Moonlight|3D Frequently Asked Questions
I downloaded and extracted the archive, but when I try to start the program, it won't run. What's up?
Make sure that you have a current Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed for your system. You need to have at least version 1.5 of the JRE for Moonlight|3D to run. Please download and install the JRE for your platform from http://java.sun.com.
Moonlight|3D seemed to start without problems, but all I see is a grey area where the 3d view should be. What's wrong?
This is perfectly fine. The initial viewing angle for the 3D view is chosen badly. Press CTRL+LMB+RMB and drag the mouse in the 3D view to move through the scene. Other mouse button combinations let you rotate the mouse and pan the view sidewards. Experiment with this for a while.
The current user interface is crap! Why have you built something which is that bad?
The current user interface is indeed bad. We are aware of that problem. But this is also an early prototype that got built as we went along. Our main focus up to now was on the inner values of the program, but this is going to change. We've started a nearly complete rewrite of the code that is responsible for all the interaction the 3D view. We expect it to become available starting in mid-2006.
Why isn't there a user manual available?
Because it hasn't been written yet. While a user manual will be needed and has been thought of by the developers, that project hasn't been tackled seriously yet. However, if you want to help others understand Moonlight|3D feel free to ask about the user manual on #moonlight3d or tell us about any documentation you've written yourself. We'll happily help you spread the word about this.
I thought that Java was cross-platform. So why are there only Linux and Windows versions available?
The truth is, that Java programs are indeed cross-platform. However, Moonlight|3D depends on native libraries for various features. And these libraries need to be ported and compiled seperately for every supported platform. And since the main developers work mainly on Linux it is quite hard for them to maintain support for additional platforms. This is why there is currently only a Windows and a Linux version.
We also tried to work on a MacOS X version of Moonlight|3D but as it turns out we made a few UI design decisions in the past that are now firing back at us. Currently, there is a running version of Moonlight|3D for Mac, but until these UI issues are addressed, it will unfortunately be unuseable. The first binary relesae for Mac OS will be made once these issues have been resolved.
You say that Moonlight|3D is open source. Then why isn't there a source archive?
Indeed, we make the source code of Moonlight|3D available under the terms of the MPL. It is available through Subversion. See MoonlightCompiling for instructions on getting the current sources. We do not build a source archive because building Moonlight|3D unfortunately is quite an effort right now and it cannot even be done properly outside of Eclipse at the time of this writing, making use of several components taken directly from Eclipse's CVS repository. So we believe that building a source code archive will not help anybode right now. But we plan to adress this in the future with a stand-alont ant based build process which can be run indepently of Eclipse or any other third party components.
Meanwhile you can browse the sources through our Subversion repository browser: http://www2.futureware.at/projects/Moonlight/browser
