Welcome to Fractal Forums

I'm still new to the software, but I am having difficulty with the concept of moving the camera around objects.  Does the camera actually move around objects, or does the object have to be turned and rotated in front of a stationary camera to simulate camera movement?

I ask because the only other 3D software I've used was a spline modeller, and it had X,Y,Z coordinates for the camera, and Roll,Pitch,Yaw pointing in degrees.  This allowed you to know where the camera was relative to a cartesian space, where it had been moved from, and where it was relative to the object, which also had coordinates.

If someone could give me some idea of how one conceptualizes camera motion around objects, it would help alot.  Also, for some reason, when I use the marquee zoom tool, I zoom in, but I get a huge brown patch, as if the camera has partially entered the object.  Thanks. :D

The Rev

It depends which software you're talking about.

Sorry.  I figured since it was in the Mandelbulb 3D forum, it would be obvious.  Didn't think about the list at the bottom of the main page.

The Rev

I've found that you have to go around objects which, in a lot of cases, means you have to wait for the current view to finish rendering in order to know what's what and even then, I have a problem clearing low-hanging objects.  My biggest problem there is underlighting that particular area and not seeing something, then rendering the anim and ... oops...  I will say that in the case of the Mandelbox, it's pretty slick to have the camera go through things, as it does the nifty cut-away thing, but the Bulb doesn't seem to like to do that as well, and does end you up with brown or similar chunks of unattractive innards.

As far as conceptualization, in my case, I tend to draw on my 3D experience where I pretty much had to learn to avoid all things solid -- which in the case of the Mandelbulb isn't easy especially with some of the deeper zooms where discerning depth is a challenge.  In the navigator tool, I spend a bit of time backing out of places where I seem to have wandered inside something solid without meaning to. 

I tend to agree with you about the convenience of cameras in 3D tools, esp LightWave or 3DSMax (haven't used Maya and TruSpace's camera was a bit cumbersome) where you have, basically, an external view and can adjust the camera both from it's own viewpoint, but also from various viewports.  I'm not sure how practical (or difficult) it would be to have something like that, here, where you'd have a wireframe representation of the solids in the Mandelbulb object(s) and the ability to put in a splined path for the camera.

I guess to actually address your question, the camera has to be moved around objects, using 'rotate' to bank around outcroppings and 'look' to point where you will end up with the 'walk' functions.  My biggest challenge with this is being able to point the camera actually towards the particular location to which I wish to zoom. In the darker recesses, I tend to have to do a lot of 'sliding'/'looking' to get aimed properly.

To avoid running into objects in the navigator, have you made sure to untick the "Fixed zoom and steps" checkbox?

Please read also the textfile in the M3D archive, there should be some basic
explanations about navigating...

The buttons on the bottom of the main window are not designed for fly-throughs,
use the navigator instead.  Then you should not have troubles with flying through
the bulbs.  Rendering time depends much on the "Far plane" value, decrease it for
speeding it up with loss of far background structures.

The marquee zooms into the Zmid plane, regardless if there is an object or not,
so you can end up in the bulb.  That is more for 2D navigating.

M3D differs in many points from the common navigation, that's true because it
uses (still) a viewplane instead of a camera point.

Do you mean the readme file you included with the software bundle, or is there another archive you're referring to?  If so, you could include a link?  I'm still new, and really don't know what all the resources available are.

BTW, thanks for all the replies and help. :D


The Rev

Duh - my apologies, I was just going through the recent new posts and forgot to check the particular forum location before posting my reply !