VP3.0
Jeff,
To get the "rear window" view you need to rotate the Heading 180 degress, and
negate the Pitch and Heading. For instance if the forward camera is pitched up
by ten degrees the rearward camera is pitched down by ten degress. The same
goes for the Bank.
Remember the images only "line up" at the Wide lens setting (16). Even so,
shifting through the set of four images is not the same as rotating the camera.
Vistapro (and all other rendering programs) are designed to render to a flat
surface — the screen of your monitor. To do what you suggest (render four
images and scroll through them) would require a cylidrical projection for
accuracy. On the other hand you may be able to live with the difference under
some circumstances. I don't know how noticable the difference is since I have
never done it.
The main reason for the Port/Forward/Starboard settings was for a travelling
demo that uses three large projection screens with the viewer sitting in the
center to give a feel of total-immersion.
Front
+———–+
| |
| |
Port | Viewer | Starboard
| |
| |
+ +
The back side is left open so you can get in and out, and so that people
standing outside can see what's going on. Under these circumstances it wasn't
necessary to generate the rear view. And on the PC version (where all the
non-amiga-specific development was going on) there's no left room left on the
Lens panel for another button!
The biggest problem with having a camera above the clouds is that it requires
transparecy in the rendering — too much trouble to add in this version (and it
will slow things down). It will probably be in the 4.0 release….
John.