CompuServe Messages

"Object Cameras" would not REPLACE the current "Camera/Target Quaternian Roll Cameras" that 3DS currently has, but rather be a new type of Camera that SUPPLEMENTS the existing type, just as we now have both Omni and Spot Lights. Which Camera type you use would be based on the types of Camera animation you need to perform on a per-Project basis (and, of course, you can have multiple Cameras per Project). Most of the code for this is already present. An Object Camera would seem to the KeyFramer to be precisely the same as a Dummy. It would be drawn as a Dummy (dashed-line box) but colored the same shade of Blue that the regular Cameras are. A circle or dot in the center of one face of the blue Dummy Box would show where the lens is, while a square within another face 90 from the lens face would show where the bottom of the Camera is. Given those two, the orientation of the camera would be apparent. The Renderer would see this as similar to a regular Camera located at the center of the pseudo-Dummy cube, with its Target positioned at the dot on the "lens" face of the cube, and its Roll set so that the bottom points to the center of the bottom face of the cube.