Hello Moidelers,

I will just post a little request about navigation. Something really stupid probably, but important enough for me so I decide to take the time to post this.
I'm used to switch from different application all the time, and I really enjoy Moi navigation ... However there is still one behavior that's I still don't get.

So here's a little picture, because it's something not really easy for me to explain.



Ok, so here's a default view, when the global Z-axis is pointing up. I rotate my view as expected, using the [ALT]+[LMB]+Sliding the mouse.
Sliding to the right make the view rotate anticlockwise, sliding to the left rotate clockwise ... nothing special here, it's a 'natural' behavior for me.




But now ...



Here I have rotated the view completely (upside down in english ?), so the global Z-axis is pointing down. Now I'm really disturbed by the rotate view
behavior. Sliding to the right make the view rotate clockwise, sliding to the left rotate anticlockwise. I really have the filling I'm doing a back out (?)
with my car, when I have to turn the steering wheel to the right when I want to turn to the left ^^

Does it make sence ? Now maybe it's a 'standard' navigation in common cad software, but coming from lw/modo/silo ... it's really strange.
(the rotation direction is allways the same, sliding the mouse to the right for an anticlokwise move and to the left for a clockwise one ... and that's whatever the direction of the Z axis is).





As a second request, is it possible to have an option for the zoom tool ([CTRL]+[ALT]), so I can slide horizontally to increase / decrease the zoom factor ... and not vertically like it behaves now. The reason is simple, whatever I'm using a tablet or a mouse, I always have more room horizontally on my tablet (16*9) or on my desk :).


I can understand that moi navigation can't be a mix between every package on the market, but just having an option to configure it would be really great ;).


Cheers.

Hi PaQ,

I totally understand what you mean and further more agree. I think having used Rhino complicates matters and perceptions but the currently logic
is sometimes difficult to work with.....

Cheers,

Hi Paul,

Rhino by default will "Rotate around world axis" as with MoI, and personally do find it more logical. But, I do agree that it can be confusing at first. Having a "Rotate relative to view" (as in Rhino) can still be a pain, but possibly more logical for others.


- manz

Rotate around world axis vs Rotate relative to view ...

voila, you have resume my post with 6 words :o)

Hi Steve,

Unless I have Rhino set up differently to everyone else I much prefer that way, dragging from right to left spins the model clockwise regardless of which way Z is pointing. In Moi it becomes the opposite which takes some remembering ;-) !!

cheers,

I think what could also help new users, would be a "stop at poles"


-

Hi Paul,

You may of changed the default settings in Rhino at some point.

The default are:-




When rotating around world axis, it is with mouse movement if the deg of movement is + or -, so when you flip the axis you will get that reverse of rotation. But yes, an option to "Rotate relative to view" could certainly help new users.

- manz

Yup.....mine was set to view - thanks for pointing that out :-)

I somehow prefer this logic but then im not as experienced as you perhaps and only really used Rhino to date

cheers,

Hi PaQ - it should not be difficult for me to at least add some options in v2 for these 2 things.

But you mentioned coming from lw/modo/silo - I just gave Silo 2.0 a quick try and it seems to have the exact same view rotation behavior as MoI over here, that is that when you flip upside down, the "left-right" motion always creates the same kind of rotation around the world axis, so that can appear to be reversed from your local frame of reference when you are flipped upside down.

As far as I know I have completely standard settings in Silo - did you set a custom setting in Silo that has different behavior?


Also I just did a quick try of Rhino and Cinema4D over here, and they also have the same behavior as MoI and Silo...


I have noticed before that Maya does something different for this, that they reverse the rotation direction when you are upside down to make it act like you are describing. But that is not without its own problems - to do that means making a sudden shift in the rotation direction when you cross over the "pole" point. If you are doing rotations right near that transition point, that is kind of strange in that area that a small difference in vertical rotation suddenly shifts the mouse action. So that's why I didn't really decide to do that. It is especially weird when using the Rotate button on the toolbar that lets you do a kind of continuously moving rotation. With that reversal method, that movement appears to kind of "bounce" when it passes over the reversal point.

With the MoI method, there is no single "sudden shift point". There is actually a more consistent type of action if you try moving left and right as you also move up slightly in small steps.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

The various software I use do default to the same rotate, it does indicate to me where I am in rotation (if I am upside down or not), even the poly programs such as Carrara/ Hexagon are the same.


- manz

Indeed you're right about silo :S did I just dream about it :)

But now, if you have some time, you should have a look to modo. (I know it's a bit
boring, the evaluation download require an account creation etc :S)

I'm not a technical artist, I don't get a clue about how they manage stuff like the pole transition ...
all I know is that is works really well and I never notice any problem with this method, since years of modeling.

Default navigation keys are the same as Moi, so you will quickly get use of it.

Of course I'm talking here about the rotation keys. Personally I really can't use the rotate toolbar button in Moi,
for me it's just like if I use my wrong (left) hand to move my mouse (and probably the acceleration behavior don't really
help)... I rotate the view everywhere except where I want, especially when the view is upside down.

Modo has also a rotate tool bar button, which works very well too, without any bounce, even if I'm a little bit less comfortable with.

So maybe it's just a question of taste, maybe not :)

Hi PaQ,

For the toolbar button, you probably want to set the option to reverse how it works, you can do that under Options dialog / View / Rotate/Pan/Zoom options / Reverse rotate button.

The rotate button is set by default to rotate by moving the camera around, like pushing to the left rotates the camera location towards the left. As the camera moves towards the left, objects in the scene will appear to move towards the right. If you enable the "Reverse rotate button" option, it will work more like you rotate objects towards the left when you move towards the left, that may suit you better.

Also with that button you don't want to make large movements with the mouse like you may normally do with the "in viewport" type rotate, just move it by a pretty small amount, like given the size of the button don't move it more than one button's length or so away from there. This can be nice for tablets because you can get action with only small movements of your hand. You can also adjust the sensitivity under that Rotate/Pan/Zoom options to reduce it still seems too sensitive for you.

I have looked at Modo before, but just not in detail at rotation, I'll check it out.

It does seem like MoI's behavior is more standard across a larger number of apps though.

- Michael

Hi Michael,

>>>It does seem like MoI's behavior is more standard across a larger number of apps though.

Why would you mention MoI as standard, when you add 2d manipulators/ widgets? Seems a little strange for you to put forward convention.


- manz

Hi PaQ - just did some quick checking of Modo 203.

When using the little toolbar rotate in Modo, it seems to also behave exactly the same as MoI. I mean same exact behavior when you flip upside down.

Here I'm talking about the little one in the upper-right corner of the viewport, are you talking about some different one, or did this possibly change in the new version of Modo?


I do see that the Alt+Left click "in viewport" rotate is totally different than that though. Actually this is the kind of rotation that really bugs me quite a lot, where it doesn't keep me vertically oriented and above the x/y plane when I rotate towards the left. For me that makes me get twisted upside down way more easily than the "stay vertical" type rotation method.

This is the same type of rotation as the "rotate relative to view" option in Rhino.

The option that I was thinking of adding for you is different than this - I was thinking of adding the option to behave like Maya where it works like MoI currently does except if you have rotated "over the top" of the pole so that you are now upside down, it will reverse the left-right action to make it feel more local but still keep you in the "above the plane" type rotation method. This is the method that has the "bounce" effect in it when doing animated style continuous rotations but I think it will make it work more like how you expect.

- Michael

Hi Steve,

> Why would you mention MoI as standard, when you add 2d
> manipulators/ widgets? Seems a little strange for you to
> put forward convention.

I'm not dead set on breaking convention just for the sake of breaking convention.

If I see some advantage to breaking convention then I'm not very hesitant about doing it, but like in this case PaQ was asking for MoI to work more like other apps, well it turns out that MoI is already working more like other apps in this case. So mentioning convention was definitely applicable to this conversation.

The 2D manipulators are intended to be familiar and use a convention similar to 2D illustration programs that a lot of artists are already familiar with. So adding those in to MoI is not like adding in some alien feature that nobody has ever seen before in any kind of software.

Sure, they haven't seen it before in 3D software, but in many cases 3D software has ignored 2D type methods too much.

- Michael

Are the Carrara type manipulators to ahead of thier time for 2D apps perhaps?
(I had to--again!)
Brian

Hi Brian,

> Are the Carrara type manipulators to ahead of thier time for 2D apps perhaps?

No, it is just too weird in a 2D app to put a thing right in the middle of your object with 2 big lines sticking out of it.

Carrara type manipulators are designed for a totally different purpose of manipulating 3D points in a 3D view.

- Michael

For interest, this is the setup in Amapi 7.52.
The now Universal Manipulator of Hexagon (Carrara) setup, from the same design team, was the next step forward.

Horses for courses, I find going back to the 2d apps methods "wierd"
(I use the 4 views generally for working in all my apps and ---well you know my likes.)
Brian

Hi Brian, I wouldn't mind eventually adding in a universal manipulator method in MoI as an additional / alternative way.

The one really big problem with it is that it goes right on top of your objects, partially obscuring your view of them, instead of going around them leaving your object fully viewable.

In the 2D view, MoI's new editing frame solves that problem and just generally has a lower impact on distracting you from the objects. There are 5 individual translucent grips, no lines connecting them, there is just less stuff on the screen there. That will make it easier to keep it on all the time without it getting in the way as much.

In the 3D view it becomes more difficult to come up with a frame like this that goes around the outside of everything. That's when a design that has a center axis point like the Carrara style manipulator is a good solution. It is a good solution for 3D but not the best solution for 2D.


There are actually some other issues with the manipulator-based approach though - a lot of times they tend to operate in a less precise way by doing things like applying a scale factor just by some arbitrary amount of pixels that you moved the mouse by, instead of being more focused on snapping on to different spots.

For example, MoI's new frame allows for taking this box:



And grabbing the corner of a frame and dragging it up to snap on to the other box above, scaling the inner box by the exact amount needed to make it fit between those areas:




Is it possible to do that with Carrara's manipulator?

- Michael

Spoil sport!
I though I had good arguments and then you shoot me down!

Story of my life! Cry, mumble, sniff!

Brian