Austin S. Presents the DUNE 3D Manual

sometimes I stop to think, but forget to start again

-Austin S

using dune (morph 3d 6)

each window in dune is divided into 6 areas: toolbars, the route view, the tree view, the 3d view, the field view, and the channel view. all views and toolbars can be hidden (see the "View" menu), except for the 3d view which is always in the center of the window.

dune is a multi-window app, but it does not use MDI (the multiple document interface). each window in dune opens in a separate top-level window. each window has its own toolbars and menus, and represents one open document.

the 3d view

in the 3d view, you may view and manipulate the objects in the scene in a rendered view. most objects have "handles" which you may drag to change the object's parameters. by default, handles are shown for the currently-selected object. however, in the preferences dialog, you can also choose "show handles for all items", or "show handles never" (see Options::Preferences).

Keys:

CTRL	rotate the view around the point of interest (mouse movement).
SHIFT	zoom the view towards or away from the point of interest (vertical mouse movement).
up arrow	move towards the point of interest.
down arrow	move backwards, away from the point of interest.
left arrow	turn left.
right arrow	turn right.

two modifier keys are important in the 3d view: SHIFT and CTRL. holding SHIFT causes the view to zoom, and holding CTRL rotates the view around the origin (0, 0, 0). you can also use the arrow keys to navigate the scene in a quake/doom-like fashion (left and right arrows turn the view left and right, up and down arrows move forward and backward respectively).

the tree view

to the left of the 3d view is the tree view. this view shows all the objects in the scene hierarchy, represented as a tree. each child node is shown as being contained by its parent. by default, the field in which that node is contained is not shown, but this can be enabled in the preferences dialog.

the tree view may be used to select objects, to examine the hierarchy, and via drag and drop, to move, copy and instance objects. while dragging, the cursor will change to reflect a valid move, copy or link. nodes can only be dropped on those parents which allow that child (eg., Material nodes can only be dropped on Appearance).

Keys:

CTRL	copy a node (while dragging).
CTRL and SHIFT	link, or instance a node.

since instancing (DEF/USE in VRML terms) allows the scene graph to be a graph rather than a tree, instances after the first are represented using little arrows superimposed on the icon (like links or shortcuts in windows). however, they behave just like the first one in terms of showing properties, etc.

the field view

to the right of the 3d view is the field view. here, the fields (attributes) of the currently-selected object are shown. different field types interact differently, but there is some commonality. numerical fields may be dragged, by putting the cursor in the field and dragging the mouse left/right. selecting a field's value when it is already selected causes a text entry popup to come up to enter or edit a numerical value.