eScape - a 3D Desktop Replacement

jox · Post by **jox** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:38 pm

The thing is, that if you move around with the cursor keys, you are able to look around with the mouse WITHOUT pressing the right mouse button. You are able to do this until you release the cursor keys. Now if the mouse still moves when you release the (all) cursor keys, it "freezes" the mouse movement and rotates in that last direction forever. Maybe that helps.

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:50 pm

Brill! That's great feedback to help me squish the bug

jox · Post by **jox** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:00 pm

Don't have mercy!

Ronin · Post by **Ronin** » Thu May 05, 2005 9:17 am

Hi,
did not try it yet, cause I had nothing but trouble with 3D Desktops till now, but I'm very interested in it. Might check it out, is this release stable, or are there still serious problems occuring?

One question: What if I start a 3D Application (like games) from within your 3D desktop, will it completely unloaded before loading the app or remains it in the background, still using cpu cycles, video memory for textures and stuff like that?

niko · Post by **niko** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:11 am

A little bit late: Nice program, and quite interesting way of using Irrlicht.

Looking forward to more, an application like this offers really cool possibilities of extending the desktop.

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Thu May 05, 2005 11:57 am

Niko >> Glad you like it!

Obviously most of the credit goes to your engine. Just don't change it too much or I'll have more work to do

(BTW: New site layout is very nice)

Ronin >> I'd be interested to hear what other 3D desktops you'd tried, particularly what didn't work for you. Wouldn't want to make the same mistakes!

As for stability, by the feedback I've received, it is quite stable. There's not many features in this release, but the idea's there

Good question about launching other games. I have tested this with a few games and eScape doesn't interfere with them too much, but obviously there's a performance hit. Currently eScape does not "hybernate" when another program is running fullscreen, but I plan to implement something like this.

Testur · Post by **Testur** » Fri May 06, 2005 10:21 am

I have tried a couple of "3D desktops", but those where you walk around just makes things more difficult to use than the regular desktop. What would be intresting though is something that works in a similar way to Sun's Project Looking Glass. That would spice things up.

Looking Glass Quicktime

Liquidream · Post by **Liquidream** » Fri May 06, 2005 1:04 pm

Testur >> I have seen Project Looking Glass before, and have to admit it looks great. I don't ever plan to try to implement windows in 3D (rotate, flip, etc) for two reasons: (1) I don't really think it's very good from a usability point of view, and (2) to be completely honest - I have no idea where to start implementing that!

As far as moving around goes - I'm with you on that one (at the risk of criticising my own work!). I have always been in two minds on whether manual movement (cursor keys) should be allowed, but left it in for this release to gauge reaction.

I plan to have "Guided movement". Where, for example, if you are in a room or in an open field and want to move to another area of interest: you simply click on it. What eScape would then do is pan/move the camera on a smooth path to the destination. Thereby avoiding all need for manual/messy cursor-key movement.

There may well be people that like to "walk free", so the manual keyboard movement would probably stay so that both options are there.

Thanks for the feedback tho!