What is the consensus on 3DConnexion hardware?

maxim3d

Hello!

I've scoured for what others think of these devices, but most of the threads are quite old (10+ years), or they are focused on CAD. I have been having hand pains, and I have tried a variety of devices (vertical mouse, cadmouse, wacom, so many trackballs, etc.) and with many of them various pains come up. Wacom has been by far the most comfortable, but clicking the mmb on the wacom pens get pretty uncomfortable after a while (I tend to work in 3d for 10+ hrs a day).

I was thinking of binding one of my keyboard buttons to mmb, but I recently came across the Spacemouse from 3DConnexion. It seems quite interesting since you can navigate the viewport so quickly and easily, but I am wondering if it will not be useful in the long run? I use my keyboard a lot, and I tend to jump between software (Blender, UE5, Unity, Painter, Zbrush, PS, Designer, Toolbag). Having my left hand jump between keyboard and the small spacemouse seems like it will slow me down, and the enterprise is interesting, but it seems cumbersome to lug to and from the office and I also have read that the buttons are a bit difficult to press when using them a lot. On top of this, I have concerns that getting used to a unique way of navigation and getting used to a ton of macros set up on a non-keyboard device can hurt me in the long run when going between workstations or between jobs, or if god forbid the spacemouse breaks or the company goes under. Plus, half of the software I use uses the keyboard all of the time, like Designer, UE, or Unity.

The latter half of the paragraph sounds really disparaging towards the spacemouse but these are just concerns of having such a radical change in hardware for my setup, but I do need to figure something out to fix my RSI issues. What do you all think of these devices? Are my fears of being too hardware/macro dependent something that actually warrants such concern? I'm a Junior, so my career is just beginning and I would like for it to be a long one.

Thank you,

Max

poopipe

My spacemouse has made a fantastic ornament for about 15 years now. It comes off the shelf every year or so and I try to get it working with software I use then goes back on the shelf

I really like them and if you use software that has driver support and you do something that takes advantage of the hardware (not modelling imo) they are absolutely a useful thing to have. 

But

There is zero effective support outside of their proprietary drivers - there are a couple of open source efforts to make them useful but they aren't complete or very usable (the only one I could get to respond at all recently was on Linux and would have required me to write a layer on top of the basic drivers

To fix your actual problem... 
Get (or build) a keyboard or macropad that's compatible with vial or zmk.  

That will allow you to program macros, layouts etc as well as special behaviour when you hold keys, double tap them and so on . 
You can set up mousekeys as well-including moving the pointer.
Vial has the best support through a web browser ui - zmk is pretty close though. Via and qmk are the more popular options but hide access to the clever features.

These things store the layout on the device so you don't need special drivers or shitty razer malware and when you move to a different computer the layout remains

Don't worry about getting attached to macros etc. 
Its usually less painful to remap a device to an applications default shortcuts than it is to change the application shortcuts - and you'll remember the defaults if you work somewhere you don't take your special hardware. 

RSI is serious business - thinking about it when you're young is very sensible .
Wacom plus macropad is probably your best option for doing art workflows but you need to mix it up - the R in RSI stands for repetitive 

pior

Also look for any action requiring you to hold down a mouse button while dragging (like most 3d software do for moving verts or objects) and try to get rid of it.

Blender has a very clever legacy input scheme (quite unusual for people not familiar with oldschool command-centric CAD) revolving around tapping a key to initiate a command like Move, followed by moving the mouse to perform the action (without any button being held down), and then confirming or cancelling the action with another tap of a button. This coupled with the fact that such a Move action doesn't have to start anywhere near the element being moved but is instead performed relatively to wherever the mouse cursor was located when the action is triggered makes it way easier on the hands than having to precisely grab, hold and drag a manipulator like Maya or Max require, and it's also objectively faster since it involves less mouse travel. Once you try it there's really no coming back, it's just that much more pleasant, streamlined and easier on the hands.

This could probably be applied to navigation too, but I think that using this kind of lightweight input scheme for object manipulation alone could already be a significant improvement for your hand pain.

maxim3d

@pior Thank you for the ideas! I definitely get and agree that less dragging while holding will go a long way, and fortunately on that end I spend most of my work and home time in Blender. Definitely makes me want to offload camera movement more to my left hand though hearing this, whether through a mmb rebinding on the keyboard or spacemouse 

maxim3d

@poopipe
I appreciate the well written response, and it’s definitely a good idea to get a QMK board or something similar so I don’t have to mess with drivers. 

There is something interesting about the level of viewport control that is gained with a spacemouse, and you mentioned that you try out the space mouse once a year or so to see whether it feels any better. Is there a reason that it doesn’t stick for you? The way I came across it originally was through Jordan Cain using it for hard surface (https://youtu.be/zE88BmgmwiQ?feature=shared), but I can definitely see the proprietary drivers being an issue if a company doesn’t allow them.

pior

@maxim3d You're welcome !

On navigation : honestly this video showing the spacemouse/spacenavigator in action is a reminder that even though these devices definitely have some uses for presentation and can be a decent input device for people not used to Maya-style KB and mouse, it really isn't a time saver at all. I find it a bit painful to watch actually (and yes I do have one too ... sitting in a box next to other spare computer stuff).

Since you're using Blender you are in luck given how flexible it is for input customization. For instance I personally use a combo of 3D Cursor depth + Frame To 3D Cursor to navigate exactly where I want to go, without having to select anything and without having to do much manual viewport navigation. I simply place the 3D Cursor where I want to focus, frame on that, then adjust :



I am actually quite sensitive to bad camera implementations in games and software (in the sense that I often feel uneasy if a game camera has too much unexpected ease-in/ease-out, or if a camera does weird things on its own as is often seen in current third person games) ; yet the above paradigm of framing to the position 3D Cursor feels extremely natural and snappy and doesn't bring any discomfort. And of course this saves on mouse inputs as well.

maxim3d

@pior I will definitely try that! Didn't think of that as an easy way to offset some of my movement to my left hand, but that will go quite a long way

Thank you!

poopipe

I'm with Pior - they're great for presenting or for navigating around a scene and kinda useless otherwise. 

I never enjoyed them for actually modelling where I want to be focused around a specific object - cos that's not what you get. There's no reason the device can't do it but the software always seemed to actively work against you - even if there were settings that claimed to focus your object.

combine that with the fact you lose access to shortcut keys (or replace them with buttons that are worse to press) and it just knackers any productivity. 

there were some 'unofficial' windows drivers that emulated a standard HID device back in the Vista days - i got it working with zbrush on a cintiq and it wasn't a bad setup - zbrush has a weird paradigm that kinda suited the device
- i assume those have been lost to time now (and frankly there's no way I'd be installing a windows device driver I got off the internet these days)

fwiw - i struggle to enjoy all camera navigation setups that aren't identical to max's 'orbit selected subobject' tool so I may not be the best measure

maxim3d

@poopipe From what I've read, the buttons aren't the best. Which is a shame since it's an expensive device. I did see that you can make it orbit around an object, so it functions differently than the video linked prior but either way I'll go with a QMK board and map the mmb to a key . Thank you both for all of the help and advice!

poopipe

 I found the orbit around stuff to be useless/broken in max/Maya etc.  It is totally possible it's fixed though, it's been a long time. 

Like I said, try to find one with VIAL support - or at least VIA. 
QMK is the underpinning for these but is much more work to set up key maps (as in you have to modify files and reflash the thing every time) vs having a web interface that does it.

TheoryBox

Had my space mouse for around 3 years now and its become essential for me, Especially for blender. When you first use one it will feel very weird but becomes completely natural after a while. It might also take a while to find out a good shortcut key setup that works for you.

My setup is the two button space mouse, and a mmo mouse with 12 thumb buttons. I use the 2 space mouse buttons as modifier keys for the 12 mmo mouse buttons.
Rough example : button 1 on the space mouse might extrude, but shift 1 might inset, ctrl 1 might delete the face, and shift ctrl might detach the face.
So i get 4 options per mmo mouse button. 
Blender is perfect for customizing your shortcut keys, and mapping a button on your mouse to the quick favorites menu gives you even more options.

I find the space mouse to be quite comfortable, your hand ends up being in a similar position as a vertical mouse but with more freedom of how you wanna position your hand.
Once you get a good shortcut key setup, its also kinda comfortable being able to do most things in your program without having to take your hands off either device. 

I cant say how well it works in other programs though. I mostly use blender.
Software works fine for me, but its not the most advanced, and doesnt support a lot of programs. they have a list of supported programs on their site if your interested.

space mouse example in blender
https://youtu.be/DDlArQkEAPI

thomasp

maxim3d said:

Wacom has been by far the most comfortable, but clicking the mmb on the wacom pens get pretty uncomfortable after a while (I tend to work in 3d for 10+ hrs a day).

Are you clicking the rocker on the Wacom pen with your thumb? I find that a lot more comfortable than using a finger. Viewport control hotkey on mine is set to the front of the button, right-click context menu stuff to the back. I can do this all day long pain-free.

Space mouse in my experience makes for a great door-stop. Back in the day when I was experimenting with input schemes I was a lot happier with the Microsoft Strategic Commander (no longer being made nor supported). More comfortable to use, better button placement, no headache with application-specific drivers. Way cheaper, too. Basically a mouse-shaped joystick for RTS games to be used alongside a mouse. If something like that still exists, I'd recommend checking it out.

maxim3d

@TheoryBox MMO Mice are super cool. The naga felt a bit heavy for long hours but the dream of having a ton of macros and hotkeys at the right hand sounds awesome. I jump around a lot of software and unfortunately it doesn't seem to be comfortably supported in most software that I spend a lot of time in .

maxim3d

@thomasp
I tend to adjust and click with thumb and pointer finger, adjusting between one and the other when one gets uncomfortable. I use one of the newer intuos 2025 ones (huge fan of the button layout on the tablet itself) that have the pro pen 3 and the buttons there are a lot stiffer/harder to press than intuos 4 pen, but having the third button right on the pen has been pretty much a necessity with multiple displays for me.

It's interesting to hear your take on this as I've lurked on polycount for many years, and I've read so many of your posts/comments where you've talked about alternative input devices. Honestly relying on a single driver sucks, as a friend of mine has recently expressed annoyance with him consistently crashing in unreal due to the spacemouse drivers causing some issue which has forced him off of it. It honestly sounds like for gamedev environment artists it's not great, as you use so many apps that if it breaks in one it's a massive headache

thomasp

maxim3d said:

It's interesting to hear your take on this as I've lurked on polycount for many years, and I've read so many of your posts/comments where you've talked about alternative input devices. Honestly relying on a single driver sucks, as a friend of mine has recently expressed annoyance with him consistently crashing in unreal due to the spacemouse drivers causing some issue which has forced him off of it. It honestly sounds like for gamedev environment artists it's not great, as you use so many apps that if it breaks in one it's a massive headache

Ok, wow. I have no idea what I wrote in years past - hopefully it's consistent and not too confusing - and I just googled the Intuos 2025 and yeah: that looks different (mine are what might be called Intuos Pro of the previous generation or two).

So you got three separate buttons on the pen now as opposed to the rocker Intuos have been sporting since their inception in the late 90's. Ok, I admit I have no idea how those might feel. Of course the buttons on the cases of previous Intuos tablet generations to me have always felt so ultra-stiff that I plainly refused to use them and to this day they remain disabled along with all the other shebang on there * - but the rocker was always smooth and easy on the thumb.

I sincerely hope they didn't ruin the Wacom pen with this hardware update.

And yeah, the 3d connexion experience through the decades at least in our field has been that the driver is what's holding it back. It's like an idea that sounds great on paper - and turns out sketchy when it comes to execution. You only need one application in your workflow to not properly support it to ruin the experience.

* Intuos 2 was the pinnacle. No silly buttons and scrollwheels on the case, USB cord in the right place and firmly attached. If you got the premium version the case color was inoffensive too.