Adventure Creator - Make 3D adventure games (DEMO, VIDEO, WEBSITE)

any chance to Integrate this with UMA.

 

I got this error fixed with a reinstall of AC, maybe it was corrupt.

 

Hey, Chris, is it possible to create a menu in menu manager, which will pop up on hostpots to show the items the hotspots contain?
for instance, there's a gun in some box, to get that gun i'm clicking the box and some kind of menu pops up with the icon of the gun, just as in fallout 2.

 

Update 1.26 is out! The main to grab it is the fix of a rather large Mecanim-based bug that 1.25 brought, but there are some nice new features for making keyboard or controller-only games, including the Grim Fandango-like ability to "cycle" through available Hotspots:

• Added: Option to cycle multiple Hotspots in Direct-control games when Hotspot detection method is set to Player Vicinity
• Added: Selected inventory items in a menu will display their active texture if one is assigned
• Added: Inventory box type "Display Selected" - use to show currently selected inventory item, is not clickable
• Added: Inventory box type: "Display last selected" - use to quickly select last-chosen inventory item, is clickable
• Added: Ability to select/combine inventory items in pausing menus - useful for keyboard or controller-only games
• Added: Menus of appear type On Interaction have option to pause game when enabled
• Fixed: Inventory interactions not resulting in correct gameplay state
• Fixed: Issue where 3D Mecanim-based characters were no longer animating
• Fixed: Issues with keyboard-controlled menus
• Fixed: Namespace issues with ActionInteraction script

Not officially for the moment, since UMA is still very much in beta mode. However, I don't see why UMA-generated characters wouldn't work with Adventure Creator. Just un-child the UMA character from it's top-level parent, and add either the NPC or Player script, and it looks like it should work.

Are you placing down Collision Cubes in the correct place? For "top-down" 2D games, character sprites are rotated on their side, but their colliders remain upright, so you'll need to make sure the CollisionCubes you place down cover the full range in the Y-axis.

I believe the Clear Flags enforcement was made as a result of the 2.5D camera - I will check to see if this is not necessary for other types.

As for pathfinding, do you still have the baked NavMesh? I got a report once that the baked NavMesh wasn't being loaded into the scene on an AC install - try re-baking the NavMesh and seeing if that works for you.

Not at the moment, I'm afraid, though curiously enough I did actually have something similar working long ago - back when I wasn't sure if I was developing an RPG or adventure engine! Will have a think about it..

 

Discovered mecanim is mostly fixed, but there is another bug hiding behind the first one apparently!

If you use Character: Animate and change parameter (bool in my case) for a mecanim NPC it is still causing a crash in 1.26.

UnassignedReferenceException: The variable spriteChild of 'NPC' has not been assigned.
You probably need to assign the spriteChild variable of the NPC script in the inspector.
UnityEngine.Component.GetComponent[Animator] () (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/artifacts/EditorGenerated/UnityEngineComponent.cs:187)
AnimEngine_Mecanim.ActionCharAnimRun (.ActionCharAnim action) (at Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/Animation/AnimEngine_Mecanim.cs:117)
ActionCharAnim.Run () (at Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/Actions/ActionCharAnim.cs:94)
ActionList+<RunAction>c__Iterator1.MoveNext () (at Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/ActionList/ActionList.cs:138)
UnityEngine.MonoBehaviour:StartCoroutine(String, Object)
ActionListrocessAction(Int32) (at Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/ActionList/ActionList.cs:124)
ActionList:BeginActionList(Int32) (at Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/ActionList/ActionList.cs:102)
ActionList:Interact() (at Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/ActionList/ActionList.cs:68)
<UseObject>c__Iterator3:MoveNext() (at Assets/AdventureCreator/Scripts/Controls/PlayerInteraction.cs:646)

 

hi chris, just a quick question...

how do i loop actionlists in general? (i tried running the same actionlist out of the actionlist, but this only ran it twice, not continuesly.)

in my case: i've got a NPC which moves on a path (unfortunately when i select loop, the path gets closed, even when "teleport to start" is checked.... (bug?) so my character hits a wall or falls to infinity ) so i tried to loop this specific action but had no success... any ideas? thanks!

 

I'm still having a hard time updating adventure creator without it overwriting all my managers every time. I renamed them and moved them out of the tutorial folder, but they still end up overwritten by the tutorial versions when I update. So I lose all my variables and end up with only the barrel tipped one. And the same for the other managers.

I'm backing up the whole project to a different drive outside unity, then exiting unity and copying the managers back over the updated ones after updating adventure creator in windows. That does seem to work, but I feel that can't be the intended behaviour. What am I doing wrong? Is it because they started off as the tutorial ones and I renamed them? How can I tell it that they aren't the tutorial files any more?

Thanks.

 

Hi again; after toying with it a little bit, i have to say that this asset is amazing; and I will totally use it in my game; I have a question tho:

Is this extension compatible with the Unity "Locomotion Sytem"? I've managed to get the head controller script working; but I can't get the foot placement (the leg animator script) to work with the player script... has anyone accomplished this? is it possible? will be implemented in the future?

I think it would be a nice addition to the extension, as it is now; my character trying to climb stairs looks awful, and I don't want to create a custom animation for every single staircase in my game xD. Thanks for your time!

EDIT: Weird stuff. When I start playing the scene, I get a NullreferenceException and the leg placement doesn't work. BUT if I uncheck the leg animator script and then check it again (while the game is running), it works.

screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/2nrYmhh.png?1

 

Hey!

I loop actionlists doing this:

- First action is empty = Engine Wait (0)
- On last action = After running SKIP to action 1.

You can't skip to action 0, that's why you need a dummy first action 0.

I use this for some background looping clouds

 

Sure they're not still there, but you need to reassign them as the managers used in your settings?

 

you sure It could potentialize this as an add on to provide the characters dynamically

 

Hi Chris, I'm loving this tool. I'm a recent convert from AGS, and I'm trying to put together an Sierra style adventure/rpg hybrid with Adventure Creator, and so far the only thing I can't seem to really figure out on my own is setting variables based on other variables. What I mean is pretty much setting the value of Health = Vitality + 0.1* Luck, for example.

I understand that scripting is required for this, which I am just plain terrible at. I think I understand that Unity uses custom scripts to generate components, with which I can manually set various parameters for these variables, and presumably I can create one of these to be used as an action, or I can modify the Variable: Set script to have the math options I'm looking for (A x B, A / B, A x 0.5B, etc.)

So my question is can this be done easily? If so can someone give me a short explanation?

Another issue I'm having is with positioning menu elements. I am trying to set my new Stats menu to be full screen and then manually positioning each of the labels and buttons, but when I play the game in full screen mode the relative positions of all of the elements change quite a bit, while playing in window mode works fine. Could this just be a problem with the maximize on play setting in the game window of the editor or would this problem also occur after the game is built? Any workaround anyone can think of?

Besides that, this is a fantastic tool and it really simplifies development quite a bit! Bravo!

 

Looks great. I'm almost certainly gonna take the jump.

One question. Is localization possible? i.e. can we change languages and/or language files easily enough?

 

That's the confusing thing. Now the managers are renamed and outside the tutorial folder, it loses them when updating and they're all blank. But if I relocate them and bring them back in, the data in them has been overwritten by the tutorial anyway. I'm not sure how Unity manages to keep track of files like that. Is it the meta files? If so, can I stop it thinking they're part of the tuorial files?

Will I have to make a brand new, unrelated project? And if I do, can I import the data from this one without the same thing happening? I've only got two scenes so far, but I really want to work out how best to deal with updates before going much further in case I need to start again.

On another point, I'm having a hard time keeping data between scenes. I've got some very simple visible/ invisible objects and they work ok with the remember visibility script, but some others just won't stay on or off even though they seem the same. I've been over the save/load tutorial video, but I'm not sure if it's entirely the same situation as saving and loading. Perhaps a more in-depth video for dealing with multiple scenes would be useful to others too.

Thanks

 

thanks! but it doesn't let me SKIP back just ahead "???".... what am i doing wrong?

 

Hi, Im having trouble with Dialogue : Play Speech. My NPC's Jaw either drops to the ground or it spins depending on the kind of movement I apply to it. Is there something specific I must do in my rigging or is it something wrong in my scene? Has this happened to anyone else?
Im using Legacy and Custom Face on my NPC Script. The same script works if I use Brain.

 

Got this working. User error. I forgot I'd set up some stuff in the Intro Cutscene and it was conflicting.

 

Hi Chris,

Sorry if this was asked before, but I'm having a bit of trouble. While in first person mode when I go to click on a hotspot object, I can't see the text dialogue. I know the hotspot is working because my character starts her talking animation and it pauses for 15 seconds, but I don't see any text. There is also no description for the hot spot label when I hover over it with the mouse curser. Any ideas? Thank you!

 

hi chris
please make new tutorial for " speech "
current in my console show this " There are 2 audio listeners in the scene. Please ensure there is always exactly one audio listener in the scene."
i don't know how to fix it !

 

thanhle,
that sounds like you have an extra camera that has an audio listener. Check your cameras. Only one Object (usually a camera) is allowed to have an audio listener at any one time.
Cheers,
orrence.

 

Very nice. I'll have to check this out. How many hours have you put into this so far?!

 

Sorry about that. An official fix will be released in the next update, but for now you can fix the problem by modifying the AnimEngine_Mecanim.cs script (inside AdventureCreator/Scripts/Animation).

Replace line 117:

Code (csharp):

1. animator = character.spriteChild.GetComponent <Animator>();

with:

Code (csharp):

1. animator = character.GetComponent <Animator>();

Well, if the Path is set to Loop, it should be closed! I don't follow what you're trying to do exactly. Looping ActionLists generally should work - just be sure to always have a pausing action in there somewhere, things get screwy if the looping ActionList completes instantaneously.

This sounds more like an issue with the way Unity references assets. Try duplicating the Managers, rather than renaming and moving them - if AC finds the original managers where they should be when you update, your copied managers should be left alone.

Not for the moment, I'm afraid, but your early experiment sounds promising. I will take a further look when I get a chance.

Thanks, I'm an AGS "alumni" myself. You can't currently change variables based on other variables, but accessing them through script is easy enough. Each Variable has an ID number (which is displayed to the left of each Variable in the Variables Manager). This is an identifier that you can use to change certain variables, using the RuntimeVariables script.

To get the value of a variable:

Code (csharp):

1. GameObject.FindWithTags (Tags.persistentEngine).GetComponent <RuntimeVariables>().GetVarValue (int id);

To set the value of an integer variable:

Code (csharp):

1. GameObject.FindWithTags (Tags.persistentEngine).GetComponent <RuntimeVariables>().SetValue (int id, int newValue, SetVarMethod setVarMethod);

As for your Stats menu, could you post some shots to demonstrate your problem? Sometimes elements need a screen refresh to re-position themselves, but this isn't necessary when running a compiled game. Have you tried building your game yet?

Yes - everything from dialogue to hotspot labels can be translated, and the language can be set in-game by the player.

Make sure that your custom animation only "keys" the mouth bones, and that you've assigned your Jaw/Head bones correctly in the Player inspector.

Have you made a new (blank) Menu Manager? If you have, you will need to create a Subtitles Menu before speech will display - otherwise just use the Demo_MenuManager asset to display speech using the demo game's GUI.

I'd rather not know

 

think of a character who moves through the set and vanishes at the end, but has to reappear on the right side and repeat. I don't see a reason why a path which is open and set to "teleport to start" has to be closed to loop? obj moves from A to B, the gets teleported to start, and repeat.

how do i loop them? the SKIP behavior (like someone mentioned) only lets me skip action which follow, it doesn't allow me to jump back... or should i call the action within the same action but with a pause?

thanks!

 

oh thank orrence
i did it!

 

I just tried building the game and the same problem occurred. Here is a screenshot of the menu in the editor window-
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7352/12819259635_f5becb79f2_o.png

This is what it looks like when I test the game in the editor in full screen mode-
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2820/12819259835_61023c378b_o.png

And this is with the game built-
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7373/12819337803_bdd924bf7b_o.png


Just in case you wanted, here are some of the settings I have input in the menu manager:

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2844/12819337853_89463e7ceb_o.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3770/12819260555_c7e85ddd5c_o.jpg
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3693/12819337823_59b2555b8a_o.jpg

It looks like the problem occurs when I manually set the position of some elements. What units exactly are being used for that? It's fairly confusing because the size and position values for each of the actual menus seems to be between 0 and 100, but the position values for the elements don't have any limits, and it seems to relate to the screen or resolution size.

I would try to just stick to using the automatic positioning system, but the menu manager doesn't allow one to create multiple columns or rows of elements. I suppose a workaround would be combining several different menus and aligning them together in order to simulate a single menu, but that seems like a silly solution. Any insight? Thanks!

 

hi chris,

i get pretty heavy jittering on (label) text, when the camera moves slightly. the lower the resolution the game has, the worse it gets. could you add (if thats even supported by unity) an option for subPixel movements of the GUI elements?

i noticed the main character also "studders" a bit (very noticeable on faster machines), while the camera moves perfectly smooth.... is there a way to improve that?

thanks!

 

I didn't try with walking a path... But I would set the action list as:

Action 0 : Engine: Wait ->
Time to wait = 0
Action 1 : Walk path ->
Teleport to start ON
Pause until finish ON
After running: SKIP
Action # to skip to: 1 (myself!)

That's it ... this is my setup for a background cloud:

 

thanks! was this added in the recent release (didnt update yet) because my interaction panel looks like this:

 

Hi guys,

Using a 2D game camera here. Does anyone know how to get a particle system to render on top of the player rather than between the background image and the player? What if you want to control the depth? Is there a way to apply the sorting maps to particle effects?

I was able to achieve this by moving the player sort order backwards, but would like to figure out a controllable way to do this.

Also - is there a trick to using 3D characters with the new top-down 2D workflow? Seems my character always falls through the scenery unless I put a collision cube behind the 2D backdrop, but then the character animates top-down. What am I missing?

Is there a way to use sorting maps on any 3D elements?

Thanks!

 

I'm just starting to play around with this asset and am really loving what I've seen so far.

However, I think I've found an issue with the Inventory system (I searched the forum but couldn't find this mentioned).

If I set the Inventory 'Appear Type' to 'DuringGameplay' and the Inventory is currently empty - shouldn't the left and right arrows be inactive?

Indeed, shouldn't the arrows remain inactive until the Inventory needs to scroll because there are too many Inventory Items to display on the screen?

Also worth looking at, if the Inventory is scrolled to its right-most limit then the right arrow should be inactive and vice versa with the left arrow.

 

When i use action : changer scene , i just see scene number ... no have name or Drag and Drop file.scene
anyone how to use action changer scene ?
Thank so much!

 

Thanhle, to add scenes to a project is just a Unity setting. Go to file>build settings, and then add current or drag and drop other scenes. You can see what their number is there.

 

Thank! you so much adventurefan!
i did it

 

Hey guys and gals. Hoping someone can help me figure out what's going on. So, I set up my subtitles to fade in instead of the scrolling effect. Problem is, now the new one's I create stay on the screen until I encounter a new one, which then stays on the screen.
So, to summarize-
• I click a hotspot.
• A message fades in.
• The message does not disappear.

Also, my mouse cursor arrow never fully replaces/dissappears with the AC cursor. I constantly have 2 cursors and the os cursor flickers. (The standard os cursor arrow)
Thanks!

 

Hey folks,

Got a difficult question for you. With the current version 1.26 is it possible to create 1st person Myst, the 7th Guest like game?

I'm trying to create such and adventure and have scripted npc's walk all over the place. But it seems not to start without a player...
Could a hidden player that is locked maybe work?

Thx in advance for answering.

 

A couple more issues I've noticed-

While trying to pretty much create a Sierra game I've been using the "choose interaction then hotspot" interaction method, and also tried to set up an icon bar menu on the top of the screen where I can click on look at, use, talk, and walk interactions. However, I haven't been able to find any way to change the cursor back to the default "walk" cursor type other than right clicking, and right clicking is bringing up its own problems- when I right click to cycle through the cursors, every other cursor is locked in the center of the screen and is not usable. Has anyone else noticed this problem?

If i can find a way to reset the cursor to the default walk cursor, that would work, but ideally I'd like to be able to create a separate walk cursor type in the cursor manager, and set the default cursor to be shown when the game is paused, so it can take the place of the sierra style "wait" cursor. Does anyone know if this is possible? Currently just adding a "walk" cursor obviously doesn't work, because it has no special function associated with it. Any ideas? Hopefully without much scripting? Thanks!

 

Hi chris i have a trouble!
hope i can see fixed in version 1.27

 

Hi. Another quick question. Again probably a Unity thing. How can I duplicate an interaction without making it instanced? Whenever I duplicate it in the hierarchy, it seems the new one is instanced to the old one, so if I make any changes, it changes the original too, which I don't want.

I've also tried making a new interaction and pasting the component from the original one (and paste as new), but the same happens then too. As soon as I change something in one of the interactions, they both change.

I've got ten or more similar but different interactions that I'd like to avoid having to set up from scratch each time.

Thanks

 

I've seen the same bug whenever I right-click during gameplay. It's a game breaking bug for me

 

Ah, I see. The "Teleport to start?" field is only used the first moment that the Character is told to move. To recreate the effect you describe, you will need to check the "Pause until finish?" box, and then re-run the action. I'm guessing that this will occur during gameplay, and not as a gameplay-blocking cutscene, so make sure that this is run from a Cutscene that's set to "Run in background".

Use the Action: Run ActionList action.

Thanks for the detailed description. All position units are screen-size relative, but I think that your problem is that only some of your elements have Manual positions, while others are Aligned. The Aligned is really only meant to help build very simple menus, such as the Demo's pause menu. For complex menus such as this, use Manual position for each element. This should fix the inconsistencies.

What is your Position type set to on the Menu that causes the label jittering? As for the character "studdering", could you elaborate? If it's only noticeable on fast machines, I'm not sure I'll be able to recreate the problem too easily - I've only got a Mac Mini!

Unity may not expose the Sorting order/layer of 3D models in the Inspector, but it is a public field, and AC makes use of it to let you alter it using the Sorting Map tools. However, I believe it's necessary to make use of a custom shader to make use of it. I've been looking into shaders that incorporate "zwrite off" in them, but there seems to be more to it than that. I'm admittedly very n00bish when it comes to Unity shaders, so I'm hoping that someone who finds the "secret ingredient" can share it with us.

The inventory scroll arrows are essentially "blind" to what other elements that are in the Menu with them. This kind of functionality requires a little bit of custom scripting, but it's fairly simple. When any Menu is turned on, a function inside the MenuSystem.cs script is called - this acts like a "hook" into which custom code can be inserted. To demonstrate, the default MenuSystem script hides and shows the Pause menu's Save button depending on whether saving is possible at that point in time.

It'd be impossible to have a completely Inspector-based Menu manager that caters for everyone's needs, so having a hook system like this that lets people enter in their own custom code when they want is a good compromise, I think.

It sounds like the text is just waiting too long before disappearing. Try altering the Text display speed in the Settings Manager.

Is this only when testing your game in the editor? I found this issue goes away when running a Built game - if not, have you set "Replace cursor" at the top of the Cursor Manager?

Adventure Creator requires a player prefab be present, but you're right in that it need not be visible. Indeed, a simple Empty with a Player script attached should do it.

Right-clicking through your icons should eventually bring you back to the default cursor - is it not any longer? I think the Wait cursor should be available as a separate option. As for the cursor-centering, please see my reply below.

This isn't really a bug, and it's not easily changed. Rather than start a Conversation, why not use an Arrow? See the two Arrows that appear when pushing the barrel in the demo game - you can make a "down" arrow that you can use to exit the close-up. You can make this with ArrowPrompt in the Scene Manager.

You're right that it's a Unity issue, but I've taken some steps to get around it. Use the ActionList Manager - you can open it from the top of any Interaction Inspector. From there you can quickly mark any Actions you want, copy them, and paste them into another. Doing so will make those Actions unlinked from the original.

This is simply a case of removing the ToggleCursor axis from the Input Manager. It seems that Unity has rather a mind of it's own when it comes to what it'll import and not import when I update the asset - the latest release appeared to upload the Input axes as well. I will try to have it removed from the next update, but that's all you need to do to do fix it.

 

Thanks Chris, I'll try that.

 

Thx for the answer. Tested it out. It works.

These are the settings I put in an empy gameobject that I pulled to my project assests.
So for those who want to create a first person 2d adventure.. do the following:
- Create a empty Gameobject in the Hierarchy
- Give it a recognisable name. Personally i chose VirtualPlayer
- Click on the new Gameobject
- Go to the inspector
- It should only have a transform
- add a Player (Script)
- Edit the Player (Scipt)
- Sprite none
- remove all names (idle, walk, ect)
- remove multiple directions.
- Movement all 0
- Rigidbody ignore gravity ON
- Add a Rigidbody (Because scripts look for it, but it isn't used because movement 0 and ignore gravity is ON)
just in case I made the mass, drag and angular drag 0, turned of gravity and freeze position and rotation all On.

Hopefully it helps someone.

 

Perfect, that fixes the right clicking issue. Thanks! But just out of curiosity, you're saying there's currently no way to reset the cursor to the main cursor without right clicking? And no way to set up a new walk cursor?

As far as the menu issue, changing the position to manual for every element did not help- they are still misaligned, though differently than before. Here's an example of the new issue:
In the editor (and game window when not maximized): http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7409/12917605163_2503345a3b_o.png
In the game window when maximized and built: http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3789/12917493035_940957c474_o.png

I triple checked and every label in the menu has a manual position and automatic size, and the element orientation in the menu properties is set to vertical, if that matters. Any other ideas?

 

Thank you chris i will try with arrow!

 

i tried with arrow but it same Conversation
i still can't click on any hotsport when arrow running....

 

is this bux fixed? there some workaround anyhow?

 

is this bux fixed? there some workaround anyhow?

 

Not for now, no.

If you overlay the two images together, you can see that the elements aren't scaling up properly - their positions are the same, despite the larger screen. Shouldn't be happening - try setting your Element sizes to manual, too. Failing that, PM me your Menu Manager so I can look at it properly.

I apologise - I should've recommended you use a custom Menu instead. Make a new menu, set it's Appear type to Manual, and make sure it's NOT set to Pause when enabled. Place a Button inside it, style it however you want, and then set the Button's Click Type to ActionList. Create and link to a Menu ActionList asset (you can do this from the Project window), and give it a single Object: Send message Action.

In your scene, create two Cutscenes: one that zooms the camera in and turns the menu on (using the Menu action), and another that moves the camera back out and turns the menu off again. Attach a ConstantID script to the "Menu off" Cutscene, make a note of the number, and enter it into your MenuActionList asset's Send message Action, with the "Message to send" field set to "Interact". This will cause the "Menu off" Cutscene to play when you click the button in the menu.

Finally, call your "Menu on" cutscene when you want the camera to focus on the wall. The Menu Button should appear in the corner, you can still click on the Hotspot, and when you click the Menu Button it will disappear.

Which one, the scale bug? Yes, that was fixed.

 

The 1.27 update should be released towards the end of the week. As well as the usual bugs and small-feature additions, a couple of more often-requested ones:

• Multiple player characters - Finally! You'll be able to define a list of Player prefabs in the Settings Manager, and use Actions to switch between them. It took me a while to work out how to handle such characters in a scene when they aren't the "active" player, and my solution is to use NPC swap-outs. If you want to have two player characters in the same scene, the non-active one will be replaced with an identical NPC, allowing you to do all the usual interactions with them on a per-scene level. And all player data is recorded automatically in the save system - including the scene number and per-player inventory items.
• 3D Menus - This also took a bit of figuring out, but essentially it comes down to linking a GameObject to a Menu Element. To make a scene-based Menu, you first create the Menu in the Menu Manager as normal, and then create a separate GameObject for each element. The script you attach to link the two comes with functions to output the element's label (and assigns itself automatically to any GUIText it finds) and to simulate a click on the element itself. So the connection would be Hotspot -> Interaction -> ElementObject -> MenuElement. A little cumbersome, but it gives you the biggest control if you want to do any custom scripting to it.

On another note, I've started an Adventure Creator Facebook page. I'm pretty hopeless with Facebook, so I'd appreciate any Liking you guys can do to help spread the word a bit.

 

The 3D Menu's sound excellent...if they are what I think they are?

Are you referring to being able to create a list of 'unique' interactions per-hotspot/npc, versus just click-to-use?


EDIT: You can ignore this question. After reading the manual, I in fact do NOT know what the significance of the 3D menus are now!