FirstPersonCamera Class

FirstPersonCamera is a camera that simulates the person's view on the world. It is defined by the Position of the person and the direction of the camera - defined by Heading, Attitude and Bank properties.

FirstPersonCamera also has some other properties that are common to all cameras that derive from SphericalCamera class.

The ShowCameraLight defines when the camera light is shown. The possible values are:

• Never – Never add additional camera light
• Auto – (Default value) Show camera light only if there is no other light defined in the Viewport3D controlled by the camera.
• Always – Always add a camera light

The CameraLight property is by default a DirectionalLight with White color. The value can be set to a new DirectionalLight with some other color. Other types of Lights are not supported - will not change according to the camera's changed.

Because SphericalCamera is derived from BaseCamera, the FirstPersonCamera also contains properties that are defined in BaseCamera and therefore common to all the cameras:

The Viewport3D that is controlled by this camera is defined by IsAutoViewport3DFindingEnabled, TargetViewport3D and TargetViewport3DName properties.

If the Window, Page or UserControl has only one Viewport3D, there is no need to set and of the above properties on the camera. By default the IsAutoViewport3DFindingEnabled is set to true and that means, that the Viewport3D is automatically find from the current UserControl, Page or Window and it is set to a TargetViewport3D property.

But if there are more Viewport3D objects defined, than by default the first Viewport3D will be used by the camera. With setting the TargetViewport3D or TargetViewport3DName it is possible to specify which Viewport3D will be controlled by the camera.

The First person camera also defines methods to simplify the "persons" movement:
MoveForward(Double), MoveBackward(Double), MoveRight(Double), MoveLeft(Double), MoveDown(Double), MoveUp(Double), StrafeCamera(Double, Double, Double) and MoveCamera(Vector3D).

The following xaml creates a Viewport3D with a 3D Box and a FirstPersonCamera that is looking at the Box from (50, 50, 100). Because there is no light defined in the Viewport3D and the default value of the camera's ShowCameraLight property is true, the cameras adds a light that is illuminating the scene.

The sample also defines a MouseCameraController to control the camera with the mouse and a CameraControlPanel that shows some nice buttons that can be also used to control the camera.

<Page x:Class="PowerToysSamples"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:visuals="clr-namespace:Ab3d.Visuals;assembly=Ab3d.PowerToys"
    xmlns:ab3dControls="clr-namespace:Ab3d.Controls;assembly=Ab3d.PowerToys"  
    xmlns:cameras="clr-namespace:Ab3d.Cameras;assembly=Ab3d.PowerToys">
    <Grid>
        <Viewport3D>
            <visuals:BoxVisual3D Size="20 20 20" Material="Blue"/>
        </Viewport3D>

        <cameras:FirstPersonCamera Position="50 50 100" Heading="45" Attitude="-20"/>

        <ab3dControls:MouseCameraController/>

        <ab3dControls:CameraControlPanel VerticalAlignment="Bottom" HorizontalAlignment="Left"/>
    </Grid>
</Page>

Reference