Prop: 1965 needs your help.

http://secondlife.com/vote/vote.php?get_id=1965

We need to be able to interact and build in first person. i am so tired of my avatar getting in the way =)


Please help support the prop.

Dimentox, you absolutely can build in "first person" already if you wish. There's really no need for your proposal. SL offers complete freedom of movement for the camera. You never even have to see your avatar while building if you don't want to.

Try this:

1. Stand a good distance away from whatever it is you're building, say, 20 meters or so.
   
   
   
2. Hold down alt. You'll see that the mouse changes from an arrow to a square magnifying glass. This is the focus tool.
   
   
   
3. With alt held down, left click on the object, and it will become the focal point of the camera.
   
   
   
4. Keep holding alt and the left mouse button, and move the mouse upward. You'll zoom in on the object. Now you can move the camera all around the object any way you want, and your avatar is far enough away that it couldn't possibly obstruct your view at all.

Functionality in this respect (camera control) is similar in pretty much all 3D modeling programs, and SL is no different. The specific combinations of keys vary from program to program, but equating mouse movement with camera movement is common to all.

In SL, it's all about holding alt, control, and shift along with the left mouse button. Here are the combinations for the different ways the camera can move:

1. Alt + Left Mouse Button
   
   - zoom in and out (up and down movement of the mouse)
   - orbit left & right (side to side movement of the mouse)
   
   
   
2. Alt + Ctrl = Left Mouse Button
   
   - orbit up, down, left, and right
   
   
   
   
3. Alt + Ctrl + Shift
   
   - pan up, down, left, and right

As you start to use these commands, they become second nature to you very quickly. Moving the camera exactly where you want it becomes as thoughtless as turning your head in the real world. (The only time you run into trouble is when you're using two different 3D apps at the same time with similar but slightly different controls, like SL and Maya, which I do all the time. Maya uses alt and 3 mouse buttons the same way SL uses one mouse button with alt, shift, and ctrl. It's essentially a reversal of hands between the two.)

In Sl, camera movement is normally limited to a distance of 60M from your avatar. If that's not enough for you, and you still object to seeing your avatar at all while building, even if it's just in the distance, you can decouple the camera completely by using the debug client menu. Simply press ctrl-alt-D to bring up the two debug menus at the top of the screen, and the go Client -> Disable Camera Constraints. You'll probably also want to uncheck the Limit Select Distance option as well.

If you do plan on parking your avatar very far away, you'll want to hike up your draw distance, by the way. You can move your camera all the way across the world with the contsraints turned off if you really want to, but whether or not specific objects are visible to you is always determined by how far away from the avatar they are, not by where the camera is. If they're outside the radius of your draw distance (from the avatar's location), you won't be able to see them.

You see, the camera is entirely client side (which is why the client software is called the "viewer", which means the server can't determine what objects to send you by camera location alone. Avatar location is a server side function, so that's what the system has to use in order to determine what objects you can see. If you want to stand on one side of a sim, and build an object all the way on the other side, you'll need your draw distance to be 256 or more.

Anyway, to summarize, there's no reason your avatar should ever be "in the way". You have complete freedom to move the camera any way you want, which is exactly the same effect as your "first person" notion.

True, but the mouse look which it attached is also for interacting with things. i would rather have my camera be attached to mouse look but still be able to click..



This is an issue with everything i can buy or interact with any object well except for lclick while in first person. This is not just a build thing but if they did this also it would allow building in first also

I guess I'm just not understanding what you feel is missing. Were you to decouple the camera while in mouselook mode, it would behave exactly as it does while decoupled from the standard view.

Constant and fluid camera movement is easily the most essential part of building that there is. Were you to actually build while in mouselook itself without decoupling the camera, you'd have to physically walk around a build project in order to see it from all angles. Not only would that be a hell of a lot slower, but it would also be much less reliable. The avatar does not and cannot walk or fly with any degree of dependable precision since its location is server side, and its client side controls must be streamed to it. It cannot offer anywhere near the level of control that the local alt-click camera controls offer. So again, the camera would need to be decoupled from the av for precise control, which is exactly what we have now.

It sounds to me like the only thing you're looking to add is the ability to press the build button while in mouselook. After that, it would have to be all about camera control anyway, which I repeat is what we've already got. What do you feel is the benefit of entering build mode while in mouselook?

You've been playing too many FPS games.

Building has always been in first person regardless of mouselook. You are always behind the monitor and operate the controls directly.

A third person build mode is when you control your avatar from afar and you command it to build a wall. And you avatar walks up to it and starts building, just like one of those peons in an RTS game.

Hehe, I could use a few peons in SL. What a great idea.

I think a lot of people misunderstand the OP's proposition. The one that you can't do in mouselook is interact with the world via the pie menu; the ability to right-click and do the things that one can normally do in 3rd person would be a welcome addition to the GUI.

Okay, that does make some sense. Pie menu acces in mouselook would be good to have.

I still see no point in using it to build though. Every competant builder in the world already moves the camera at will all throughout the building process, without regard to the avatar whatsoever, so we essentially already are building in "mouselook".

When I build, I hit ctrl-1 and couldn't care less where my avatar is. I don't like how the camera needs to be reset if I accidently select a tree instead of the object behind it, but otherwise the camera system seems to work fine the way it is.

I agree the pie menu should be available in first-person though. I'd walk around that way more often if it were. As it is, mouselook feels more like a hack. For instance it has this delay when you begin to strafe. Maybe it coincides with the animation but it sure is annoying!