kismert on April 24th 2006
56530 views

Beginner Frustration

Hello, group:

I downloaded a trial RealWorld Icon Editor. The graphics quality is outstanding, but I had a very hard time producing a simple icon.

First, the good. The Version 2006.1 tutorials are essential -- without them new users would have absolutely no clue how to use the program.

Now, the problems, from the top:

Window Title Bar
================
Should tell what mode (Unicorn, Renderer...) the user is in.

Unicorn3D
=========
Things are too 'live' and 'jumpy'. I strongly felt the need for more precise control of sizing and positioning.

Control Points - It would be nice to be able to drag objects in only one axis. Could Shift-Left Drag constrain along X-axis, Ctrl-Left Drag along Y-axis, and Alt-Left Drag along Z-axis? You need something.

Spatial orientation - Right Drag rotates the 3D objects -- but it is far too sensitive. Right drag in a circle, and the object tumbles like an asteroid in space. It makes it hard for the beginner to position their object in the way they want. It gets discouraging.

You have toolbar buttons that lock X, Y and Z axis sizing -- perhaps you could have buttons that lock rotation on X, Y and Z?

Renderer
========
Loading the object, adding and positioning lights were OK. But by far the most frustrating part of the program was the camera positioning.

Flying, Floating and Invert Y Mouse Axis buttons -- I could detect absolutely no difference in how the mouse or keys behaved with these buttons On or Off. What do they do? The tutorial is of no help.

The Rendering Tutorial, page 5, lists Z = down -- it should be X = down. Should X and Space be reversed?

It seems that the Arrow keys move the camera differently than A, D, Space, X -- the tutorial doesn't mention this.

It is useless to try to move the camera in the 3D editer view. The 'eye icon' is completely inintuitive -- I have no idea what it is supposed to do.

Those are minor, but here are the two BIG problems:

The cursor DISAPPEARS when you click on scene browser view. Yes, you tell me it does this, but it is BAD DESIGN! At least a dozen times, I painstakingly positioned the camera using the keyboard keys, then moved the mouse to position a light, shifting the view and ruining my carefully constructed scene. Two strong recommendations:

 1. The mouse pointer MUST remain visible, but change when in scene browser mode. Maybe you could use that 'Eye icon' thing.
 2. Pressing Esc must exit out of scene browser mode.

But the final, hair-pulling problem is: Camera and Preview tabs DON'T MATCH, in size or position. After 30 minutes of fruitless camera positioning, I finally got something close, by dumb luck. But I switched to Preview, and found that its view was closer, and had cut off the front corner of my object! How frustrating. If there is one thing you absolutely must fix, it is:

 3. Make the Camera and Preview tabs EXACTLY MATCH, both in window size and position -- WYSIWYG.

The Payoff
==========
It took me 2 hours to make an absurdly simple icon -- most of that was fighting the camera positioning/preview in the renderer. But the icon group it finally produced was truly outstanding.

Conclusion
==========
Technically, this is an awesome product. But it has real User Interface problems, which make it very hard for me to recommend this program. Let's put it this way: of the people who evaluate your product and don't buy, 30% will give up when trying to size and position the 3D objects, and 70% will give up when trying to position the camera. Solving these issues means more money in your pocket.

-Ken

Vlasta on April 24th 2006 0

First of all, thanks for the feedback, it is the main thing that allows us to improve the app.

Many of the problems you mention are hardcoded and can only be fixed in a future version, but I will at least try provide few temporary workarounds and hints.

U3D:
one hint: middle mouse button also rotates the view, but uses another method (the "virtual trackball") and it is a bit less sensitive; if you like this method more than the default one, you may eventually reconfigure the view and swap functionality of the buttons

Rendering:
Setting camera is a big problem; we have no idea, what's the best way to do it using the input devices available (mouse, keyboard). There are actually four distinct ways how to set camera and none of them is "the one".
We usually use this method:
rotate the object using the the right view (3D editor), then transfer this setting to the document using the "Camera from 3D editor window" toolbar button

Switching to Floating mode forces the UP vector to be aligned with Y+ axis (as much as possible while keeping view direction). It is sometimes handy to briefly switch to this mode after setting the camera using the 3D editor window.

Invert-Y controls the orientation of Y axis when rotating the camera with mouse (when mouse is not visible).

The preview and camera window discrepancies:
This bug is caused by different front clipping planes in OpenGL (camera) and raytracing (preview) devices. We are aware of it but did not fix it, because it did not appear often enough. Oh well.
The workaround is not to zoom-in so much. There is no problem when the 3D object does not fill the entire window - during conversion to icon, the empty borders are automatically removed to maximize the size of the object (or if you just render to image, you may run the operation manually).

kismert on April 25th 2006 0

Vlasta,

Thanks for the tips -- they will help a lot.

The middle mouse key "virtual trackball" is a particularly nice tip.

Finding a good solution to the camera issue will come in time. I will try to 'get the hang' of it. Obviously, you can produce a lot of icons with it as is.

The program's saving grace is its very good-looking end product. It is hard to stay mad at it when it produces such nice results.

-Ken

Vlasta on April 25th 2006 0

Fixes for some of the problems are available: 
Front clipping plane in raytracing renderer: 
Download <a href="/2006.1/fix1/RWDeviceRayPP.dll">RWDeviceRayPP.dll</a> and replace the old file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\RealWorld\3D\ 
ESC key in scene browser makes mouse pointer visible: 
Download <a href="/2006.1/fix1/RWViewSceneBrowser.dll">RWViewSceneBrowser.dll</a>
and replace the old file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\RealWorld\3D\ 
Configurable window caption: 
Download <a href="/2006.1/fix1/RWDesignerCore.dll">RWDesignerCore.dll</a>,
replace the old file in C:\Program Files\Common Files\RealWorld\Designer\ and go to main menu->Tools->Application Options and choose what to display in caption.

kismert on April 26th 2006 0

Vlasta,

Cool -- I'll download and try them out this weekend.

-Ken