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Tablet-Friendly Navigation


Strange Sharp
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I hope that one day soon I'll be able to ditch ZBrush for good and switch to 3d Coat for all sculpting tasks. There's just one area that I'm slightly concerned about, and that is workflow using a graphics tablet, specifically navigation.

Ideally, I would prefer not to take my hands off the tablet during sculpting, and I would also prefer not having to use the buttons on the pen since it feels a bit too comfortable for my taste.

Rotation is already possible and quit comfortable with the current version (Alpha 33 as I'm writing this; Andrew will probably release two more version by the time I'm done with this post). Just pressing one of the buttons on the tablet (mapped to the alt key) and moving the pen works perfectly.

The other three buttons on the tablet are assigned to smoothing, negative/subtraction sculpting operations, and changing the size of the brush.

Changing the size of the brush is already possible using the touch strip on the tablet. I also think that it might make more sense to map the smoothing operation to the eraser end on the pen. This would make it possible to free two buttons on the tablet that can be used for panning and zooming.

I hope the above makes sense, and I hope others agree that it would be make sculpting more fluid.

And forgive me for using the word "tablet" as a synomenom for "Wacom Intuos" :)

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  • 1 month later...
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I've got an Wacom Intuos 3 since a couple of days, and truly am enjoying it.

I agree navigation is not perfect, and it would be nice to map to panning to a button. Or to go to "Zbrush mode" or something.

With the tablet came a Airbrush, and this doesn't have a middle mouse button... So panning can only be done by pressing alt+rightclick+Penpress, not really handy.

Some points:

1) Mappable (e.g. "middle mouse button") functions, not only mouse wheel options.

2) Wacom Airbrush support, so the wheel can be used for controlling values like depth.

3) What would be really cool: tilt support. Especially for sculping, making indentations in various angles(would require a toggle though)

4) No-Keyboard(/ZBrush) mode

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Options are good. I don't use the touchstrips at all so I'm ok with how it works now. I miss some of my zbrush navigation options though. Like alt-clicking to frame the object or snap navigation to ortho views by using the shift key etc. I love being able to use the pen buttons for brush resizing in 3dc too. This is something I wish zbrush could do.

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Yeah. I tried working in 3dc on my tablet but the camera navigation made me go back to a mouse. I wouldn't mind an option that emulates zbrush camera navigation. I can totally understand why some people don't like the camera navigation in zbrush if they always use a mouse. But it works good for tablets. For now I'm stuck to playing with VS using a mouse.

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Yeah. I tried working in 3dc on my tablet but the camera navigation made me go back to a mouse. I wouldn't mind an option that emulates zbrush camera navigation. I can totally understand why some people don't like the camera navigation in zbrush if they always use a mouse. But it works good for tablets. For now I'm stuck to playing with VS using a mouse.

Camera navigation ?!?!?! In zbrush you rotate tool not camera. ZBRUSH IS NIGHTMARE, the most stupied and shity interface and workflow on the world (i am sure on other worlds too). Thats why i switch to 3d-coat.

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Never don't said if you really don't know. ZBrush have very easy and understandable interface organization. To understand and feel it you just must understand how pixols work. Anyway I prefer camera navigation in Silo disp painting mode (left click and drag on empty area around model - rotate camera around center of model). In 3DC rotating every time around some dynamic pivot IMHO just terrible.

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I noticed this right away also... the inability to PAN around the object without going back to my mouse.. needing two hands.. If I had a suggestion It would be the (mac) option key + pen (left mouse btn) like zbrush to pan.

Has this been implemented yet in the latest alpha? I would love to be able to just use my wacom board for drawing and navigating.

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Anyway I prefer camera navigation in Silo disp painting mode (left click and drag on empty area around model - rotate camera around center of model). In 3DC rotating every time around some dynamic pivot IMHO just terrible.

Yep, I couldn't agree more. 3D Coat seems very promising and the retopology tools are great, but the current camera navigation scheme makes it very cumbersome to use in actual sculpting. Especially when you come from other apps like Silo or ZBrush - which work MUCH better when it comes rotating your object/view regarding sculpting.

You should be able to freely rotate around your model without having to constantly move it just to get it back to view. Even a simple shortcut to centering the model in view would help - if I have understood correctly, there isn't one?

I do love the retopology tools and Andrew has done a tremendous job, but unfortunately the cumbersome camera really ruins the experience for me.

All the best,

-S

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I'm new here and plan on buying 3D-Coat tomorrow (I really want v3). One thing that bothers me in trying the demo is that I can't redefine the hotkeys to the point that I can sculpt and navigate without leaving my graphics tablet (Intuos 3, 6x8, 8 btns, 2 touch strips). I think this is necessary and so I add my voice to those here that have already said the same thing.

Edit: Nevermind. It's possible, though I'd still like to be able to assign "increase/decrease brush size" to my touch strips.

Edit II: In 3D-Coat v3 alpha I see that you can increase/decrease brush size using "[" and "]" keys but I have those assigned to my tablet's touch strip and am still unable to effect brush size. I'm using OS X on a MacBook Pro.

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Yep, I couldn't agree more. 3D Coat seems very promising and the retopology tools are great, but the current camera navigation scheme makes it very cumbersome to use in actual sculpting. Especially when you come from other apps like Silo or ZBrush - which work MUCH better when it comes rotating your object/view regarding sculpting.

You should be able to freely rotate around your model without having to constantly move it just to get it back to view. Even a simple shortcut to centering the model in view would help - if I have understood correctly, there isn't one?

I do love the retopology tools and Andrew has done a tremendous job, but unfortunately the cumbersome camera really ruins the experience for me.

All the best,

-S

You've obviously never had to use Bodypaint for your texture work. 3DCoat is miles better for navigation. You can customise the camera navigation sceme in the latest v3.0 release

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You've obviously never had to use Bodypaint for your texture work. 3DCoat is miles better for navigation. You can customise the camera navigation sceme in the latest v3.0 release

Really? Well maybe you could hook us up with a zbrush camera navigation preset. I already tried making one, didn't seem possible.

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Really? Well maybe you could hook us up with a zbrush camera navigation preset. I already tried making one, didn't seem possible.

You can emulate all but the 'ALT + LMB > Release ALT > move pen' Zooming workflow from Zbrush. Though why you'd want to do that is beyond me :P You could assign CTRL + LMB to zoom instead (your hand is already there for ALT + LMB for pan - same as zbrush) Not ideal for you I know.

One reason I like to use the 'traditional' Maya setup is that you can navigate at any position on the screen regardless of whether it's over an object or not. This is not possible in Zbrush as far as I know as your pointer needs to be off the model or in the Navi zone which means a LOT of movement back and forth from your area of sculpt just to begin navigation. With the Maya setup you can instantly start navigation regardless of position of pointer = much faster.

I come from a Maya background so I'm very used to using all 3 pen buttons and have no probem with it at all.

This is of course all my subjective opinion. I'm sure you'll disagree with it as you're used to the Zbrush system.

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