[Plugin]FPS Nav

Alan Chatham

First Person Shooter Navigation

Updated 07 March 2012

Fixed bug that prevented movement after entering the top-down perspective
Added nice options dialog

In addition to arrow keys and WASD, you can now use the Numpad to navigate - 8456 move on the X-Y plane, and 7 and 9 move you down and up. Movement speed and mouse sensitivity (in the Plugins/FPSNav menu) now save across sessions.

So, I'm new to 3d modeling, and rather than just getting used to the zoom controls of SketchUp like a normal person, I decided to make a plug-in that allows you to move through the scene with either the arrow keys or the standard FPS WASD controls, with mouselook when you click. However, I'm also new to plugin authoring, and so I'm looking for some feedback on this plugin. You can download it here: http://www.openchord.org/FPSNav.rbz

It should show up on your toolbar (or if not, you can find it in View->Toolbars->FPSNav). Click on it, and it works the following way:

Navigate on the X-Y plane using the arrow keys
Alternately, hold 'Shift' and use WASD to move (if you don't hold shift, you'll just activate other tools. Damn hotkeys)
Also while holding 'Shift', use Q to lower your height and E to rise upwards
To rotate the camera, Left-click and hold, then drag the mouse around
To move at 10 times the normal speed, hold Right-click

I'd love to get some feedback on this tool, or even just tips on better ways to control the movement. Thanks!

danbig

Hi Alan -

Welcome to the boards, and thank you for this incredible plugin. I've wanted something like this on multiple occasions, and I think this approach makes more sense than the built in walk through tool.

Here are my thoughts after trying it out:

It looks like, if I've mapped a custom shortcut to WSAD, that over rides this plugin (even if I use shift). There may not be a way around this.

Could you display the eye height in the VCB, and allow the user to specify and eye height?

Krisidious

awesome... I can dig this.

Gaieus

Hi Alan and indeed welcome and thanks for the plugin (although I will probably not use it personally).

What I know however is that you should be able to override custom shortcuts when the plugin is active. ThomThom made his Vertex Edit tool this way for instance so just dive in down in the developers forum and ask around (but do not ask me...).

Panga

Thanks Alan and welcome here, I'll try right now !!

Alan Chatham

Thanks for the feedback so far! I'm interested to know that there may be a way to override keyboard shortcuts... Unfortunately, Google's API documentation just tends to be kinda anemic (not just for SketchUp either). I'll try and get some of the improvements done this afternoon, and post them here then.

I also found out that the built-in navigation (zoom, pan, rotate) tools make a lot more sense and are a lot more easy to use when you're using a mouse... like I said, I'm super new to this. I do all my work on a laptop and only rarely plug a mouse in, and so 'using a trackpad' is the context in which I'm developing this. Just some trivia~

AppleHaven

Dude, this is wonderful! I've been looking for this for a while, and couldn't understand why it wasn't made yet. It makes getting a feel for the environment so much better. One million thanks! Next step: collision detection?

tspco

Not bad at all, since I am a mouser from way back, it will take some time.
A joystick would be great if SU supported such a thing.
Now a question, is there a way to vary the speed of movement, besides normal and fast?

Jorgensen

Hi Alan

Just stubled over your plugin, and what a nice found

I have a few questions:

It is possible to change the 'speedkey' from the right mousebutton to the Shift key like it's normal in games (an some editors)? - right now I often get the context menu when using the plugin.

I can move while just pressing WASD - I don't need to activate 'shift' wich I find nice

Would it be possible to 'activate' your scipt automatic when ever WASD is pressed?

Or could one activate / deactivate with a shortcut?

Thanks

Alan Chatham

I finally got some time and energy to do a little more work on this plugin, and have made a few little changes -

-You can now use the numeric keypad to move as well, with 7 and 9 moving up and down
-Movement speed and mouse sensitivity data is stored across sessions

Jorgensen, what platform are you running on? I'll look into alternate keyboard shortcuts to use for moving quickly, but at least on Windows 7, shift is needed to prevent the other tools to be selected when using WASD, which sucks, since it tires out the fingers... If there's something different about your platform, I'd love to make it more feature-rich for systems that support it.

JClements

Alan,

So I toggle FPS on. I click on the TopView icon. Next I use one of the arrow keys.

As soon as I do this the axis rotates 180+ degrees and the camera is no longer looking straight down. Is this the proper behavior?

Jorgensen

Hi Alan

I've just started to play around with Lumion witch uses the WASD+shift combination - just like FPS games, and I find it a very easy way to navigate around the model..... but when I go back to Sketchup it takes some time to get use to navigate the Sketchup way - mousewheel mousewheel mousewheel mousewheel mousewheel....

So what I really would like a WASD navigation in Sketchup - and it Should work without I need to activated it by pressing a menu button first.

That's my dream, but I sure know the limitations of Skethup, and it might not be possible to do at all.

I use Windows 7.

Could shiftloc be of any use? - I find the right click mousebutton quite problematic, because the context menu keeps popping up

Thanks

btw - I can't figure out why it's not implemented in Sketchup as default.

Michaelv

Of course keys are not working on mac.

I already have the keys implemented (arrows keys only) and changed the up down movement to > and < and option/command.
I also used right double click for speed X10 (which I may reduce)

I am planning to use modifier plus arrows for rotating camera up down left right, but rotating around, not rotating the field of view. Working on it.

Alan Chatham

Let me know how you go, Michael. I'm possibly making some changes to how the camera code works today (it should be minor, but basically it currently creates a new camera and uses that, which means it screws up if you use it in conjunction with panning and tilting, so I want to change that).

JClements - That is unintended! It's an unforseen consequence of the mouselook code, which currently clamps the horizontal angle within a certain range. I'll try and get that fixed today.

Michaelv

I'll modify accordingly once you modify the camera stuff.

I'm thinking along these lines:
Arrows: pan left/right/backward/forward
Option/Command pans down/up
Control plus arrows orbits left right, up down
<,> changes field of view in and out (but needs a standard reset)
Right double click toggles high speed motion/slow speed

Also I would not come back to a standard view every time, I'd start with the current camera view, which means the mouse orbit,zoom and pan still work.

PMed the current code

Stevo

Alan, hey this looks like something I've wanted for a while; especially after playing with Lumion. I downloaded the file and put it in my Plugin folder and I still cant get it working. What is the rbz extension? Where do I put it? Sadly I seem to be having a senior moment....urghh and I'm 48!

Rich O Brien

.rbz is installed under Windows > Preferences > Extensions under SU v8 M2

Or just rename the .rbz extension to .zip and unzip it.

Stevo

Thank you Rich. Alls good, this is a great little Plugin Alan, thank you.

Alan Chatham

Thanks! I'm glad you like it!

DANSTAZ

Hi this is my first post, and i would like to know if you have the time to answer, does this work like a game in terms of say COD where by the camera pans via the mouse (i noticed you said you didn't use a mouse generaly) and the movement is via the wasd keys? THanks for you time and a massive thanks to all the ruby coders.