Need your input...Mouse Button Short Cuts for Max
polycounter lvl 14
Hi,
I'm working with someone whom I've known for a while at a technology company who is developing a multi-button mouse. It has about 20 buttons not including your regular left, right, & scroll wheel click. It also has an analog stick for the thumb side.
It's more along the lines of a gaming MMO mouse but he wants it to be used for applications too.
He tasked me with coming up with a pre-configured max setup for the beta and I'd thought I'd ask all of you fine folks here if you have any favorite 3ds max keyboard shortcuts you'd like to see in your mouse hand instead?
For example isolating an object (Alt-Q) could be mapped to a single button.
I imagine it might sound a bit weird but I was wondering if people might humor the notion for a second. It's close to going into production so I could maybe see about getting some people here some beta mice too.
I'm working with someone whom I've known for a while at a technology company who is developing a multi-button mouse. It has about 20 buttons not including your regular left, right, & scroll wheel click. It also has an analog stick for the thumb side.
It's more along the lines of a gaming MMO mouse but he wants it to be used for applications too.
He tasked me with coming up with a pre-configured max setup for the beta and I'd thought I'd ask all of you fine folks here if you have any favorite 3ds max keyboard shortcuts you'd like to see in your mouse hand instead?
For example isolating an object (Alt-Q) could be mapped to a single button.
I imagine it might sound a bit weird but I was wondering if people might humor the notion for a second. It's close to going into production so I could maybe see about getting some people here some beta mice too.
Replies
delete
backspace
ring
loop
connect
collapse edge
chamfer edge
open selection floater
open uvw editor
open material editor
There's more too but they are for specific functions in polyboost or orionflame
Some other good ones would probably be weld, shrink, grow, cut ...
loop select
ring select
connect
extude
collapse
cycle pivot mode
repeat last operation
Sorry I wanted to get back to this. So are you mapping those functions to the buttons with macros? maxscripts?
The prototypes cost about $1,000 each but we're seeing if we can get that price down. I can still probably get a few to send sometime in the future if anyone is still interested. I won't have a whole bunch to send so ideally a character artist at blizzard would be the right type of candidates. ;-)
It would involve a combination of max hotkeys and mouse software to do this, so for example if I put "undo" on one of my thumb buttons, I am actually binding "ctrl+z" to that thumb button.
I wouldnt worry so much about a "preset default", everyone works differently and has different "favourite" tools, and a lot of people have custom hotkeys and scripts as well.
All that really matters is that they make some decent software that lets you easily and efficiently customize every button, for every software.
http://www.n52te.com/
It has its own software that comes with it and some sort of built in memory device so if I take the pad to a different computer and plug it in; all the custom keys in all 3 setups stay in tact on the gamer pad. If you set it up right (which took me like an entire day to do) you have access to the whole keyboard in just your left hand and its much more comfortable than a regular keyboard also (I had to mod mine a little to sit right with me though).
Anyways, I have grown so accustom to it I couldn't work without it; and I think if you guys were to have a look at it, you could certainly improve upon its design. I am really interested to see the proto type you guys have atm.
[Edit] I actually have the same mouse as foreverrendering, but I only use its keys for browsing the web really. I could only imagine the power of having the gamerpad in conjuction with a 20 button mouse.
There is a software developer on board and he is indeed making customizable macros possible. Initially it was WoW that got us going. And personally the official WoW MMO mouse is a piece of crap we feel. Hold in a button and it sticks, really chincy.
It will come in two flavors, we are partnering with OpenOffice and it'll have their logo on it and colors. OpenOffice creators want to bring their product to retail bundled with something and chances are it will be our mouse. It'll also sell stand alone tentatively titled "WarMouse" for now.
We have mouse motherboards made and ready to go. Trying to find the right partner for the outer shell & clickable buttons.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/06/openofficemouse-isnt-free-isnt-pretty/#comments
I don't know when it will be available but I might be able to get a few people here some test samples if you want to try it out...
I m actually trying to find a way to map maya-style viewport navigation to keypresses, kindof like Amapi back in the days, ... to avoid hours and hours of repeated mouse dragging just to rotate stuff. Such macros assigned to the extra buttons of this mouse ... would kick ass!!
They're still trying to tighten up the joystick settings and get them straightened out. I guess it works quite well with everything from FireFox to WoW.
I'll make it a polycount exclusive thing, heh. I'll be getting a few production samples that I can give away over the coming weeks I'm hearing with first dibs probably going to users here with high profile companies. We'd like some 3ds max and Maya configuration profiles to go along with the game profiles the software will have. You can customize your own as well.
I'd be very interested to try this out!
I believe a pro version will be re-visited in the future with structural and software changes based on community feedback.
I want dibs for the non-high profile company guys
The more configuration profiles for various software programs the better.
Yeah anyone who is interested send me a PM with an address you want it to go to and your current/past job. Without me asking, pior sent me his info and is already at the top of the list.