I know that SL is still in its early phases, and a lot of development focus is being put on the scripting system, bug fixes, etc. However, if you guys want to really grow your user base the system needs to be more *accessible* than it is now. If a user downloads SL and gets frustrated with not being able to look and move efficiently, there's a lot lower chance that they'll stick around long enough to see all the cool stuff SL has going for it.
As it stands, camera control is pretty clunky compared to other 3D environs. I'm not really talking about the automatic camera AI (although that could use some work too), but rather the user-interface by which you zoom and pan around the world.
My single biggest request to help remedy this situation is for Linden to implement an "Autopan" function, whereby the user's view automatically rotates about the Avatar's Z axis when the cursor hits a screen border. For example, push the mouse all the way to the right, and the view starts rotating right.
My second request is to "smooth" the mousewheel zoom by including more in-between FOV settings. It would be nice to have the zoom move fluidly in and out according to mousewheel action. Right now, things are kind of rough and the feature is really only half-usable.
Together, these two features would obviate the need for a lot of monkeying around with modifier keys. Want to look at your face? Push the mouse to the right until the view swings 'round and zip the mousewheel forward.
Also, I'm not sure if this is there already, but I would like to be able to map the middle mouse button to act the same as the Shift-Alt pan modifier combination.
As for movement, I may have to chalk this up to lag but it was *really* annoying that my character would continue turning even after I let up on the a or d key. Also, walking while turning left a *lot* to be desired. See any popular first-person shooter for the way this ought to work.
Where the camera AI is concerned, there's one major change I would make to how things work now. Currently, it's easier than it should be for the view to get occluded while moving around indoors. What I would propose (if it doesn't work this way already and is somehow otherwise broken) is this: create 2 'modes' for the camera to work under. In the first "automatic" mode, the camera tries everything possible to keep an unobsctructed view of the avatar. In the seccond "manual" mode, all bets are off and occlusion is not considered. The important part to this system is how the camera decides what mode it is in. I would propose that "automatic" mode be engaged when the user's state changes significantly. For example, if the user is standing there, looking around in manual mode, then takes a small step - it should stay in manual mode. However, if they take more steps (i.e. it looks like they are going somewhere) things fall back to automatic. Also, a sort of "manual lock" should probably be included, for specal cases where you're moving along but for some reason want to stay manual. Finally, a "semi-automatic" mode would be nice as an option, where the camera doesn't constantly try to resume the over-the-shoulder 3rd-person view, but will try to intelligently unobstruct things if something is in the way.
I'll stop there with the camera AI, as I can tell it's really a MUCH bigger topic than this little post
I've noted in another post that I'm *really* excited about some of the groundbreaking stuff that SL is doing. However, for it to continue to grow and (eventually?) profit, it's got to be as accessible as possible to your average gamer-type and UI is obviously a huge part of that.
Thanks for all your hard work!
-Morse Dillon
