Modeler Help

Bugs

If the screen is resized by any significant amount (incl. switching to/from full-screen or maximized), texture images stop being rendered. This is probably due to the jME Renderer not reinitializing properly after OpenGL creates a new context.
The focus policy is not completely implemented yet, but the current state is definitely usable. The goal is that the 3D scene should normally have focus, and that HUD windows get focus only if they need it for entry fields. If a HUD window doesn't use key input, then it should delegate key handling to the 3D scene so that all keys will continue to work as if the 3D scene were in focus. (In the case of forms with just buttons and pulldowns, this means that we are purposefully disabling form focus traversal with tabs for the greater good of 3D scene control). That is what is not completely implemented. As a work-around until I have time to review all of the HUD window input code, if a HUD window has focus and an input key doesn't work as advertized, just LMB in the 3D scene to get focus out of your HUD window.
The Tree widget has a Windows-only bug (perhaps OSX too, but not Linux) where if the widget is instantiated with just the RootNode (i.e. no other tree nodes present), something in the AWT system goes bad. One consequence is that in this screwed-up state, keyboard input (TAB and navigation) does not work in the Tree widget. The work-around is to either (a) don't pull up the tree widget until you have something loaded in the scene; or (b) after the tree widget displays a node other than rootNode, hit the "reload" button.
When the Tree widget is opened, the tree panel's content is not focused. The user has to hit TAB or click on the panel.

Interface

The Window menu (ALT+"w") shows with a * whether a HUD window or the 3D scene currently has focus. The 3D scene should have focus unless you are working with an interactive window.
Don't forget to use CTRL key if your intention is to move a Spatial or change the transform of a Spatial (as opposed to moving of transforming the camera ).
If a window is closable, you can use the window-frame button or the Escape key to close it when it has focus. An exception to this is when a form input field has focus, in which case the input field often has its own behavior (like reverting the entered value).
If no other closable widget has focus, then the Escape key toggles the Settings widget.
When you activate the grid with the / key (or the View / Grid pulldown item), 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
To allow for precise control of transforms for expert developers, I have purposefully not implemented click & drag to move a clicked item. Instead, click & drag changes the rotation (aka forward direction) of the camera or the Active Spatial relative to that object. Two examples. If you just click & drag to the right, you will rotate the camera, turning it to your right. If you just CTRL + click & drag to the right, you will rotate the Active Spatial, turning it to it's right.
The Active Spatial menu (ALT+"a") items all operate on, surprisingly, the Active Spatial.
There are three ways to set/assign the currently Active Spatial.
1. TAB and SHIFT+TAB to cycle through them.
2. When the Hand cursor is shown, RMB to make the 3D object under the cursor Active. (See the related bug described above if you are on Windows).
3. Use the Tree Widget (SHIFT+F8) and click the desired Spatial.
There are several ways to tell which is the currently Active Spatial.
1. SHIFT+F8. The Active Spatial is highlighted. This is the most general way to discriminate the Active Spatial. The limitation of most of the following methods is that parent Nodes often have the same exact bound positions as some descendant Spatials. In that case, bounds can't be used to differentiate between them.
2. If you are in windowed (non-fullscreen) mode, the title bar tells the class and name of the Active Spatial (unless it has not been changed from the root Node).
3. When TABbing (as described in the previous list), keep the TAB key held down and the new Active Spatial will have its bounds displayed in red (or in wireframe-- behavior under review).
4. When RMBing (as described in the previous list), keep the RMB held down and the new Active Spatial will have its bounds displayed in red (or in wireframe-- behavior under review).
5. ALT+a o. This outlines the Active Spatial in yellow. (this is just a consequence of displaying the Active Spatial's bounding volume in yellow).
A couple details about RMB Active Spatial selection. If the item below was already active, the click will cycle through the qualifying ancestor Nodes. Note that this targeting is by bounding volume, which is very imprecise, and in many cases makes it impossible to select an item which is behind another item. I intend to switch this to more precise triangle-specific targeting.

I keep vacillating about whether the scene indication of the hot Active Spatial should be by red bounding volume or by wire frame. Neither tactic works well for all scenes. If I could change the color of wire frames, that would be great. Contact me if you have any ideas on this head.

Features

Besides jME DebugGame features...

Save subgraphs to JME XML format. Use the File menu (ALT+"f") item to save from rootNode. Use the context-sensitive menu to save from the currently active Spatial.
Load model files over a network You can use the Load... URL menu items (ALT+"f" "u" or ALT+"a" "u"), or the invocation command-line to load model files from network URLs.
Load arbitrary Spatial instances If you have a no-arg constructor or a single-arg constructor in the classpath, you can use the Instantiate pulldowns. (I think only String and boolean params are supported now, but I can easily add support for the other basic Java types) Static factory instantiator methods are also supported. In both cases, supply the constructor or factory method signature, with paramer if any. Don't specify the return type (that's obvious for constructors), and don't add a trailing semi-colon.
You can use the provided Direcionals arrows to play with this feature. To use it, use either Instantiation pulldown and key in:
```
            com.admc.admc.Directionals("A name")
            
```
Spatial transformations. Use the Spatial Properties window to view or change the transform for the currently active Spatial.
Control controllers. If the active spatial has controllers, you can interrogate them, and you can operate SpatialTransformers and AnimationControllers.
Morph Influences You can play with meshes by listing and changing Morph Invfluence values, for both standalone Morphs and MorphInfluenceProviders.
Load Procedural Terrain System terrains. Loading a model with name of format *terrain*.xml will load it as a XMLDecoder file defining a TerrainMap with or without a TerrainTexturizer. See the PTS Home Page for details about terrain definition XML files.

Command-line Operation

You can use ALT+"f" "s" (= File / Settings pulldown) to change settings. If you get stuck, you can use the "-r" invocation switch to Reset all settings to the defaults. WebStart users can use the modeler-reset.jnlp launcher, which just invokes Modeler with the -r switch.
Give as many model URLs on the command line as you like... or none.
Files specified may be local or remote files (specified by URL).
You can 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.

Input Controls

The pulldown menus eliminate the need for most keys.

Game World Mode Controls

Arrow keys translate (do not rotate the camera), as do the keys "q", "w", "a", "s", "d", "z", "x".
Use SHIFT with the previous commands to amplify the effect.
Click and drag the mouse to change camera direction.
Hold down CTRL before using any of the actions of the previous two items to perform the same navigation on the Active Spatial. You probably do not want to do this while the rootNode is the Active Spatial (if I can't think of any valid use case, I will soon change to prohibit usave on the root node). TIP: This gives a third person view of the effects of all of these keys and mouse controls. Therefore, you can play with this feature to physically see what the effects of navigation keys would be to the camera if you did not have the CTRL key down. The LMB+RMB and MW inputs do not work on the Active Spatial. These inputs are purposefully reserved for first person camera control.
Simultaneous LMB + RMB click & drag moves the camera forwards as you change direction by dragging, similar to some RPG games.
Mouse scroll wheel moves you forwards similar to up-arrow and "w" key.
SHIFT+F8 shows the scene Spatial tree, with some Spatial types excluded for clarity (Grid, Camera, etc.). (Also available through menu or ALT+"v" "t"
SHIFT+F10 reports camera position and direction.
SHIFT+F11 reports on the Frame Rate.
SHIFT+F7 opens a windows which displays and allows manipulation of the Active Spatial's properties, including animations.
CTRL DEL Detaches the Active Spatial from the scene.
Camera positioning keys: All of these camera positioning keys set the camera directed at the origin. Num key pad keys 1, 3, 7 stand at front, right, top, accordingly. CTRL with these to change to the other side, back, left, bottom. These key mappings are the same as Blender, except I had to use CTRL in place of SHIFT because of Java's indirect and weak control over real keyboard keys. The HOME key does the same thing as numpad 1, for now.
TAB cycles through the scene Spatials. The Active Spatial pulldown operates on the Active Spatial, and above I have listed several ways to discern the active spatial.
Slash key does the same thing as the View / Grid pulldown