"Bald Eagle" <cre### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> Thanks so much, Tuomas, for working on this!  :)

Thanks for feedback!

> I think that a good modeler is something that a lot of people want, and it's
> been a long time since I've used one for creating scenes in POV-Ray.

I think one use of the current release is being able to see real-time
updated viewport while typing in POV-Ray SDL in one's favourite text editor, and
being able to smoothly change the view using mouse controls independent of what
camera is set to in the scene file.

> I'll give you my unfiltered initial impressions, since I myself find that sort
> of feedback most valuable when developing something new.  Familiarity tends to
> sweep things into the cracks.

It is the kind of feedback a dev appreciates.

> I was unsure what to do next, so I explored the menu.
> I tried "Viewport" - "Walk mode"
> Whatever method you're using to move the scene with the mouse is very similar to
> some of 3D molecular modeling packages I've used.  I tend to "lose my way"
> easily, and the scene gets canted ever further from the starting point.  I have
> to do a "swirling" motion with the mouse to progressively rotate the scene back.
>   I find it a little awkward - perhaps something to think about.

Yes, the "walk mode" is for exploring the scene in first person while normal
mouse controls are for 3D modeling - I think you didn't get a change to try the
latter.

> Something very nice would be an "origin marker" that could be moved, and then
> all rotations of the scene would be relative to that.  I'd think that typically
> when one models a scene, one wants to hold there focus on a specific part of it,
> and then switch back and forth between various "views"
> Maybe there could be a toolbar and some hotkeys to "bookmark" these for quick
> access, and a way to return to the default view.

I think these are all very good ideas. Currently, all viewport rotations
happen around world space origin, except in the first person "walk mode".

> I tried to "rotate" the scene, but it appears that what happens is that the
> scene is rotated around the camera location.
>
> The arrow keys perform the same rotation - I was unsure of how to do a straight
> PAN and slide along an axis.

For rotate and slide to work first the "walk mode" needs to be disabled. Then
these work by dragging mouse over the viewport. The first button does slide,
the second button does rotate and the third button does zoom.

> Then I tried to exit "Walk" mode, and the modeller (modeler?) seemed to keep
> full control of the mouse.  Perhaps there ought to be a way to release the mouse
> so that it can be used outside of the modeler window in the rest of the OS.

As you found out in the end, [ESC] exits the 'walk' and releases the mouse - but
[CRTL]-[C] should work also. You found a bug in the Windows version.

> I tried using the [ALT] key to access the menu, but there seems to be some bugs
> there.   [ALT] brings up the underlining of the menu options, but [ALT]-[V] did
> nothing

Apparently, this is another Windows version bug. This menu functionality doesn't
work while in the first person 'walk' mode.

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