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Switching to tablet for modeling

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Jonas Ronnegard polycount sponsor
So I'm 25 years old, and I probably spend 14hours a day in front of a computer, and 90% of that time I use the mouse. My wrist have always hurt a bit after a long day, but now It doesn't really feel like it's going back to normal as it usually does, and I can feel my gripping power has decreased.

So Many people have told me to switch to a tablet only kind of work setup, which I don't really feel should be impossible, but I would like to ask what key setup should be use for this? buttons and all that, My current company use 3ds max so I'll probably using 3ds max for now.

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  • seth.
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    seth. polycounter lvl 14
    I use a tablet for pretty much everything, beside the keyboard though, not with the keyboard behind it....I have noticed that your shoulders can ache with the keyboard behind cos you are kinda working hunched over.

    For max I have middle click on the front rocker and right click at the back, middle click+alt is rotate, middle click+Ctrl is pan, and crtl+alt+middle click is zoom.

    you may need to be careful with the scale of objects in youer scene as the alt/ctrl zoom isn't as quick as the middle mouse wheel, but other than that it works just fine for me :)

    hope that helps
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Jonas Ronnegard polycount sponsor
    Ah great, that works better :) thanks for the help,
    but don't you feel the back button can be a bit annoying to reach at times?

    also when i use max i tend to Z click to objects and faces a lot so i can stick to that part and I scroll zoom a lot but i'm still locked on the object i z clicked on, but when using the zoom with the pen I lose the lock and have to z click again and get 100% zoomed in again, any fix for this?
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    I think the best setup consists of buttons like Seth said (middle click and right click) and Draster Switcher to enable Maya navigation in Max (pre 2013). Holding the middle/wheel button continuously Max-style is probably the worse thing one can do to one's art had. It's really, really bad.

    Jonas, don't wait ; After a week it is ridiculously easy. I personally switch between the regular tablet, the Cintiq and the mouse all the time. I feel that keeping things varied is even healthier than just going either/or.

    Also, a dual monitor setup doesn't really require screen toggle for the tablet. Everything on my secondary screen I perform with the mouse. It makes sense to me since I don't have anything requiring accurate stroke running there (Chrome, a few Photoshop palettes, VLC, and so on.)
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Ah yeah as an old maya user i already use switcher, could never get used to max navigation

    I can feel everything working and that I'm getting more use to it, only problem is the zoom problem i mentioned in my earlier reply
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Could you be a bit more specific about the zoom issue ? I feel like it is just a setting somewhere ...
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    well what i mean is that when i zoom with the pen I lose the lock to the object after i stop zooming, and if i want to lock on to something again i have to press z again which will take me back close to the object
  • ericdigital
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    ericdigital polycounter lvl 13
    Not sure if there is exactly what you're looking for but here is a similar thread

    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95234

    I wish I had more experience with using a tablet in max but I know for maya using a tablet works really well since maya has marquee menus and all that. I'm sure max can be set up in a similar way as well though.
  • Seirei
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    I actually worked for quiet some time with a tablet in 3ds Max on my last job. It was realy cool because I had the feeling that I could click more precisely when using stuff like 'target weld'. And maybe that's just me but I never had any problems with the Max navigation while using my pen. ^^
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Maybe you don't have the rotational focus on selection enabled ? It's that little yellow icon "behind" the regular viewport rotation icon.
  • seth.
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    seth. polycounter lvl 14
    yeah sorry man, I cant help with the zoom issue, haven't come across it myself. I never used switcher unfortunatly, I learned Max for work and they said if I had it everyone would want it so I just had to nut up and make do really.

    I dont have a problem with the rocker buttons tbh, that may be because I use my thumb to press them rather than my index finger which I have seen some people do....also I have my tablet (intuos 4 medium) mapped over both screens, more often than not I am only moving my wrist rather than my whole forearm to navigate my primary screen....people that have watched me stream wonder if I use a cintiq at times just cos of the smoothness of my strokes,I wish!! But its just cos I hardly have to move my arm at all :D

    ninja edit: @ ericdigital: yeah I use custom quad menus in max as a replacement to maya's hotbox, its not quite the same but it does the trick for modifiers, scripts, co-ordinates, etc
  • katana
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    katana polycounter lvl 14
    I'm a mouse user for modeling, and have been for the ten years or so I've been at it. For anything that is pressure sensitive/ responsive (painting/sculpting), the tablet is the only way to go. In fact I just ordered a Intous 4 (12x18) to replace my 6 year old Intous 2 (4x5)....

    I have looked at the fancy modeling (3Dconnexion) hardware and that maybe on the horizon, but for now, I work with the tools at hand.
  • jeremiah_bigley
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    jeremiah_bigley polycounter lvl 12
    Jonas - Hey man I have been using a tablet for modeling for almost 4 years now. I love it. I originally switched for the same reason. My wrists were killing me. Though I wanted to let you know... that all you are doing is delaying the inevitable.

    If you don't do something about this joint pain it will eventually start happening while using a tablet. It is what I am dealing with. It is just not healthy for anyone to sit in the same position for long periods of time without them using their full range of movement.

    YOU NEED TO STRETCH.

    Period. End of story. You can't expect to spend 14 hours a day in front of a computer and your body love you. The sooner you understand this the sooner you can get to solving the problem.

    If you do yoga and calisthenic workouts your joint pain will slowly but surely disappear. You just gotta make time you know? Putting in 20 to even 30 minutes a day could do wonders.
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Great advice people, as for the zoom problem, don't know what i did, but seem to work as it should now :).

    As for the stretching, and moving the body, I do that, although instead of like normal people walking around and doing daily natural moving, I can sit 14 hours straight then do a 2 hour highly explosive gym pass, probably not the best for the body, but it keeps me in shape, what you mean I guess though is stretching the wrist and arm right? I'm kinda forced to do that, otherwise it will be in pain.
  • jeremiah_bigley
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    jeremiah_bigley polycounter lvl 12
    That is what I am saying... Hitting the gym doesn't do anything specifically for your joints. And in some cases could make tendonitis/carpal tunnel syndrome worse.

    Sitting for 14 hours, and every hour or so going, "man my wrist really hurts, I better stretch it for 30 seconds" is not good enough. So when I say stretch I don't mean just to make things feel better for that moment. You would really have to dedicate some workout time to stretching and gaining flexibility, which btw is a completely different thing than being in shape. You could be fit and look like a rockstar and have terrible joints and flexibility.

    If you were to do yoga for just a few weeks... you would realize how much of a cure it really is. And honestly it took me a very long time to realize this. I couldn't just hear it from someone. I had to get the the point where it was so bad I had everything to lose, put my pride and man card aside and give it a try... and everything just went away. Completely pain free after a few weeks.

    You wouldn't have made this thread if the pain wasn't that bad. I am just letting you know I have been down this path, currently have problems with both wrists, elbows and shoulders... way beyond the point of just average pain, and am just letting you know what you can do to target the problem. With 14 hour days... it wont be long before you are back to hurting even with a pen tablet. If and when you get to that point... then what? I have fallen out of stretching so things have gotten really bad again. But now that I am finally out of school I can really dedicate some time to it.

    Like I said man... dedicated stretching exercises and the pain will go away. If you still have pain... you aren't stretching enough.

    Edit: And just to put this out there for others as well. If you are really dealing with pain and you need a pretty quick fix aside from pain killers... Running your wrist under hot water and stretching it while doing so can be a pretty nice immediate pain relief. In the end there are a million things you can do to make your setup easier on you (Ergonomic setups and such... but really we just weren't meant to be sitting at a computer for this long.


    And one more thing... If you just really can't get over the yoga thing... I hear rock climbing does wonders as well.
  • WarrenM
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    Just my 2 cents on the yoga thing ... if you have some sort of hang up about it, get over it. Seriously. Yoga is friggin' HARD and a damned good work out if done right.

    That said there are different kinds of yoga. Doing a flow class isn't going to get you the stretching that you're looking for. That's more about strength and endurance, IIRC. So if you're going to try yoga, make sure you're doing a class that focuses on stretching and flexibility rather than strength.
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Jonas Ronnegard polycount sponsor
    Really appreciate your comments :), Will look into the stretching more, and hopefully that will help, although just by throwing away my mouse and only using my wacom today, I haven't felt any pain at all, which is a great start.
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Jonas Ronnegard polycount sponsor
    so i'm back at it again and i have encountered a couple of problems,

    for a first,

    Seems like my wacom changes settings depending on what window i have open, when i have max open I can't reach the whole window, it adjusts itself to a smaller area.

    Also my lag when orbiting seems to be back, no settings changed
  • Tenchi
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    The first problem, might be just that you haven't recalibrated the Wacom in your settings? The second one is something I had a similar issue with, for me it was a drivers issue. I have a Cintiq and Intuos3 and if I load the latest Cintiq driver and I swap to the Intuos3 I experience lag using the tablet. Disappears if I load the latest Intuos3 driver. Hope that helps ^^
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    calibrate it? didn't even know i could do that, where can i calibrate it?

    Yeah I changed drivers to an older version before which seemed to fix it, but then it was back again, well disabled aero and turned on classic instead which helped quite a lot, but seem like it just decreases the lag instead of taking it all away, like i did before when changing drivers.
  • ikken
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    > Also my lag when orbiting seems to be back, no settings changed

    do you have those fucking blue circles everytime wacom lags? you might want to read this

    > I have a Cintiq and Intuos3 and if I load the latest Cintiq driver and I swap to the Intuos3 I experience lag using the tablet. Disappears if I load the latest Intuos3 driver. Hope that helps ^^

    drivers for intuos 3 and 4 (and 5) are the same, by picking "latest intuos 3 driver" off wacom website you get the same build as for intuos 4;
    however, if's generally a bad idea to have tablets of 2 different generations installed on one machine.
    if your cintiq is 2nd gen (intuos 4 pen tech), I'd recommend sticking to either intuos 3 or cintiq, not both at the same time. (same with intuos/bamboo, bamboo/cintiq combinations - my wacom driver with intuos 3 preferences saved was crashing like crazy after purchasing intuos 5; cleaning prefs solved that issue)
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