Before I present this idea let me give a quick bit of BG. I’m not all that experienced with ZB and so I’ve yet to become totally comfortable with the navigation. This is of course is a common complaint, and one that turns many artists in the industry away from ZB especially now that Mudbox is on the market. This is evident on a daily basis at work in the conversations that frequently come up. Hopefully I’m wrong but I’m under the impression that this issue has not been addressed in ZB3 (I don’t know yet 'cause I have yet to recieve download intsructions for my copy, bit of an annoying wait BTW)
So, here’s the idea (please excuse my rudimentary understanding of scripting), I present it with the hopes that someone out there with the ability to do something with it will take up the gauntlet and make it:
As I understand it Pixologic has not exposed the elements of the software that would allow scripters to directly change the navigation functionality. So I propose a workaround. Note that the navigation buttons for moving, rotating and scaling your model can be moved around in the UI, and that ZB3 enables the creation of custom pallettes that the user can drag interface items to. I would like to see a script that would cause a palette to appear directly under the cursor, wherever it be, when a certain hotkey is pressed, the alt button for example (preferably). Within this palette one of the navigation buttons will appear; which button appears would depend on which mouse button is pressed in combination with the activation hotkey. It should be clear where this is headed, naturally the button that appears would correspond with standard navigation methods as found in other 3D packages such as Maya - LMB for rotate, MMB for move, RMB for Scale.
There are several areas of potential conflict here. I’ll address a few of them:
1 - Using the Alt button for this may create conflict with the existing navigation commands associated with it, an alternative may need to be chosen. Another option that comes to mind is the “s” key to correspond with XSI navigation (just to maintain some kind of standard). This would require reassigning other hotkeys but if this can be determined by the user then everyone will be happy. Incidentally I would like to see some of the current ZB navigation maintained; I find it is often much more handy to simply click off-model to rotate rather than find the Alt button first, the real issue is when you get in so close that the model fills your screen and you can’t simply click off-model, and the fact that scale is a little tricky anyway.
2 - I could imagine ZB possibly having an issue with the navigation buttons being permanently stationed on a palette that remains hidden unless called. A possible workaround would be to have them stationed where they normally are, but at the time that the navigation palette is called via the chosen hotkey, the required nav button is automatically, and temporarily moved to this palette, then placed back to its original position once the nav hot key is released.
That about sums it up. Feel free to expand on the idea and refine it, just make sure you post the script.