[Contents]

2D View Controls

2D views have two basic types of controlable movement (panning and zooming) with many interactive editing features. Note a complete list of keyboard modifiers is available here.

To pan, hold down the CTRL key and Button1 as you drag across the view. You can also explicitly set the exact position by entering the value in the coordinate entry widgets next to the view in question (press ENTER after entering each value).

To zoom, hold down the ALT key and Button1 as you drag across the view. You can also explicitly set the exact zoom by entering the value in the zoom (aka viewable dimension) entry widget next to the view in question (press ENTER after entering each value).

To position the cursor, simply click Button1 at the desired location (the cursor position on the status bar will be updated accordingly).

To set or translate the selected primitive's vertices click on Button2 at the desired location. In order to set the selected vertex's new position, you must have one vertex selected. In order to translate the selected primitive, unselect any vertexes and click and drag the entire primitive to its new location.

To graphically select one or more primitive's vertex press and hold down the SHIFT key and Button1 as you drag a rectangular area covering the area you want to select. If more than one match is made, then a dialog will appear prompting you if you want to select the next primitive's vertex or accept the current selected primitive.

The grid can be set explicitly by entering the value in the grid entry widget. A grid spacing value of 0 implies to not display grid at all.

3D View Controls

The 3D view is primarly used for viewing purposes only, there are no interactive editing capabilies on the 3D view. The angle of the camera is described by compoents heading and pitch (note that bank is not used), heading represents turning your head left/right and pitch represents looking up/down. Note a complete list of keyboard modifiers is available here.

To rotate the camera (look up/down or left/right), simply press and hold Button1 and move left/right to look left/right or move up/down to look up/down. Note that the exact angle of the camera can be set by entering the value in the heading or pitch entry widgets (press ENTER after entering each value).

To "walk about" (move forwards/backwards and turn left/right) press and hold CTRL and Button1 as you drag over the 3D view. Dragging up/down moves the camera forwards/backwards while dragging left/right turns the camera left/right (as if the camera was a person walking through the scene). Note that the exact position of the camera can be set by entering the value in the x, y, or z entry widgets (press ENTER after entering each value).

To "strafe" (move about the XY plane but no turning) press and hold ALT and Button1 as you drag over the 3D view. The camera will move in the direction that you drag the pointer in.

To rise/sink (move up/down) press and hold SHIFT and Button1 as you drag over the 3D view. The camera will rise/sink when you drag the pointer up/down. Dragging the pointer left/right will simply move the camera left/right.

The grid can be set explicitly by entering the value in the grid entry widget. A grid spacing value of 0 implies to not display grid at all. Each grid line will repeat 10 times regardless of the spacing as long as it is positive.

3D View Rendering

The 3D view can render the scene using OpenGL implementation rendering.

To enable rendering, press the rendering toggle button on the 3D view in question. When rendering is enabled, the scene will be drawn solid with lighting and texturing. Otherwise if rendering is disabled, the scene will be drawn as a wire-frame.

To enable culling (draw only visible winded surfaces), press the cull toggle button on the 3D view in question. When culling is enabled, any side of a surface that is winded the wrong way will not be drawn. You can define which direction the winding is to be considered visible by going to Edit->Preferences...->Apperance->Rendering and select clockwise or counter-clockwise.

To enable performing of translation or rotation primitives, press the perform translation/rotation toggle button on the 3D view in question. When this is enabled, any primitives that perform translation or rotation will be evaluated. If this is disbaled then everything will be drawn relative to the origin.

To set the camera properties, press Button3 and go to Camera Properties... where you can specify the far clip and near clip as well as the vertical field of view in degrees.

A background image can also be loaded to help editing, to load a background image press Button3 and go to Set Background Image... where you will be prompted to select an image file to use as a background. To clear the background image just press Button3 and select Clear Background Image.


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