Camera positioning

[RedSquare]

OK, it's been mentioned before over the past five months but the comments made by two members in the waiting........ thread, warrants further thought, discussion or maybe not.

cajomi
I am not sure, whether I am to stupid, but it did not find a "orbit" camera tracking, so that the camera moves around a selected object or heightfield. I really liked the old 2D preview of TG 0.9 and only missed there a zoom  function. For me it had shown, that it is in great landscapes the best way of camera moving

DeathTwister
And I as well do like the way the camera worked in the old TG the way it was set up, but I do not think with tgd2 and working with a world  instead of dems or .ter files that that really would work for the new tgd2 now since we have to think in a circle, so there in lays the rub I bet. However the camera in the terrain window is a start, and it would be very nice if we could make that window bigger so we could see better what we are trying to do. hahaha Boy do I have my lists to put on planetside, my wish list is not small hahaha.

cajomi
The only thing, with my little expierence of TG2, is the camera. I understand, that is has its orientation to the univers, not to a planet. May be, it would simplify all, if you can choose at start up, or somewhere, to set the world as univers or a one planet world. In a one planet world, the old TG2 tracking should be possible. I did not like that camara tool at once, but the longer I used it, I found it more and more powerful compared to a 3D view.
If now placing of objects would be done in this preview (with a zoom please) it would be really simple work.

Sooo, based on the above, perhaps there is some merit in having the ability to choose....

Click 1  Univers/alt'/one planet

Click 2  Rotate the terrain under a Fixed camera position, either by wheel or prefably by click and drag through 360 degrees.

Click 3  Selects the visible terrain of choice and permits movement of the camera over the now "fixed" terrain with zoom. vv 0.9

Click 4  To go back to stage 2 if not happy with chosen terrain./Alt'/Enlarge viewing area.


Rubbish or what ?

Yes I've paid for Deep + Animation before you ask. 


PS.  I haven't forgotten that the terrain/renderer is fundamentally different to 0.9v

[BPauba]

I do not know if it is just my stupidity but I dont understand what you mean by "click". Do you mean by clicking once you will enable that sort of camera movement, and by clicking twice you will enable the second camera movement, etc etc? In a more general statement  I do like the idea of having multiple ways of moving the camera around. I myself do not have a problem with the current way, but I do understand the limitations of the current system.

I think another great addition would be able to save several camera positions into the file and be able to revert back to them with a simple click of a mouse or a push of a button. By this I mean it would be nice to be able to save certain camera positions to the "F#" keys, and by pushing each key you will get the position you saved. This would be very helpful with tweaking certain textures and displacements, saving POV's, setting up traditional modelling windows, and being able to just understand the scene better.

[RedSquare]

Do you mean by clicking once you will enable that sort of camera movement, and by clicking twice you will enable the second camera movement, etc etc?

In a word, Yes.

You can have multiple cameras' now.  But, not I think, allocated to an F key.

[bvcastilho]

I do think that camera positioning is an important point in TG2.

My experience is that I frequently get lost as searching for a good point of
view and usually can not find something I just passed by again. I really would like
apart from the move commands discussed above a camera positioning tool
with a view from the top panel like TG0.9.

It will help a lot to find out where you are in the terrain and what is behind
some mountains without having to move the camera there.

What I do presently is to save a TGD file every time I see some interesting point
of view. Probably I'm being stupid doing that and TG2 should have some way
of doing that, but I just dont figured out yet.

Bruno.

[RedSquare]

a camera positioning tool with a view from the top panel like TG0.9.

Agree, see stage(click) 3 above.  I'm merely suggesting one possible method of speeding up the pipe.  Click once a button that enables us to chose between Universe or single planet.  This then  presents us with a top down view of the terrain with a representation similar to 0.9 of the FOV & Direction of a FIXED CAMERA under which we can rotate the terrain. Once we have identified a likely camera position select it by clicking the mouse.   This then fixes the terrain under the camera but frees up the camera so that we can move it around a la 0.9 with additionally zoom.  The forth click on the mouse gives the opportunity to either go back to step 2 or alternatively enlarge the viewing window so that fine adjustments can be made.