Modeler Help

Bugs

Pulldown menus in the file chooser widgets do not work. You can still select whatever file you need by drilling down or keying in.
Toolbar dragging is funny. But the Toolbar doesn't do anything in this app anyways.
Iconified JInternalFrames are not draggable. Big deal.
Euler rotation input spinner fields are buggy. I need to fix this.
Focus is very jumpy in modals. Sometimes you tab to a button and focus jumps off. Work-around is to tab around to it again or use the mouse.
The top and bottom views, accessible with numpad keys 7 and SHIFT-7, do not set the up-direction as they should yet. So while they do set you looking down or up as desirect, the rotation around the Z axis is now what you would expect.
The intention is for numpad 1 + SHIFT and numpad 3 + SHIFT to change camera to back and left, correspondingly, just like they do in Blender. There's some input problem which is preventing these keystrokes form making it to the program though.

Interface

There are two input modes, Desktop Mode and Game World Mode. Click on the game world background and you will be in Game World Mode. Click on the border or background of any desktop window and you will be in Desktop Mode.
When you activate the grid with the / key (in Game World Mode), the grid square and axis tick spacing are 1 game units. Axes are color coded as follows, with solid lines indicating positive direction and dashed lines indicating negative.
- Blue X axis
- Red Y axis
- Green Z axis

Features

Besides jME DebugGame features...

Save subgraphs to JME XML format. Use the File menu item to save from rootNode. Use the context-sensitive menu to save from the currently active Spatial.
Loads OGRE dotScene, *.mesh.xml, *.material and jME XML model files. Specify any number of model paths as invocation arguments to load them onto rootNode. Use the File menu item to load models onto rootNode interactively. Use the context-sensitive menu to load onto the the currently active Spatial. Before loading *.mesh.xml files, load *.material files with the item in the File menu, and list the inclusive current list with the relevant File menu item.
Load model files over a network The command-line may include URLs for model files.
Load arbitrary Spatial instances If you have a no-arg constructor or a single-string-arg constructor in the classpath, you can use the Instantiate pulldown or context-sensitive menu to load the new instance onto the rootNode or the active node. Static factory instantiator methods are also supported. These work the same way, except you put parentheses around the param (or around nothing if there is no param). The entry screen displays the syntax details.
You can use the provided AnimatedSphere sample to play with this feature. To use it, run either of the Instantiation items and key in:
```
            com.admc.play.AnimatedSphere(aName)
            
```
There are several other samples in the com.admc.play package. You can see the names by listing the contents of file modeler.jar.
Spatial transformations. Use the Spatial Properties window to view or change the transform for the currently active Spatial. Warning: The Euler rotation input fields have problems if you go beyond the +/- 90 degree range.
Control controllers. If the active spatial has controllers, you can interrogate them, and you can operate SpatialTransformers, MeshAnimationControllers, and jME AnimationControllers. You can instantiate an AnimatedSphere, as explained above, to play with this feature.
SceneMonitor Support SceneMonitor only works when Modeler is invoked locally (to keep the WebStart distributable small). Just throw the SceneMonitor jar files into the same directory as the other jar files and you can then use the Insert key to start up SceneMonitor. Extract and view the MANIFEST.MF file from modeler.jar to see the exact file names you must use (including the *jmetree* and *propertytable* jars).

Command-line Operation

By default, the settings interface will only be shown the first time you run the modeler. To modify your settings for a later run, give the "-r" switch (for Reconfig).
Give as many model, mesh, and material URLs on the command line as you like... or none. Material files must be listed before mesh files which use them.
Files specified may be local or remote files (specified by URL).
You can not specify instantiation constructors and factory methods on the command-line, using the same syntax as for interactive instantiation. Make sure to use quotes to isolate the parentheses (and any other metacharacters) from your command-line shell.
To support automation and reproducable runs, and also to eliminate any shell argument-parsing issues, you can now specify a text file which just lists the items to be loaded or instantiated, one per line. The syntax on each line is a # comment, empty line, a model file URL, or an instantiation specification. The instantiation specifications, of course, must be of the same syntax as everywhere else they are used.

Input Controls

Desktop Mode Controls

Normal application inputs, including TAB to tab between input fields. Some of the Game World Mode controls (at least the Delete key) should also work in some or all of the desktop windows. I just haven't set this up to work yet, so you must always have the game world focused (like by clicking on it) before using the Game World Mode controls listed below.

Game World Mode Controls

Right-click in the game world background to bring up a context-sensitive menu.
N, L, etc. work exactly as in jME's Debug GameState. P is an exception in that it can only enable Pause, it does not toggle it on and off. To disable Pause, click on the game world background.
Camera positioning keys: HOME key homes camera to a position as if you were standing before the model object, far enough away to see a little below their feet. SHIFT-HOME key homes camera to Blender's default camera position. Keypad keys 7, 1, and 3, and SHIFT-7 work as in Blender (see related bug listed above).
TAB cycles through the scene Spatials. You can easily see what node is active in the Spatial Properties window title bar, or by seeing which Spatial is highlighted in the Scene Tree window. (you can also change the active spatial by just clicking on the desired Spatial in the Scene Tree window).
Slash key toggles a 20x20 unit X/Z grid with Y axis.
Delete key detaches the currently active node (and all of its descendants).
Insert key turns on SceneMonitor, as long as you have the SceneMonitor jar files in the CLASSPATH. See the SceneMonitor feature details above.
Page Up and Page Down buttons toggly "fly mode". This has effect only if a terrain has been loaded. With the default mode, the W/A/S/D buttons keep the camera right above the terrain as if you were walking on the surface. You can still go above and below the surface with the Q and Z buttons, but when you use W/A/S/D again you will be drawn back to the surface. The Page Up key turns on fly mode, where you will not be drawn to the surface. Page Down disables Fly mode.