Hopefully you can talk the client out of it. The easiest 3D interfaces always involve a 2D manipulation within the context of a 3D view so I always wonder if it would have been better to simply to provide a 2D view anyway.
IMO, the 3D Super Mario games have the best UI for navigating along a surface in 3D but it requires simultaneous manipulation of two joysticks - one for locomotion and one for looking around. The Google Lively interface tried to provide the next best thing that you could do on a desktop with just your mouse - here's an interactive mockup of the interaction: http://www.vizmo.com/design/dragNav3d.html Move your viewpoint by dragging and releasing the avatar. Look around or zoom by dragging elsewhere. Continuous scrolling is handier - the camera starts moving as soon as you move the avatar far enough as in this demo: http://www.vizmo.com/design/chessGizmo03.html For content thats not so ecological you could do this without an avatar by simply dragging ground or wall-like surfaces, but then you lose the rotation handle. This is a bit more like Cool Iris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Posted from the new ixda.org http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=36858 ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
