🧵 What's you opinion on NDOF navigators?
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Oct 2022 21:14:53 UTC No. 921611
If you have one is it worth it and what do you use it for?
Are they ok to buy used or do they wear out too fast so I better get a new one.
I mainly use blender and a little bit of CAD as well as drawing/sketches on a tablet.
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Oct 2022 21:58:50 UTC No. 921616
>>921611
I've had one for about 2 years and use it constantly. I have the Space Navigator one.
When not using it for 3d, it makes a handy scroll wheel that works extremely smooth, and the buttons on the side help out too for opening/closing tabs. I use it occasionally in PS as well for panning/zooming. They also have a really nice weight to them so they don't move around.
For 3d, and Blender specifically, it's a godsend for navigating a scene. One quick movement and I'm right where I need to be with exact finesse. Only real issue is with Blender itself, in that zoom and camera movement is tied to the object you've got focused. So if you focus on a tiny object and try and move the camera out a lot it'll move slow, but if you have a large object and try to move small amounts it'll move too fast. This isn't a problem with the 3d mouse, just more the contextual nature of Blender. I'm sure there's a setting to not do it, but it's not too much of an issue, and the benefits outweigh the little issue I have.
I think the 3d mouse itself is reasonably priced (I think I got mine new for like $99), but I think the bigger ones with the shortcuts are a bit of a waste to be honest. In all likelihood you won't be using them at all unless you make a conscious effort to. Not to mention that with the next size up you only get 4 programmable keys (opposed to 2 on the basic one), and 12 on the biggest one. They're not exactly placed in a way you can reach them super comfortably without taking your hand off the controller, especially the biggest one, so it's not really much of an advantage compared to pressing the key normally, or using a macro on your keyboard.
I'd just grab the basic one new if you're on the fence. But if you can find a pro/enterprise used for a comparable price, grab one if you're really keen on the extra buttons.
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:03:07 UTC No. 921627
>>921616
I'm gravitating between a new compact and the Pro version (not enterprise).
I use the buttons on my drawing tablet all the time, mainly for things like shift, alt, control.
Prices have increased since then and a new compact costs about as much as a used pro.
But I guess I can always buy the new compact and return it. if I want the buttons
the chair nerd at Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:21:34 UTC No. 921629
>>921611
Could no get myself to like one. If you want my honest opinion the best bang for the buck is an rts/mmo mouse such as a Logi g600.
If you spend too much time navigating it means you are spending little on doing actual work.
Anonymous at Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:50:12 UTC No. 921633
>>921629
>If you spend too much time navigating it means you are spending little on doing actual work.
At least for sculpting in blender I see myself spending a lot of time finagling the viewpoint around because many brushes are viewport dependent.
I also suspect it would make it more continent to use the tablet for sculpting because I can move the viewport with my left hand.
Can somebody confirm that in blender you can move the viewport while using a brush?
Anonymous at Tue, 11 Oct 2022 05:29:14 UTC No. 921666
I use the SpaceMouse Pro with Houdini. I like it but I would not necessarily recommend it to other people because it takes some getting used to, requires proper setup of shortcuts, is ultimately not essential, and is kind of expensive. For it to work well enough with my workflow I had to pair it with a mmo type mouse to pick up some of the slack as far as shortcuts go. The pro has an okay amount of buttons that you can customize but not quite enough if you want to keep your hands off the keyboard for a majority of the time. But between that and a good mouse you can cover all or most of your needs.
Initially used it with a Logitech G700, now im using the 3dconnexion CadMouse. doesn't have as many buttons as the (discontinued, fuck you Logitech) G700, but it has a customizable virtual radial menu a la Houdini/Maya, plus the proper middle mouse button is nice.
Anonymous at Tue, 11 Oct 2022 23:00:59 UTC No. 921744
Got a 2nd hand Space Navigator about 6 months ago. Seems solid and I watched a tear down of it, no chance of the mechanism busting as it's 3 solid springs, but the electronics might eventually fail. For the price I paid it was well worth it, not sure I could say the same for a new Pro/Enterprise.
Anonymous at Wed, 12 Oct 2022 05:47:20 UTC No. 921768
>>921667
Huh, didn't know that, I figured the buttons that said shit like "shift,ctrl, etc" were fixed. Kinda dumb they have labels then. Makes it seem like they just kinda assumed "these are important buttons in every program" when sometimes it just isn't (especially modifier keys on their own). Good to hear you can change them.
Anonymous at Wed, 12 Oct 2022 15:56:56 UTC No. 921787
Totally incompatible with zbrush which is why I got mine. Can do some sweet camera sweeps or pans if you animate. But I found it totally useless and gave it away to a friend.
Anonymous at Thu, 13 Oct 2022 06:58:04 UTC No. 921836
>>921790
The knob thing is the entire point of the peripheral, dum dum. You grab it and manipulate it with your hand like a physical object which moves the camera in the 3d viewport.
It's kind of like controlling a character in an fps, but it's all on one single control input.
You can twist it left/right to turn the camera, tilt it up/down to look up/down, pull it up/down to do change altitude, shift it forward/back left/right to do the same with the cam, and if you have it enabled (I don't), you can tilt it left/right to twist the camera. Once you get comfortable using it, you can swiftly go anywhere you want in a single motion. It's a quality of life thing for sure, but it's so useful it hurts to work without it.
That being said, I agree about an extra numpad for hotkeys. I've got one myself, with mechanical switches so I could take the keycaps off and add my own labels.
>>921784
Being able to manipulate objects like that would be pretty fucking great. Next best thing to just grabbing it and moving it in VR.
Anonymous at Thu, 13 Oct 2022 13:50:43 UTC No. 921864
how is the zed brush integration, chaps? Thinking of getting the space navigator, and putting it right next to my mouse on the right hand side of the keyboard. My Intuous is too large for my keyboard tray, so I have to put it in my lap. Will this work?
Anonymous at Fri, 14 Oct 2022 04:19:51 UTC No. 921975
>>921836
that's pretty neat, makes me wonder if I can use my old saitek in blender somehow
sounds like this thing has a few more axis of movement than a flight stick though
Anonymous at Fri, 14 Oct 2022 05:57:07 UTC No. 921979
>>921975
For what it's worth, I experimented with using a Steam Controller once. It wasn't too bad to be honest. The gyro made things pretty achievable in terms of mouse movement, and radial menus made most of the shortcuts pretty easy to reach. It worked, and I got kind of fast with it, but I still felt that urge to grab a mouse.
I'm experimenting now with using voice commands to augment normal use. Depending on how fast it reacts, it might be neat to have some that switch views properties and shit like that without needing to move the mouse over there. It's an experiment though. Less about saving time, and more about saving my wrists. I've done just about all I can to baby those fucks but they still get sore after working.
But yeah, 3d mice have a few more than a flight stick. Though assuming you can twist a flight stick, I guess all that it's really missing is shifting it forward/back left/right and pulling it up and pushing it down. Though those ones are kind of the most important ones to have.
Anonymous at Fri, 14 Oct 2022 15:11:25 UTC No. 922016
I really want one, but as a hobbyist, it's hard to justify the cost.
Anonymous at Fri, 14 Oct 2022 19:30:06 UTC No. 922038
>>921836
Parenting an object to the camera and using my spacemouse to control it is a janky solution.
I looked into the python api and it doesn't expose the functionality you need to actually write a script for this sort of thing.
Oh well at least you can auto keyframe and run the animation to capture the motion from your navigator
Anonymous at Fri, 14 Oct 2022 23:40:52 UTC No. 922072
>>922038
I've actually done that before, but it wasn't much of a "solution", more of a "wow that's kinda neat" thing.
I've tried recording camera movement from it once or twice, but it always ends up kind of choppy since moving the camera while recording and using the NDOF introduces some kind of input lag or something on my end.
Seems like contacting the Blender devs might be a good option to expose some of the NDOF functionality. It's probably something that was implemented in like 2006 and never touched again.
Anonymous at Tue, 25 Oct 2022 03:33:54 UTC No. 923135
Can these things work in linux?
Anonymous at Sat, 5 Nov 2022 04:50:02 UTC No. 924589
A good workflow hack I discovered for these is to strap a dildo to it and move it with your ass.
Frees up your left hand to do whatever, I've found it to be really indispensable.
Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 21:21:19 UTC No. 925769
>>924589
>that post that reminds everyone that reads it, that yea they are still on 4chan
Anonymous at Sat, 12 Nov 2022 22:02:23 UTC No. 925771
Just bought the wireless space navigator for use with zbrush, blender, and maya. What am I in for?
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Nov 2022 15:09:43 UTC No. 925839
>>923135
Did you figure it out?
Suddenly seeing youtube videos for this and now this thread.
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Nov 2022 17:59:21 UTC No. 925854
>>923135
>>925839
https://spacenav.sourceforge.net/
This is what I use
just werks
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Nov 2022 18:03:33 UTC No. 925855
>>925769
its called 4channel you fucking retard
Anonymous at Sun, 13 Nov 2022 18:13:28 UTC No. 925859
>>925855
ok retard, lol
Anonymous at Mon, 14 Nov 2022 18:24:29 UTC No. 925968
just got my 3d mouse, and I'm loving it. Did the demo's 19 parts under 3:30 the second time I tried. (did the 6 parts in 3 mins the first time)
going to test it out in zbrush now
Anonymous at Mon, 14 Nov 2022 21:52:40 UTC No. 925980
>>925968
I've found it's a bit weird in Zbrush, and took some fiddling around to get it working how I expect it to. After that it worked fine though. Can't remember what I had to do.
Anonymous at Mon, 14 Nov 2022 21:54:32 UTC No. 925981
>>925980
I had no issues with it so far. Just need to turn down the sensitivity some more I think
Anonymous at Mon, 14 Nov 2022 23:58:31 UTC No. 925990
>>921611
I use a spacepilot pro with inventor and autocad, and it's incredible, I work 90% of the time in small assemblies and the programable buttons mean I can do almost everything I need to do without needing to move my normal mouse.
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 16:49:50 UTC No. 926067
The space mouse (most basic edition) cost me $188 shipped. Is it worth it or is it a paperweight? It wont be here for a few days.
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 18:02:59 UTC No. 926075
>>926067
I'm literally you two days ago. I love mine so much. If you need to navigate in a 3d space, its perfect for what it does. And it does it very well. So depending on how much you use it, will it be worth it.
Me personally, I bought the spacemouse wireless for 188 too on amazon. But, I will be sending mine back. I saw a used Pro enterprise one for the same price as the new one. So you might want to look into that. I didn't buy it originally because I was worried that it was a gimmick. But, I plan on sending it back so I can upgrade. There is only one used for sale at the moment, you can snag it up if you want. I don't plan on upgrading until the return date window closes. But, maybe I can save you from wasting your time. You might want to upgrade to it now.
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 18:20:59 UTC No. 926079
>>926075
I dont have room on my pullout keyboard tray for anything larger
Anonymous at Tue, 15 Nov 2022 19:28:40 UTC No. 926096
>>926079
Fair enough, I'm limited on space too. But I'm going to make it work somehow with my setup. I like the device's capabilities that much, but thats just me.
Anonymous at Fri, 18 Nov 2022 17:10:27 UTC No. 926438
Got my space mouse hooked up, did the training and the demo, and hooked it up to zbrush. This is really next level stuff, especially when you start setting up custom macros and radial menus for the L/R button
Anonymous at Tue, 22 Nov 2022 17:09:55 UTC No. 926928
Can you leave your wireless spacemouse connected all the time or does that damage the battery?
Anonymous at Tue, 22 Nov 2022 17:10:57 UTC No. 926929
>>926928
*with charging cable
Anonymous at Tue, 22 Nov 2022 18:33:02 UTC No. 926963
>>926928
>>926929
once a device is charged, there is no current running through the cable, so it should be perfectly fine.
Anonymous at Tue, 22 Nov 2022 19:19:45 UTC No. 926982
this thread convinced me to buy one, 99€ for the pro version seems bretty good
Anonymous at Mon, 5 Dec 2022 04:10:03 UTC No. 928534
>>921611
not really
Anonymous at Mon, 19 Dec 2022 02:55:54 UTC No. 930171
>>921633
I use one for sculpting all the time. In Blender, yes, you can do a stroke while moving the model with the 3d mouse. is fantastic. I primarily sculpt in zbrush these days, and it actually does not have a way to do this that ive found.
Anonymous at Mon, 19 Dec 2022 02:57:12 UTC No. 930172
>>921787
what the hell are you talking about? i use my spacemouse in Zbrush literally every day