Exploring

Daggerfall Explorer has two varieties of media view, one for bitmaps and one for 3D scenes. This part of the manual describes how to get the most from these views.

Bitmaps

3D Scene

Bitmaps

This is the easiest view to navigate, and should be instantly familiar. Once you have selected a bitmap in the Arena View, its contents will be displayed in the Media View. The Daggerfall file formats often compress many images into one file, so it's not uncommon to see more than one bitmap at a time. Some files even have animation, which Daggerfall Explorer will play for you.

If the contents of the bitmap view are larger than your screen area, you will have scroll bars available to bring the rest into view. When formatting a page, Daggerfall Explorer will start a new row if the right-hand edge goes off the display. This means you will usually only have to scroll up and down. If you have a scroll mouse you will be able to scroll up and down using your mouse wheel.

Daggerfall Explorer will play all bitmap animations by default. If you would rather see the images individually, click the button on the toolbar. This will disable animations and bring the still images into view.

You can enlarge a bitmap by clicking the button to zoom in. You can also click the button to zoom back out again. All bitmaps can be scaled between 1x and 8x zoom.

3D Scenes

This is the most interesting and rewarding view Daggerfall Explorer has to offer. Because it works in all three dimensions, navigation can be a little more challenging until you get the hang of it. To make things easier, Daggerfall Explorer will approximate ideal viewing distance every time you select a new object. This is most noticeable in the 3D Object view as every object is scaled to fit comfortably within your display area.

There are two methods of navigating a 3D scene. The first is Object Mode. This is the default viewing mode and represented by the button on the toolbar. In this mode you are manipulating the object directly in front of you. You can spin the object around, move it forwards and backwards, and drag it up, down, left and right.

The second method for navigating a scene is Camera Mode, represented by the button on the toolbar. This is the more flexible of the two modes as it allows you to drive a camera through the scene in a fashion similar to popular first-person games. You can use the mouse to look in any direction, and move through the scene as you wish. This is the recommended mode for viewing 3D Blocks as it provides the most immersion into the scene.

The controls used for Object Mode and Camera Mode are identical, but the action taken will depend on which mode you are in. The general rule is the left mouse button for rotation, the right mouse button for translation (movement). The SHIFT key is used to change which axis translation applies to. If all that sounds confusing, just follow the command summary below.

Object Mode

[Left Mouse]
By depressing the left mouse button in the media view and dragging your pointer around, you will cause the object to spin based on how you move the mouse. Moving your pointer left and right will spin the object left and right. Moving your pointer up and down will spin the object away from you and towards you.

[Right Mouse]
By depressing the right mouse button in the media view and dragging your pointer around, you will move the object in the same direction you move your pointer. The further away the object is, the slower it will appear to move.

[Right Mouse + SHIFT]
Similar to above, but dragging the mouse up and down will move the object backwards and forwards. Movement is locked on this axis, so if you want to drag the object in another direction, you must release the SHIFT key.

Camera Mode

[Left Mouse]
By depressing the left mouse button in the media view and dragging your pointer around, you control the direction your camera is facing in. If you look up or down too far the direction metric is inverted, similar to the "invert mouse" option in first-person games.

[Right Mouse]
When you depress the right mouse button in the media view and move your pointer, you are making the camera move up, down, left and right. You may feel as if you're moving in the opposite direction from when you used this function in Object Mode. This is because you are moving the camera, not the object itself.

[Right Mouse + SHIFT]
If you hold down the SHIFT key while using your right mouse button, you will cause the camera to move forwards and backwards. This gives you a fine degree of control over camera movement. This function is ideal when exploring the insides of buildings.

Keyboard Controls

When in Camera Mode there are several keys that may be used in addition to the mouse. While this version of Daggerfall Explorer does not allow you to rebind key mappings, there are bindings for both left and right-handed people.

Technical Note: Daggerfall Explorer samples keyboard state at a rate of 40hz. If your frame rate falls below this frequency, movement will begin to slow down. On low-end machines dragging the mouse can result in keyboard state not being sampled. This is a technical difficulty encountered when using DirectInput and the Windows message pump in one view. I am working on correcting this in a later release of Daggerfall Explorer.

[W, S, A, D] and [Cursor Up, Down, Left, Right]
These keys move you forwards, backwards, left and right in the scene.

[Q, E] and [Z, C] and [Page Up, Page Down]
These keys move you up and down in the scene.

[SHIFT + Movement Key]
Using any of the above keys with the SHIFT key depressed will slow movement down to about 1/3. This is useful when you are inside a building and want to move a little slower.

Tip: If you find that you've put yourself into a difficult orientation and want to get out quickly, select View > Reset from the menu. This returns both the object and camera to their initial state. The view will also be reset if you change between Object Mode and Camera Mode or change to another object.

That covers all available control methods for your views. If you're comfortable with zooming around blocks and are ready for something a little more interesting, move on the Fun page to learn about the cool features in Daggerfall Explorer.

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