In this tutorial, you will learn about how to create a scene, navigate the scene, using both keyboard and mouse, by controlling the free camera.

1. Scene creation

When ZenCub3d is first started, there are three buttons in the starting screen: left click [About...] to learn more about ThinkingCactus and the forum links; left click [New From Template] to create a scene from scratch; left click [Load From File] to load a saved scene from file.

Left click on [New From Template] to open the wizard for scene creation. After reading the helpful and heart-warming welcome message, left click on the [pick environment] tab on the left to start creating a scene. The environment is divided into two parts, sky and landscape. Both can be selected by left clicking on the toggle buttons in [pick a sky] and [pick a landscape] respectively. On top of the scroll bar under each category, dragging with middle mouse button helps with navigation. Pick [cloudy0] for sky and [desert0] for landscape for now, and left click [Next >] at bottom right or left click [add character] tab on the left to go to the [add characters] interface.

Note: Left click [Finish] while still in [pick environment] interface will create a scene without adding characters.

Left click on the templates to toggle on/off the character to be added to the scene. Left click on multiple templates to add multiple characters. Left click [Finish] to create the scene.

2. Scene navigation

There are help messages located at the left of the window by default, when in doubt about what to do next, read the help. Toggle the help messages on/off by [F1].

When you first enter the scene, nothing is selected, and all that's in the scene are a field and a complementary light setting. What you see in [Scene] window is what the camera sees, so we would like to learn how to control the camera.

Mouse commands for navigation in [Scene] window:

• Scroll middle mouse wheel up and down – zoom in and out of the camera focus. (Technically dolly close to/away from the focus)

• Drag with middle mouse button/wheel – move both camera and focus positions up/down/left/right. (Technically both dolly and crane.)

• [Shift] + drag with middle mouse button/wheel – move and rotate the camera positions around the focus while keeping the same distance between camera and focus. (Technically pan/tilt/dolly/crane around the focus.)

Of the keyboard commands that allow you to navigate within the [Scene] window:

• [F] key – make the selected character or prop the focus of the camera.

• [C] key – centre and close-up to the selected character or prop, press [C] key again to go back to previous camera position.

• [up arrow] and [down arrow] keys – zoom in or out of the camera focus. (Technically, it's more like dollying close to and away from the focus rather than zoom.)

• [left arrow] and [right arrow] keys – rotate the camera horizontally around the focus while keeping the same distance between camera and focus. (Technically a combination of pan and dolly.)

• [Page Up] and [Page Down] keys – rotate around the focus vertically. (Technically a combination of tilt, crane and a little dolly.)

• [Shift + left/right/Page Up/Page Down] keys – finer movement of the respective camera movements.

It's time to save the scene. Right click or press [Space] when nothing is selected to open a generic radial menu, and left click on [save]. Type in a suitable name in the dialogue box and [Save].