Simply follow this Rule.Always use a Forward Slash / in your Path statementswhen writing your scene code
A scene should be self contained with all Assets being in the same folder, or in a sub folder.
Paths should be Relative, meaning do not use a leading forward slash
This folder/file Not this /folder/file
to have the Scene use a pseudo random asset from a sub folder do not use an ending forward slash folder

@WyldAnimal @TheEmu @7171al71 @Stanston @Number6

Ah...Mac, of course. I don't think I have ever even touched one. But I do know that OS X is built on a *nix foundation, so that makes sense. I will start using forward slashes in my paths. But I'm certain that, when I tested to see which way it would work on Windows, I found that it would not work without the preceding slash when I used the forward slashes. I will have to revisit that and see if I get the same result.

(Reply in discussion thread)

@Number6

You can use

source: ../folder
or
source: ../folder/file

Yes, these are still relative paths..
a Single dot means this Folder
and the Double Dot means the Parent Folder or the One Above.

As suggested by @TheEmu
If Scene creators all agreed to use a Shared folder for assets
Such as Data/Scenes/shared

Then from within the scene
members could use

../shared/filename

where filename is the name of a shared asset
or, if the assets were to be more organized
a set of sub folders could be agreed upon

shared/backgrounds
shared/shaders
shared/frags
shared/masks

so in the Scene code
members would reference a shared asset by using

../shared/backgrounds/FileName
../shared/shaders/FileName
../shared/frags/FileName
../shared/masks/FileName

@TheEmu Thanks for those very informative details!

As for environment variables and end users, I think we're rapidly approaching the point at which the average "end user" doesn't have a PC at all--all their computing will be done on phablet devices. Then, the personal computer will once again be relegated to the realm of the hobbyist, as it was 30 years ago. Hobbyists won't be afraid of having to configure an ENV variable--knowing how to do that (and edit autoexec.bat) was table stakes if you wanted to run an app of any complexity in those days.

The question is: after we cross that Rubicon, will there be enough PC users left to make it worthwhile for Totem to continue producing iStripper for the platform?

This is the august 2020 iStripper’s Hall of Fame !

• Community award Rewards the 3 members who have posted the most on the forum AND commented the most about shows during the month.
• Collection award Rewards the 3 members who have purchased the biggest number of shows during the month.
• Full Sets award Rewards the 3 members who have completed the biggest number of full sets of models' shows during the month.

These members get a decoration on their profile picture for one month! (Make sure you have a nice avatar picture on yours!)
You will also find here a ranking of the top 250 active members with the largest collections of shows. If there is equality between members, they are sorted from the oldest to the most recently registered.
Congratulations to all!

Welcome fellow Ass Connoisseur!
We share similiar interests!

Just a small sampling of some of my favorites!

Sabrisse (see my avatar)
Gina Devine
Katya Clover (of course)
Elsa Jean
Linda Ellisson

Enjoy!

thanks guys, i've settled on these for now:
kristina (early ones were 10/10)
katya clover
mila azul
sade mare
leona mia
jillian janson (thin everywhere except ass lol)
sherice

feel free to post more :)

@gkar45 - Well I am glad about that - then - lol ! - As I also always had been glad about Babylon 5 and J. Michael Straczynski's Stories and Fantasy - may it be in Films, Books or Comics.. - btw.. - that's also some sort of Erotic of another kind ! - LOL....😉💚👍👌

@pickle1 - Right Pickle - I do my very best ! THX for your Note and Message ! 👌💛💓👍

@Sashimono please, please, please will you use paragraph breaks in your posts - the mass of text without visual breaks is incredibly hard to read and as a result your message gets lost.

@7171al71 - Well - 7171al71 - everything is changing is - also sadly - correct ! - BUT - the Truth - doesn't change - nor is God really changing and the Art of Alberto Vargas - will be still great even in several 100 Years from now. That shows us - something is also never changing , because what was still great in Past couldn't be "small" in the Future - it only could get LOST ! - But GOD will preserve everything that shall be preserved !

A (small) - probably last - remark and CLOSING Note.: The Show of today (31st August ) with P.P. is - by far - not the Real McCoy - most of all - btw - AGAIN due to the Outfit - in my Opinion the worst of the PP Shows so far. Even so I had to confess - for example, that I dislike those so called "Slip Hot Pants - better known also as Micro Short Hot Pants " which are basically the smallest "Hot Pants" around and had been invented by a Fashion Designer somewhere around 2008 AD.
But back to this LAST - August 2020 - Show and my Topic. The Show of today - however was the last (dull) August 2020 Show - despite also a few GOOD to even 1- max. 3 VERY good Shows in this August - AND (OR BUT) - IN THE MOMENT I am still quite Confident - that the September Shows at least in total will become noticeable better also on behalf of the Outfits in total as well as in certain Shows - like for example as they had been in those Months when Josephine Jackson or Stella Cardo - just to name 2 Examples for obviously much "Better Times" ( also on behalf of Outfits - btw.) appeared. If I. Stripper will manage it - to get back to this Standard - majorly "everything is alright" again ! THIS however - means - of course, that I think and are even more totally sure, that my attempted CRITIC about this Month August and it's Shows - and especially the last 2 weeks of this Month was right und true respectively truthful ! So it is in many Aspects truly almost "gripping" to me - if I-Stipper can and will return to the in total - real GOOD to very GOOD - Standard of 2017-2019 and also the entire FIRST HALF of this Year - btw. - most of all now during September and October 2020. BUT - so far - I am not SURE yet - if this will happen or not - but - LET's HOPE ! In the END - for the MOMENT - some last Words Erotic Gear/Dress Fetish and (real) good (kinky erotic and or femine erotic ) Outfits ! - The ULTIMATE - absolute - TRUTH is REAL - true and good - eotic, feminine OR also strong "Kinky Erotic - Powerful" Erotic Outfits - especially for Women do exist ! - THIS - however - is mainly ( only partly ! - that is also true ! ) NOT a Matter or Subject of personal Taste - most of all it is a Matter how GOOD, BROAD, DEEP and TRUTHFUL your Erotic Understanding - respectively THE LOVE for this Subject - Erotic to Kinky Erotic - Dress/Outfit is ! There are quite some (several) -TRUE Fetish Experts around some and many of them are of course also Males - but MANY are also Women. Dita von Teese for example is also a true Fetish Gear and Dress Expert , an old but great US Porn and Erotic Star of the 70's and 80's "Candy Samples" for example was also personally and private a great Fetish and Erotic Costume Expert and also some I-Stripper Models are also Fetish Erotic Experts in Truth - one of them is ANGIE LINE from the Cech Republic - just to name it here. I could show you a 1001-Picture (Photo) Examples of "TRUE Erotic and true Kinky Erotic" Outfits - also several real good Outfits from I-Stripper Shows of course. But in many ways - it does not make too much sense... - But I will post a new Threat with the Subject of a few Show Improvement Suggestions for I-Stripper - somewhere during the 2nd Half of September in here - I guess that will be doubtlessly better ! 🔥👍❤️💛❤️😊

@Number6

I have responded to you post regarding the use of .. in directory paths in .scn files in the scenes discussion thread. As @wyldanimal has intimated this thread is already off topic and has been for several posts.

https://www.istripper.com/forum/thread/27449/100?post=678322

@Number6

The . and .. notation for referring to the current directory and its parent directory go back to way before MSDOS.

The use of .. in .scn files does enable groups of scenes to share common resources, in particular background images, which has some advantages but there are also some disadvantages. One disadvantage is that it somewhat complicates sharing scenes with other users as you can't just zip up a single directory to do so. A second complication is that if Totem ever do change the system, as I hope, to support a deeper hierarchy of folders for the .scn files then you can no longer always move a scene to a different place in the directory structure without updating the contents of the .scn files. These two ***** complications do not stop it being a useful feature, just that it has repercussions that can catch people out if they are not used to them.

I would rather like it if there was some more specific way to establish a shared library of scene resources that did not rely on using relative path names. Something like

source: $SHARED/backgrounds

where $SHARED gets replaced by an actual absolute directory path.

I suppose environment variables could be used for this purpose - but most end users will not be familiar enough with this for it to be a reliable mechanism without the iStripper app doing it for them.

There is one little trick that i found in one of Totem's scenes.

You can use

source: ../folder
or
source: ../folder/file

This actually allows you to use images that are not in the current scene folder but in a separate folder in the VG Scenes Directory.

The .. actually tells the scene to go up one level in the directory structure to find the folder.

The advantage is that if you have scenes that are in different folders for say, grouping reasons but the scenes use common images you don't have to put the images into a folder in each scene grouping. You can have a common folder. As stated above though this folder has to be in the VG Scenes Directory. You can even have subfolders which would be

source: ../folder/subfolder/file

I think this is possibly a throwback to the old DOS change directory command "cd .." which would take you up on level in the directory structure.

@Stanston - it is not quite true that "everything-else-uses-forward-slashes" there are systems - including some very important ones such as IBM mainframes and VMS - that use very different schemes (though nowadays they often also recognise the forward slash separator if only for use in URLs) but these can be ignored by most users and would not be relevant for iStripper usage anyway.

Note really sure how any of that is relative or on Topic to Scene Coding..

Simply follow this Rule.
Always use a Forward Slash / in your Path statements
when writing your scene code
A scene should be self contained with all Assets being in the same folder,
or in a sub folder.
Paths should be Relative, meaning do not use a leading forward slash
This
folder/file

Not this
/folder/file

to have the Scene use a pseudo random asset from a sub folder
do not use an ending forward slash
folder

😶😶😶😶

@sh42n81: This is something that is in development and is slowly taking shape

the code of the east reflection:

The Casting / Glass version

//MODEL GLASS////

sprite {
pos: 30, 0, 5
source: GirlGlass
scale: 1, 1
blend: SRC_ALPHA,DST_ALPHA
opacity: 0.3
}

yes its a Mac/Windows difference. Windows has long accepted either a forward or backward slash as a directory separator (maybe even from its very inception) but almost everything else only recognises the forward slash.

When using Windows you may come across the odd situation where only a backslash will be recognised, but I think the majority of these will be due to programmers who have decided to roll their own code for handling file paths rather than using the facilities that Windows provides.

@Stanston - it is not quite true that "everything-else-uses-forward-slashes" there are systems - including some very important ones such as IBM mainframes and VMS - that use very different schemes (though nowadays they often also recognise the forward slash separator if only for use in URLs) but these can be ignored by most users and would not be relevant for iStripper usage anyway.

@sha42n81: The general rule for any program that uses programming is to use ¨/¨ to split the routes. ¨\¨ I don't remember it well now but the function it does is another one.
In my case it comes out black screen (I use OSX)
For the sake of compatibility, one should put ¨/¨ in front of any specified route. In practice I never do.
source: /folder/file,
I usually write:
source: folder/file

In the case of shadows I don't do it either, I use shadows from ¨apoyo¨
scale: -1, -0.1
opacity: 0.2

The shaders with blurred shadows, subtract performance that I prefer to use in other things. It is a compensation of one thing for another.

Pure reality, is another thing I ignore, I try to make it look harmonic.

The lighting improves a lot the scenes, it hides many things.

@Number6

that only forward slashes should be used to make the scenes compatible with both Windows and MACs.

Don't forget the Linux Users 😉
https://www.howtogeek.com/181774/why-windows-uses-backslashes-and-everything-else-uses-forward-slashes/
http://www.linfo.org/forward_slash.html

All of the scenes that I have made over the last couple of weeks, since I began arranging files in this manner, have used the single backslash between the directory and the filename. Do you have this issue with any of my other scenes?

@sh42n81

IIRC it is a MAC thing.

Windows accepts the slash in either direction but the MAC doesn't. Ithink it only accepts the forward slash but I don't have a MAC so I can't confirm this.

@wyldanimal picked up on this a long time ago and suggested that only forward slashes should be used to make the scenes compatible with both Windows and MACs.

Thanks for the clarification regarding the shadows @sh42n81

For my part as I said your scenes work for me very well with your codes on windows.

On the other hand, if I make the modification suggested by @7171al71, I have jerk movements in the image when moving with the zoom. Can someone tell me the technical name of this phenomenon? Thank you


Merci pour la précision concernant les ombres @sh42n81

Pour ma part comme je le disais vos scènes fonctionnent pour moi très bien avec vos codes sur windows.

Par contre, si je fais la modification proposé par @7171al71, j'ai des mouvements par à coups dans l'image lors des déplacements avec le zoom. Quelqu'un peut me dire le nom technique de ce phénomène ? Merci

😢😢
😄

@gkar45
Photo ?

What is a good model for istripper ? It's different for everyone, we don't have the same taste. Some people like big boobs, some like small tits, like me.
The best girls in the last months are Takha and Talia Mint for me. Some other girls like Fanfan LF, Stella, Polly Pons or Kitana Lure : not for me. I have some girls with big boobs, but most of these cards I got with a (booster) pack.
And generally I don't like enhancement breasts either. Some people dislike tattoos, but it doesn't matter for me.
Some girls with a high average score don't do anything for me.
So, discussing about someone's taste is useless

texture {
id: Foreground
source: sh4_textures/Ruination1fg.png <------------------------------- the slash was reversed
}

@7171al71

Thank you for the feedback. I don't understand why it didn't work for you with the backslash in the source path. My experiments have shown that it works with either a backslash (\) or a forward slash (/), but if I use (/) then I have to use a leading (/) before the directory, like this:

source: /sh4_textures/Ruination1fg.png

All of the scenes that I have made over the last couple of weeks, since I began arranging files in this manner, have used the single backslash between the directory and the filename. Do you have this issue with any of my other scenes?

I would be interested to know if anyone else sees only a black window instead of the proper background image when they try to view a scene that I made. If that is the case, then I will switch to using forward slashes instead. (Unless they are using Linux. If they are, then by this time they should be used to having to make customizations to accomodate their OS. 😜)

Very nice scene @sh42n81, but you haven't finished yet.

I really like the improvements you have made.

You may find me too perfectionist, but there is one aspect that escaped my notice.

And believe me any good vampire knows that.

There is no shadow at the feet of the girls in your scenes, which takes away from the realism.

Unless your girls are all female vampires, of course. 😊

@ComteDracula

Thank you for the feedback. As I have mentioned before, I think shadows are often more trouble than they are worth. You can't precisely control their direction without resorting to shaders, which require mathematical and programming skills that I don't have. With only the .scn language available to me--and with a limited understanding even of that-- I can only make the shadows point directly out in front or straight out behind the clip. If I make more than a tiny adjustment to their angles, then they separate from the models' feet or climb up on the model like they are eating her slowly.

To me, a shadow that looks unnatural is less realistic than no shadow at all. This is worst when there are other shadows in the scene background which are pointing in a direction that I can't make the clips' shadows follow. In this case, the objects in the scene background are not casting shadows at all. There is an overcast sky, so there are no shadows.

For all of these reasons, I choose not to add shadows except when the lighting of the scene is so bright that an ***** of shadows would look ridiculous. Because of the lack of sun, the most realistic choice here is to avoid shadows from the models.


To me,

the pricing system and struture of discounts that they have introduced and the customers are used to at this moment in time.

They are smart people, the current pricing structure is of course made in order to get profit also from high level members.

I wonder if and at what point having a studio in Eastern Europe could be profitable for the company,

At least until the situation gets back normal, this might be quite a good idea...

You mistunderstood my intention or I wasn't clear enough.

By the existing situation I meant the pricing system and struture of discounts that they have introduced and the customers are used to at this moment in time.

Also, something came to my mind right now - I wonder if and at what point having a studio in Eastern Europe could be profitable for the company, like what they did with the studio in the US.

they are bound by the existing situation.

They still earn 49,90 euros by each and every credit purchase. Which is the only things which really matters.
I don't see their situation being so tragic - apart just the fact they are not able to hire East Europe models (cheaper to shoot) at the moment. Which will be, sooner or later, eventually fixed.

By the way, it's true that the user base of Istripper is 30+ (since younger adults tend not to use laptops anymore); but this also is not totally a problem, since older people is more willing and likely to spend for such a product.
Anyway, the company is of course already trying to get an audience of people of 20-30 also, via the developing of a mobile version.

I have the pleasure to announce the release of the voluptuous Verena Maxima' VR 180 video!
Immerse yourself in a moment of soft and suave intimacy to discover her velvet tanned skin and delicate pleasure...

Click here: https://www.istripper.com/vr180/detail/78dcee3a76c5c866
Or visit the VR section of iStripper Gui

Interesting you'd think that discounts and the fact that there ARE whales is what drives the company into a corner. Definitely something to think about.I, instead, totally disagree on the subject.
First of all, we should keep in mind that "Istripper credit" is not a real currency - its value is decided only by the company itself, and it even do vary according to how many credits a person do buy; so the discounts are - rather obviously - modulated in a way that makes the company to gain even from purchases done by members of upper levels.
Let's keep in mind, also, that company earns money when we do buy credits, not when we spend them in the Is store: and so called "whales" are going to purchase credits more often than the average member does.

Indeed, credits hae a value set by the company, but you also have to remember they are bound by the existing situation.

I.e they can't simply say that all cards now cost 45 credits instead of 25 (or whatever the price is for a newuser) without facing some major goodwill hit.

Second thing is, that they need to make whales spend more credits so they keep buying - the fix to that seem to be the gambling games which waste people's credits (although in many cases make the veteran users earn a tiny bit when fishing for SEC).

What other ways to spend credits coudl there be? I know people would deinitely buy different forum display themes, maybe professional skins or avatar outlines - it's what Steam is doing and it seems to pay off as they're introducing ever new content.

Released on August 31



Acclaimed Alya finally arrives on mobile !
Enjoy

Interesting you'd think that discounts and the fact that there ARE whales is what drives the company into a corner. Definitely something to think about.

I, instead, totally disagree on the subject.
First of all, we should keep in mind that "Istripper credit" is not a real currency - its value is decided only by the company itself, and it even do vary according to how many credits a person do buy; so the discounts are - rather obviously - modulated in a way that makes the company to gain even from purchases done by members of upper levels.
Let's keep in mind, also, that company earns money when we do buy credits, not when we spend them in the Is store: and so called "whales" are going to purchase credits more often than the average member does.

@7171al71 - an erudite and well-thought out presentation.

Thank-you.

👍

@Alkasyn: mmhhh...you are right, there is no prime amazon either 😂. and it is true that this is quite unique.
The problem is that the percentage of discard. is so high in the triple diamond or antique users that it does not manage to sustain the maintenance costs.
Deep down, you ***** the golden goose with that strategy.
To be able to continue to maintain yourself you have to look for a young market and adjust to that and that causes what you see today. The old market that consumes and is faithful, doesn't like the new format. While the young market does, but it is short lived. The average market age of this of how much will be 45 to 50 years ... and what happens, you have users from 30 to 65 years ... is too broad! You have three generations in the same bag with extrapolated tastes.
A generation that grew up with Playboy magazines and another with PornHub on the cell phone and there is a radical difference.
A market was loyal...and today the market is captivated. Excessive discounts are a bad strategy.
It is better to improve the product without touching the price, make special promotions and all that.
But if you touch the price on the basis of discounts that you can't withdraw, you're dead. It's a short range curve...bread today...hunger tomorrow.

Good analysis - maybe they're fishing in a different pond, and it's simply not targeted at forumites who actually participate in the discussion on the forums.

Interesting you'd think that discounts and the fact that there ARE whales is what drives the company into a corner. Definitely something to think about.

@sh42n81: Good animation sequence 👍, it served me well, with the theme of chained nodes was not working as I had and as you have them if.

I didn't show the images, I modified this:

texture {
id: Background
source: sh4_textures/Ruination1.png <------------------------------- the slash was reversed
}

texture {
id: Foreground
source: sh4_textures/Ruination1fg.png <------------------------------- the slash was reversed
}

@7171al71,

Excuse me if I don't understand, but how is this an improvement and what does it fix, at least on windows?

Because I followed your advice regarding the inversion of the slash, and I end up with more images suddenly when moving in the scene (I do not know the technical term of that). And still no shade under the girls.


@7171al71,

Excusez moi si je ne comprend pas, mais en quoi cela est-il une amélioration et qu'est-ce que cela corrige, du moins sur windows ?

Car j'ai suivi votre conseil en lien à l'inversion de la barre oblique, et je me retrouve avec plus d'images par à coup lors des déplacements dans la scène (Je ne sais pas le terme technique de cela). Et toujours pas d'ombre sous les filles.

@sh42n81: Good animation sequence 👍, it served me well, with the theme of chained nodes was not working as I had and as you have them if.

I didn't show the images, I modified this:

texture {
id: Background
source: sh4_textures/Ruination1.png <------------------------------- the slash was reversed
}

texture {
id: Foreground
source: sh4_textures/Ruination1fg.png <------------------------------- the slash was reversed
}

@Alkasyn: mmhhh...you are right, there is no prime amazon either 😂. and it is true that this is quite unique.
The problem is that the percentage of discard. is so high in the triple diamond or antique users that it does not manage to sustain the maintenance costs.
Deep down, you ***** the golden goose with that strategy.
To be able to continue to maintain yourself you have to look for a young market and adjust to that and that causes what you see today. The old market that consumes and is faithful, doesn't like the new format. While the young market does, but it is short lived. The average market age of this of how much will be 45 to 50 years ... and what happens, you have users from 30 to 65 years ... is too broad! You have three generations in the same bag with extrapolated tastes.
A generation that grew up with Playboy magazines and another with PornHub on the cell phone and there is a radical difference.
A market was loyal...and today the market is captivated. Excessive discounts are a bad strategy.
It is better to improve the product without touching the price, make special promotions and all that.
But if you touch the price on the basis of discounts that you can't withdraw, you're dead. It's a short range curve...bread today...hunger tomorrow.

Fanfan LD.......a new favorite 😍🔥🔥

Thanks for your reviews, it's always nice to see someting creative instead of the usual ***** :)

This happens with every calendar. The ratings crater on pretty much every card.

My guess is members resent buying something they didn't want and instead of taking blame for their own actions they instead take it out on the card or model.

I don't care how someone else rates but it keeps the demos from showing up in the carousel which I do watch.

I think this is the explanation for those low-rated non-reviews.

It's much easier to simply say 'the selection sucks' and downvote the models than it is to say "I shouldn't have bought the pre-order because it's an anti-consumer tactic but I couldn't help myself as I was thinking with my dick' :)

If you can't afford to b disappointed, don't buy preorder.

As seen even in this thread, there are people who understand and follow that modus operandi.

Very nice scene @sh42n81, but you haven't finished yet.

I really like the improvements you have made.

You may find me too perfectionist, but there is one aspect that escaped my notice.

And believe me any good vampire knows that.

There is no shadow at the feet of the girls in your scenes, which takes away from the realism.

Unless your girls are all female vampires, of course. 😊


Très belle scène @sh42n81, mais vous n'avez pas encore terminé.

J'aime beaucoup les améliorations que vous avez fait..

Vous allez me trouver peut-être trop perfectionniste, mais il y a un aspect qui avait échappé à mon regard.

Et croyez moi tout bon vampire sait cela.

Il n'y a pas d'ombre au pied des filles dans vos scènes, ce qui enlève du réalisme.

À moins bien sur que vos filles soient toutes des femmes vampires. :) 😊

My favourites here would include Amirah Adara, Ariana Marie, Leona Mia maybe Sherice and Jillian Jason.

I guess the software bases its show structure on market preferences or trends, which we see I guess reflects that. I think that when you stop consuming something, you stop being a target market for that brand. For example, I cancelled my Netflix subscription and I prefer HBO Go. I love Nike, but I don't like their current line and I prefer Merrell, that's what happens with this. Brands change, consumers change. Everything changes.

Yes and no. There's no HBO to change this Netflx for, and most of us who post here still buy cards, but at a reduced rate, sometimes much so.

You're right that tastes and consumers change, but we haven't changed enough to stop being a consumer here.

I do think that the current sales tactic is devoting too much time to milking whales without caring for the middle of the pack.

well, I broke it. Bought one of the shows that was on offer hoping for a reshuffle. Now I'm stuck with buy 3 for 54 credits despite already owning one

It doesn't refresh the offer that's visible, but you'll get a different third card - I think it's been tested by some of our forumites.

I'm calling from the Moon, Earth hears me? 😂😂😂

Loud and clear.

My previous post grew so large after a series of edits adding details that it got truncated, Here is the final paragraph in full:

You probably do not need to use much of the above in simple scenes, but even for such things it helps to understand what is going on - and to do that the simplest thing to do is to think of a scene as a collection of flat items positioned in 3D space being viewed from the camera which is looking at a particular point in that space (its target position). it's a bit like having an old fashioned toy theatre with various scenic backdrops, props and characters all on flat cut out pieces of thin cardboard. For 2D scenes an equivalent analogy would be building up a scene from layers of drawings on transparent film as was done for classic cartoons before it all became computerised.

@sh42n81

The only type of node that has an Angle property is the Camera node, so that is the only place you can animate it. The same is true for the Target property. Furthermore these only make sense for the 3D camera type.

All nodes, including the simple Node{} node and the Camera node, have Pos, Rot, and Scale properties that you can animate. Setting any of these properties for a node of any type, including any animations you may apply to them, will affect any nodes, of any type, nested inside it. There are limitations on what you can do if you are using a 2D camera.

Sprite nodes, including clipSprite and clipNameSprite, and Quad nodes also have Color and Opacity properties that can be animated. Setting these properties will not affect nested nodes.

The reason why the Z value matters when you are using a 3D camera is because if you are using such a camera then the various things (i.e. Sprites of all kinds) in the scene are placed in a 3D space rather than on a flat plane so their apparent size depends on ther distance from the camera. If you move them closer to the camera (either by moving them or the camera) then they appear to get bigger and get smaller if you move them away from the camera.

If then follows that if you move the camera towards the scene, by animating the Z component of its position, things will appear to grow at different rates if they are at different distances, in particular if they have different Z components for their position. However, if instead of moving the camera you animate the camera's Angle (i.e. its angular width of view) then this zooming will affect all of the items in its field of view by the same amount no matter how far away they are from the camera. As I said in a previous reply moving the camera in and out is "Tracking", changing the Angle is true Zooming as you would get in real life with a zoom lens.

Similarly if you move the camera sideways or up and down then the apparent speed at which items in the scene move will also depend on how far away they are from the camera. This can sometimes be used to good effect o enhance the 3D feeling of a scene (but it can also make the girls look as if they are sliding on the floor if they are not at the same distance from the camera as the image of the floor which is normally part of the background image. You can eliminate this sliding effect by having a separate images for the floor, the background and and walls in the scene but it gets complicated.

You can use the Z position of a clipSprite to ensure that if the sprite is moved it will automatically adjust its apparent size to match where it is positioned against the background - but for that to work you have first to have matched the camera's position, its target position and field of view (i.e. its Angle) to match the perspective of the image used for the background which is not an easy task. I have done that, for example, in the Dodgems scene and I do not recommend doing it unless you really really need to do it to make the scene work.

One ***** thing you may notice in 3D scenes is that the girls, or rather their sprites, towards the edges of the scene are not directly facing the camera. This is because the front face of a sprite, by default, is perpendicular to the Z axis (i,e, the sprite i in the X-Y plane parallel to the screen) so a straight line from the camera to the centre of the sprite will be at an angle to the surface of that sprite. Normally the effect is not noticeable but In very rare cases (e.g. if you are using a very wide angle camera or have moved the camera a long way from the centre of the scene) you may want to correct for this effect by slightly rotating the sprites to directly face the camera (if necessary animating the rotations to match changes in the camera position). An extreme example of this would be if you set a scene in a room and slowly rotate the camera about the vertical, Y, axis by 360 degrees to see all four walls of the room and the girls in those directions - by the time you had rotated by 90 degrees you would be seeing the girls edge-on unless you had applied a compensatory rotation to their clipSprites. You can also see the induced apparent rotation if you change the camera's target differently to its position - which is why I normally animate both pos: and target: if I move the camera other than directly towards or away from the target. This target dependacy can be reduced by placing the target position a long way behind everything, i.e. by giving it a large absolute value for Z, but moving it with the camera eliminates it completely as that keeps the target direction costant.

You probably do not need to use much of the above in simple scenes, but even for such things it helps to understand what is going on - and to do that the simplest thing to do is think of a scene as a collection of flat items positioned in 3D space being viewed from the camera which is looking at a particular point in that space ...