Things you may not know : Key navigation

[jo]

Hi,

In TG2 v2 you can navigate in the 3D Preview using the keyboard. Navigation is based around the arrow keys, with different modifier key combinations to do different things. You can see the key combinations by opening the Mouse and Key Settings window from the Help Menu. Expand the 3D Preview settings and then scroll down to the Navigation settings and expand that to see the movements and their keys.

The keys can be customised in the Customise Input Bindings window, which is opened from the Custom Bindings button in the Input Settings preferences panel.

I would have set up a WASD preset for this but it conflicted with a key which was already in use. If you prefer that you can customise it yourself.

You aren't able to "mouse look" as you would in a first person shooter type game, but this may be added in the future.

Another useful new key for the 3D Preview is the Return/Enter key. This key will copy the current view to the render camera.

Regards,

Jo

[TheBlackHole]

  W
ASD preset? They use that for the second Player on Powder Game!
http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust
Warning: The English side is actually Engrish. Other than that, you'll be OK. I'm there, and you can look at my uploads in Save Data by clicking 27 hours and changing it to All, then search TheBlackHole. You'll see all my uploads, and to open one, just click "play".

[kevnar]

You aren't able to "mouse look" as you would in a first person shooter type game, but this may be added in the future.

I'm able to mouse look pretty good by holding down Alt and using the three buttons on my mouse in different ways. It works great for micro managing the camera angle and direction.

[PabloMack]

Navigation via keystrokes is quirky and buggy. If you rotate around and up or down, the movement keystrokes move the camera according to a strange combination of the absolute coordinate system and the camera's orientation and not relative to the camera's orientation alone. When you are anywhere but at the North Pole, navigation is very confusing and cumbersome. This should be fixed.  All of these keyboard movement commands should cause movement relative to the camera's orientation alone. Then it would be very useful.

[Oshyan]

The camera's movement adhere's to consistent logic, it's just not the logic that is most intuitive for your needs, which is understandable. Movement relative to camera orientation is not necessarily ideal either, at least not at all times. The needs of large-scale landscape camera movement are somewhat unique. But certainly more options are needed regardless.

- Oshyan

[dalewb]

Thanks for the tips!  I am fairly new to TG2 and stuff like this really helps a lot.  I found the arrow keys combined with the cntl key pretty intutitive - you press the up arrow, it moves forward.  I was using this trick with a scene camera, not the perspective camera, so that might have made a difference.

Press r/l arrows and it "strafes" left and right.  Hold down cntl and the arrow keys function to orbit the camera around its center. Love it!

[D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)]

I had trouble at first navigating using the mouse and keys, but after i figured out how to navigate with the keyboard only it was much easier.  Try using the Arrow keys with the Ctrl, and Shift Keys.  Arrow Keys alone move you around.  With the Ctrl key + Arrow Keys you can go Higher and Lower (Elevation), and Rotate the Camera.  With the Ctrl Key + Shift Key + Arrow Keys you can Tilt the camera Up/Down, or Roll/Bank the camera.  Using this method you don't even need to use the mouse, and you can zoom around over the landscape very intuitively & quickly.

If Planetside did give us a configurable mouse/keyboard option in the future, I would love to see an Unreal Engine/Editor scheme as a preset. 
In UE4 you navigate very easily with just a three button mouse (no modifier keys required).  You can move in any direction in both move/walk mode, or a strafe/sidestep mode, plus rotate, tilt, and elevation change all with a three button mouse.  It's a very simple scheme that relies on you holding down LMB, RMB, or LMB+RMB while moving the mouse around.  It's very similar to how Terragen works with keyboard navigation but all on the mouse.

[Dune]

That would need to be different though, for users who have a Wacom pen and tablet (like me).

[bobbystahr]

That would need to be different though, for users who have a Wacom pen and tablet (like me).

and me

[D.A. Bentley (SuddenPlanet)]

Hey there gentleman!

I must have not explained my idea well enough, so I made a little image to illustrate how it might work.  These are modified screens from Modo.  As you can see there is an option to choose between Tablet, or Mouse, and also navigation presets based on the key/mouse/tablet configurations from popular programs like 3DS max, Maya, Modo, Cinema 4D, etc.  So even if a keyboard remapping system was added to Terragen, you could still stick with the "Terragen Default" scheme which would keep you exactly as you are now.  It would just give you options to choose a navigation scheme from another program that you are more used to.

I hope that makes sense now.    I use a Wacom, Mouse & Keyboard myself.  But I only use the Wacom when I am pixel pushing or sculpting.  I am very bad at using it for navigation. 

Derek

[Dune]

It sure makes sense. More options is always good (though I'm quite happy now).

[MrWobinson]

Can I assume from the above discussion that the only way to pan (rather than orbit) the camera is by the controller in the top right of the view port. I am working on a series of 360 deg panoramas and setting the camera position would be much easier if I could pan around in the view port rather than use the controller. Generally I would find panning the camera (like in Vue) to be far more useful than orbiting.

[sboerner]

You can customize your mouse inputs via the Preferences panel. Preferences > Input Settings > Customize Bindings > Basic Inputs. I have mine set to mimic Maya's 3-button interface, so pan is alt-MMB (opt-MMB on Mac).

[MrWobinson]

When I say pan I mean rotate the camera about itself. I simply want to point the camera in a different direction without moving the camera. I acknowledge this can be done with the controller in the top right and with Ctrl=arrow keys but I would like to be able to do this in the view window by click and dragging. If this is not possible I will live with that but I find it hard to believe that it is not possible and just want it confirmed so I can get on with things and stop bothering this forum.

[WAS]

Ctrl + Left / Right ...