Does anyone else think the Front and Rear Perspective views (NumPad 1 and Ctrl+NumPad 1, respectively) in the 3D window are backwards?
Using the default cube, the Top Perspective looks towards the Z+ face, and Bottom Perspective looks towards the Z- face. Right Perspective views toward the X+ face, and Left Perspective views towards the X- face.
But Front Perspective views toward the Y- face, and Rear Perspective views toward the Y+ face, which seems exactly reversed from the X and Z axises.
Has anyone else noticed this oddity, or is there some user interface design principle that I don’t know about?
Top view = look from the top of the object = You see the object’s Top Face
Bottom view = look from the bottom of the object = You see the object’s Bottom Face
Front view = look from the front of the object = You see the object’s Front Face
Back view = look from the back of the object = You see the object’s Back Face
Right view = look from the Right of the object = You see the object’s Left Face
Left view = look from the Left of the object = You see the object’s Right Face
All true, except that Front View looks at the object’s Y- face. If the object moves towards the Front view, the Y value becomes negative. Back views looks at the Y+ face, and moving the object toward the view, the Y value becomes positive.
If you go to “Front” view, would you expect to see the back of a character’s head? (“camera-centric” convention used in entertainment CG)
In “Top” view would you expect the +Y axis to point down contrary to all expected convention? (i.e. X+ to the right/Y+ up/Z+ towards you in “top down” or “plan” view used by architects/civil eng. etc. - “engineering/math-centric” convention)
The only way maintain both of those conventions is to have Y+ towards you in “Front” view.
Yes I find it odd that Blender is confused when it comes to the Y+ direction. The default setup is setup to view from the back. You can rotate the camera to the front and resave the default to fix this. But the front view hotkey still views the back and the back hotkey still views the front.
Ran13, it would be nice if someone would correct it and set it so that Y+ is towards you in the front view. Of course I’m sure this would anger some users. But +Y to me is front. When I animate characters they are always default facing Y+. I have to use CTRL+1 to view the “front” of the character.(Which of course is Blender’s Rear view)
The only way maintain both of those conventions is to have Y+ towards you in “Front” view.
Exactly. And looking at those screenshots above, in “Front” view the Y+ is facing away, not towards. “Front” perspective does face the front of the object, but the front is on the Y- side. But if that is then the case, then the Y+ in “Top” view would be down instead of up, which is admittedly unconventional (at least from a 2d perspective).
Looking at Suzanne in the Front view does face the front of the head, but the Y+ is towards the back of the head.
Ugh, so confusing. Maybe this has something to do with Ben Kenobi’s line in Star Wars VI about truths being dependent on a person’s point of view.
