Excellent advice Tony and pitrak, thank you!

I think you've both convinced me that a Medium should be fine.

Saves AU$150, too :)

And takes up less desk space.

I just always figured that it would be better to have a larger one for drawing, as with more space to have to move the pen for the same distance of the cursor would mean it would be more accurate (finer control).

But you all seem to say that a Medium is fine, so that sounds good :)

I don't do much drawing so my small Intuos 3 is a good size. I think it's a widescreen version of the smallest model, 4x6" active area. I went small for portability because I often pack it with my laptop to a coffee shop or to school to take class notes with Onenote or do diagramming type stuff. I agree that unless you already have muscle memory for taking large drawing strokes, a smaller version will work as well or better for you, besides saving money.

If you haven't yet purchased, I second the advice about having a two-button pen; I'm not sure if the Bamboo or Fun models have them. And the disconnect between pen and screen will disappear immediately for you since you sound like you have spent a long time around computers.

Regarding MoI and other applications, I find I still like to have comfortable access to the keyboard for hotkeys or navigating with keyboard (like hitting a key to jump to a file while browsing a large folder). That said, I'm still pretty fast with MoI without a keyboard thanks to the interface. Michael, is there any way to completely alter the shift/ctrl/alt modifiers or completely swapping middle and right mouse buttons (where middle mouse is then also the primary command/Enter button)? The reason I ask is that the touch strip on my tablet doesn't work; it only responds to pen input. I would prefer to zoom with that strip, as I suspect most users do, except I'd have to look at the pad to aim the pen each time. Instead I use the default wacom assignment for Ctrl in combination with the default pen button for right click. And navigation in MoI is still great and fluid. The only slight problem I have is in the 3d view because I can't find a happy medium for zoom, pan, and rotate (without resorting to the quick navigation tools at the view bottom in order to Pan). This is pretty nitpicky though as a quick tap on Reset and I'm aimed at what I want.

I'm not sure if anyone answered the OP about buying MoI itself so I'll say that I believe it to be a good purchase. There are a great many apps out there that aren't nearly as fluid and clean and cost much more. That assessment is dependent on you already feeling like you are getting decent results or otherwise 'getting' the app after only a little time. If you're frustrated or fighting with it after two weeks then maybe something else would be better suited, who knows? Like you, I'm using MoI mostly for hobbyist game models and it feels like it will give me everything I need now and in the future, sans high-detail organic models that I don't have the time to attempt anyway.

Hi Kalthorn,

> Michael, is there any way to completely alter the shift/ctrl/alt
> modifiers or completely swapping middle and right mouse
> buttons (where middle mouse is then also the primary
> command/Enter button)?

There isn't anything to just globally switch it for all cases, but there is an option for switching it so that rotate is done by dragging the middle button and pan is done by dragging the right.

In the last v2 beta that is available under Options > View > Rotate/Pan/Zoom options > Rotate with middle button. It was also available in v1 but you had to edit the moi.ini file to enable it, let me know if you want me to find that setting for v1.


For using Right click as Done/Repeat last command, pressing the Enter key does the same thing, so if there is any possibility for you to program special keys or something like that, maybe sending an enter keystroke would work for that?

- Michael

Hi Kalthorn,

>>I would prefer to zoom with that strip, as I suspect most users do, except I'd have to look at the pad to aim the pen each time.

I use the control SHIFT/CNTRL/ALT modifiers all the time for navigating, don't use the touch strip. Partly because most of my other apps use the same. Hexagon drove me up the wall because it relied on the scroll wheel to zoom, and I still end up creating masks all the time in ZBrush when I want to zoom or pan. :-)

I am also a great believer in keyboard shortcuts. They increase speed for the most used commands and with RSI in both my right wrist and shoulder the less movement on that side the better.

Having said that, MoI is so tablet friendly that sometimes I just sit back and take my time with the pen only. But I have added various icons of commands I use a lot so don't need all the shortcuts.

I also agree that MoI is a great buy - I was sold on V1 and V2 has added loads of great new stuff!

Thanks for the suggestions guys. Michael, yes, I had seen the new menu option in V2 but I didn't think it would allow for the setup I desire.

I really like the default MoI setup of having my primary navigation button also being Enter/Repeat Command. Using it for navigation, I can Pan in three views and Rotate in the fourth. Adding a single modifier, Ctrl, I can then Zoom in all views....

Hmmmm, playing around with it now, I'm not sure why I changed the tablet's default Shift button to Alt, but Shift+RightClick gives me panning in the 3D View so I guess my problem is solved. Alt doesn't seem to have any important use for anything else (like Ctrl's "prefer deselection") so I'll ditch that key assignment.

So how does everyone else have their other assignments? I've found I like my bottom-most tablet button to act as Spacebar for quick view switching and my final one for Cancel. I haven't settled on a final assignment for the second pen button though. It's currently Reset View but I also liked it for Undo. I have no idea what I might use the touch strip for but it isn't really needed for MoI.

Also, does anyone, tablet or not, get disoriented when they pan too much vertically in the 3d view? Whenever I pan enough away from the grid or don't have geometry nearby for reference, I feel like my rotation has suddenly switched to first-person mode. I assume panning along z also raises the point of rotation so my guess is that I'm rotating around a point that is close to the camera and without close by objects to let me know I'm "swinging" around a point, it instead feels like I am turning in place. Would it be possible to have an option to lock the camera point of rotation within the extents of all geometry (perhaps just along Z)?

Hi Kalthorn,

> but Shift+RightClick gives me panning in the 3D View so
> I guess my problem is solved.

Yeah there are quite a variety of ways to handle view manipulations, so that people who are used to other programs can just do it the way they are accustomed to.

So in addition to the "normal" way (right drag for rotate, middle drag for pan, scroll wheel for zooming), there are also:

Alt + Left drag = Rotate
Alt + Shift + Left drag = Pan
Alt + Ctrl + Left drag up and down = Zoom
Ctrl + Right drag up and down = Zoom
Alt + Right drag up and down = Zoom
Shift + Right drag = Pan

Then also the buttons at the bottom of the viewport...


> Whenever I pan enough away from the grid or don't
> have geometry nearby for reference, I feel like my rotation
>has suddenly switched to first-person mode.

It tends to be easy to get disoriented when your pivot point is not located at a familiar location or when there are not any objects nearby the pivot point.

You can set the pivot point to a particular spot by using the Zoom Area button (at the bottom of a viewport) - the center point for the area will become the new pivot/target point. Also if you get disoriented use the Reset button to recenter your view on the selected (or all) objects.


> I assume panning along z also raises the point of rotation

Yeah when you pan up/down/left/right, your pivot point comes along with you - in MoI the pivot point is always set up to be along a line straight through the center of the screen.

 

> so my guess is that I'm rotating around a point that is close
> to the camera and without close by objects to let me know I'm
> "swinging" around a point, it instead feels like I am turning in place

It sounds like you may have zoomed in quite a bit so that you are now at only a very short distance away from the pivot point - try zooming out a bit which will step you away from it somewhat.


> Would it be possible to have an option to lock the camera point of
> rotation within the extents of all geometry (perhaps just along Z)?

I would like to experiment with some options for the rotation pivot point in the future.

But one big problem with this method would be that it would become pretty difficult to work on one small localized area of the model that was not nearby that center point.

Currently you can set the pivot point to a the center of a single object by selecting it and using Reset, or also set it to a particular small location (like the end of a particular edge, etc..) by using zoom area, and then that allows you to work in that small area in a more natural way, including pivoting around it. If your pivot point was not settable in this way it would be hard to work on localized areas like that.

- Michael