation quite zippy, faster in fact than I would expect a top-down view to be.

- Oshyan

bugfish · January 07, 2007, 01:25:07 AM

I too wanted multiple cameras, but found:

1) Creating a new camera was obscure.

I expected to find something similar to add terrain in terrain mode. (Right click on the camera group node and do a Create Other - Camera.)

2) Switching between cameras was not intuitive for me either.

The most reliable way to change your camera's preview view (to switch camera views in the 3D preview, not just the render window) is to set the camera's output to one of the render nodes. This appears to set/change the active camera in the 3D preview. I expected to double click/choose the camera node and have it be the active camera in the 3D preview.

So...

You can create multiple cameras and you can switch between them, but how to do it may not be quite what you expect.

Cyber-Angel · January 07, 2007, 09:19:50 AM

You know I have got use to the way the camera positioning system in the tech preview works now, at first I to struggled but in time I got use to it. A top down system would be nice for fine control inside valleys and such but to be honest you can do the same with the existing camera system you just have to learn fine motor control skills.

We are going through a process of transition right now, with new methods and ways of doing things, much different then what we where use to with 0.9.43. As a result then, we have to relearn our skills and this can seem intimidating at first.

Learning some thing a new is a challenge we must accept both as individual users and as a wider community.

The top down camera/ target system used by 0.9.43 and earlier will of course be familiar to users of Vesta (Now Vesta Pro) in its Amiga 500 days, and so will be harder to use the new system.
Yes, the new system dose-have-its flaws, there are instances when zooming the camera that the terrain moves fractions of an inch at a time and can be painfully slow (Akin to watching an iceberg melt one drop at a time).

There are other issues with the camera system such as terrain edge breaking and tearing resulting in floating terrain elements and artefacts left behind (These show up as small black dots and lines on an image). To my mind the current camera system is not equipped with a collision detection system to prevent terrain mesh tearing and the camera passing through the terrain (Such systems are built into flight simulation games for this purpose, and have been so since F-15: Strike Eagle form MicroProse).

What would be nice is a "Remember Current Camera Position" option which would be a kind of book marking system for the camera.

Currant Situation:

You find a POV you like and then wish to have a population of trees: right now you have to right down the coordinates of you POV and then move the camera to find the population and then bring it to the decided POV this-dose not-work for production environments and deadlines.

Proposed Fix #1: Remember Currant Position, Return to Current Position (Note: Names Provisional)

You load your population and hit "Remember Currant Position" which sets you currant position when you move your camera this automatically changes to "Return Currant Position" if some how when you select the population (Bounding Box turns yellow) and hit "Return to Currant Position" you return to you bookmarked camera position with the population you wish to use.

Proposed Fix #2: Move Population to Current Camera Position (Note: Feature Name Provisional)

Instead of moving the camera to position 0, 0, 0 to locate and bring a population to a desired location under this schema a population is made in the normal way, and then just press "Move Population to Current Camera Position" and the selected population is automatically moved to the current POV.

Just some ideas I've been toying with for a few days now.

Regards to you.

Cyber-Angel