3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator support!

[Jessy]

I just got a 3Dconnexion SpaceNavigator, and it is one of the coolest things I've ever used. It's awesome in Cheetah 3D and Google Earth. But it doesn't work in Unity.

[DaveyJJ]

here for people who don't know ...

http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/3a1d.php

Might be something like the incompatibilities we saw with the Wacom tablets way back at the beginning in Unity 1.2 or so.

[Jessy]

I'll be using the SpaceNavigator in my left hand and my Wacom tablet in my right. I think the SpaceNavigator is going to be a giant productivity increaser, and it is more important to have it working in a standalone modeling/animation program for now, but when Unity 2.0 hits, painting in a landscape is going to be clunky as heck without it.

[thylaxene]

yes please unity support would be great. I've got one and it works great with maya, google earth, sketchup and pscs3... just wish modo, zbrush and unity worked with it!

[Joe ByDesign]

Another vote for this!

[Neural Echo]

Native support by Unity for the SpaceNavigator would be great.

Although I'd like to vote for support for the entire range of 3DConnexion Space<modelname> products as I just got a SpaceExplorer and it has more buttons than the Navigator.

[JR]

I also vote for SpaceNavigator support natively in Unity. In fact I've made a quick, hacky plugin using the 3DConnexion SDK to read the SpaceNavigator for a test application. It is a great navigation device and would be very useful in the editor in navigating the game scene. Cheetah3D got a form of SpaceNavigator support, however the manipulation mode is not FPS style. I feel FPS style would be better for Unity. I understood that Cheetath3D does not use the SDK, rather the HID device reading functionality of OSX.

[jeffcraighead]

I vote for this one as well. I've got one in the mail.

[DocSWAB]

Ooh, now you're making me want one. Yeah it would be great for Unity to support it!

[Neural Echo]

In fact I've made a quick, hacky plugin using the 3DConnexion SDK to read the SpaceNavigator for a test application.

Does your 'hack' use the Navigator driver? The ControllerMate application is able to recognise and make use of the Navigator/Explorer without the driver being installed.

The driver only supports two buttons. So not relying on the driver would potentially allow greater functionality for other 3Dconnexion controllers with more than 2 buttons.

I understood that Cheetath3D does not use the SDK, rather the HID device reading functionality of OSX.

I'm pretty sure Cheetah3D (C3D) uses the SDK. I read on the C3D forums that Martin was able to integrate support into Cheetah in an afternoon using the SDK.

[Jessy]

Martin actually told me he didn't understand the SDK too well. So, the Cheetah support for the SpaceNavigator is buggy and unusable right now, despite that being advertised as a new feature.

I was going to go with Cheetah3D, but I just can't do it now.

[kyleh]

I just picked one up at Siggraph this week. It's a great little device.

I would also like to through in a vote for native support in Unity.

[thylaxene]

btw looks like blender support is here (in beta form at least):

http://www.3dconnexion.com/solutions/blender.php

Cheers.

[JR]

To Neural_Echo: Yes, I've got all the 3DConnexion stuff installed.

To Jessy: How come? I have not noticed any bugs when using the SpaceNavigator with Cheetah3D, however the navigation mode is different from what I prefer, which is camera centric rotations a'la FPS. But to me it seems to be working.

[Neural Echo]

The only bug I have found when using the SpaceExplorer with Cheetah is that the Horizon Plane sometimes shrinks and even disappears when you zoom in close to an object. When this happens the Zoom speed also decreases dramatically so it looks like you can no longer zoom, but you actually can, just very slowly. Zooming back out seems to reset things, or you can press button 1 to reset the scene.

The controls do seem a little strange and would probably be better if they were more like an FPS. It might be possible to change the behaviour by modifying the controller's setting under the driver configuration window which is accessed by pressing button 2.

[Jessy]

The only bug I have found when using the SpaceExplorer with Cheetah is that the Horizon Plane sometimes shrinks and even disappears when you zoom in close to an object. When this happens the Zoom speed also decreases dramatically so it looks like you can no longer zoom, but you actually can, just very slowly. Zooming back out seems to reset things, or you can press button 1 to reset the scene.

The controls do seem a little strange and would probably be better if they were more like an FPS. It might be possible to change the behaviour by modifying the controller's setting under the driver configuration window which is accessed by pressing button 2.

All you do is reset the axes in the 3Dconnexion Prefences pane. It's not hard, and you should be doing this with all of your applications to get proper results. If what you describe sounds usable to you, by all means use it, but as far as I'm concerned, it makes Cheetah unusable. You can only reset the scene a couple times before it breaks completely, and the bugginess is saved in the file, rendering the SpaceNavigator useless even after a Quit and Open again of Cheetah.

Also, Martin limited the control to only use 5 of the 6 axes of the SpaceNavigator because he personally didn't like using the sixth one. I go with Maya for the time being. Hit the left button in that program, and you get a nice custom-tailored control screen.

The version of Blender with "alpha" SpaceNavigator support also won't run on my machine (MacBook Pro).

[cbullock]

I just received my Space Navigator in the mail, works great. Doesn't look like anyone's mentioned this in a few months, so I thought I'd see if there is any news about supporting the 3DConnexion devices in Unity? If not, I cast my vote as well for it.

Also hoping that Cinema 4D on the Mac will soon support it (They do on Windows I believe, just not the Mac for some reason). I put in a feature request, but who knows if it'll ever be added. In the meantime, support for it in Unity would be oodles of fun.

[Jessy]

I don't remember if I said this already, but I requested it as well. I'm still a 3D newbie, but Cinema 4D has a great interface, so it would be nice if it would have support for this essential tool.

Now that Unity supports everything natively with Blender, I'm going to focus there for now. Hopefully 2.46 comes out soon with real SpaceNavigator support.

[Swine]

I vote for SpaceNavigator support too. 3Dconnexion claims it is easy to add.

http://www.3dconnexion.com/support/sdk.php

[jashan]

I definitely would say that SpaceNavigator support is a MUST. I'm using it with Cheetah3D - and basically, that kicked out Realsoft 3D as a modelling tool even though the functionality set of Realsoft 3D totally rocks.

But it's so much more fun to navigate in the scene with the navigator. I would even consider supporting that device in games because it's so much fun using it!

Which leads to another question: Would it be possible to integrate SpaceNavigator support into the Web player (as a plugin, or "by default")? I would assume that that's a rather tricky issue, but maybe I'm lucky

Maybe that's even something one could talk to 3dConnexion about. Imagine how that could boost their sales, when the Unity Web Player has taken over the world (which it hopefully will, pretty soon ). After all, a EUR 60-device is something that many gamers wouldn't mind adding to their system...

Sunny regards,
Jashan