cheers all,
very new to 3D graphics. would anyone please suggest a good 3D mouse? or should I even bother with one?
i seem to read mostly about 3Dconnection Spacenavigator SE. anyone use one?
I have one. I LOVE IT with MOI3D. With Blender, I don’t find it as useful since Blender uses the keyboard heavily. I found my selft still having my left hand mostly on the keyboard. With MOI3D though, since it’s mostly mouse driven, my left hand could stay on the 3D mouse and it’s really nice to work with.
had never heard of MOI3D until just now. looks cool. but i need to concentrate on Blender for work reasons.
I would use a decent mouse first to see how you like it before investing in a 3D mouse- as stated previously Blender is designed to be optimally used with key commands. Navigating 3D space with the mouse will become second nature, personally I hate clicking on the mouse wheel so I have a mouse with extra buttons that I map to MMB.
I bought one too a while ago, loved it the first two weeks.
After that, it ended up on my desktop, collecting dust for a year or two, haven’t used it since. Pretty neat though, but it´s more of a “fun gadget” than anything I’d use every day.
thank you for the assurances. like i said, i’m brand-new to 3D.
I have a SpaceNavigator. Love the thing for modeling, and sculpting – there’s where it works specially well with the tablet. That said, though, it’s certainly not a necessity. If you’re only blending, get a good mouse. If you’re an artist who also runs other art programs, I think you’d find a tablet more useful.
yes. i do have a tablet already (for photoshop). i think right now i’m just trying to conquer the interface and figure out which hardware will help me do that the most.
I go with JoOngle.
I got a 3D Connexion Space Navigator.
Its awesome for sculpting, useless for “classic” modelling IMO (unfortunately) and I am not sculpting that much, so sadly its catching dust mostly.
Another upside, there is an awesome plugin for Blender too for the little heavyweight and the Navigator is really cheap. It´s nice to have, but no must at all. For Blender an old 2 Button Ball Mouse would do just fine as well as long as you got a keyboard 
someone on another forum (reddit.com) suggested this:
http://www.sensable.com/haptic-phantom-omni.htm
any thoughts?
I bought a spacenavigator 4 years ago I think.
Like others said it’s not a must, but it is really nice and cool.
I used it in 3ds Max, especially for placing the camera and the sun and viewing the model, I really love it and it’s very cheap so I suggest when you’re interested just get it =)
I do architectural visualisations, with the navigator it’s very easy to “walk” through you’re model, that way you can show the client how the design is going to be.
I use it in photoshop also to zoom and pan,very handy
I’m fairly new to Blender, so I’m still learning and for the moment being I haven’t used it yet with Blender (I only tried to see if it works and it does).
But I’m sure I will be using it in Blender.
greetz
If you are new to 3D graphics, then i would suggest that you don’t buy any bullshit and learn how to use the program first. These type of gadgets are mostly for spoiled kids who want something cool to play with, not something to improve usability. A 3D mouse will not help you, it’s just a toy.
I have a space navigator and it’s a really cool tool.
I use it with Blender, Sketchup and Photoshop.
Believe me, it’s not a toy at all. 3DConnexion hardware is really fine, well built and easy to use. ANYWAY, I think not everyone would love to use it, if you can, try it.
With blender I use it mainly to sculpt and to do precise modeling. It’s really cool to turn around the object, move points… without using the keyboard. I work mainly with the spacenavigator and a trackball and I feel really confortable.
Maybe something you don’t need to start with but definitively not a toy.
I agree with the comment on Moi3d, it’s a kickass modeler!
The fastest tool out there to output mechanical geometry.
tarc
Agreed that you should focus on the software first without using a 3D mouse. It is in no way a toy, though. It is really nice to move around the scene and I find that it helps visualization to customers. It is certainly better then click, drag, click, drag, to continue to rotate around a model.
I would hope that swiping without holding the mouse wont send the mouse across the desk. I would imagine thats its as sensitive as a trackpad. I might think that if your using gestures with it, your hand would feel sore until you got used to it
I think Spacenavigator is more useful for navigating software like is GoogleEarth than Blender. So, if you want to invest money in some useful hardware, I would suggest you to buy some decent Wacom tablet instead…
I’d recommend the Griffin Powermate (http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/powermate/). It’s not a 3D mouse, but a knob that can be rotated and pressed. What makes it better than the Space Navigator is the fact it works with ANY application, and does not need any special application support (like the Navigator). The driver detects what application is in focus and instantaneously loads the correct setup for the application. And it’s cheap (and glows blue)!
I use it all the time, whatever I’m doing. In Blender, it’s my zoom wheel. If I switch to a Word document, it’s my zoom wheel too, but a quick thump on the top and it snaps Word to the ‘Page to window’ view. If I switch to Internet Explorer, it becomes an up/down scroll wheel, with a thump on the top doing the ‘Back’ function. I can hardly use a computer without it these days!
Now, I haven’t used it yet so I can’t really recommend it, but I’m going to see what I can do with a wiimote and nunchuck. Sculpting first. And yes, it works, Neverball is so much cooler with it.
The way I connect it to my computer at the moment requires mapping keys, buttons and mouse movements to it, in both linux and windows.
I’m thinking the nunchuck acts the mouse using the stick, maybe the ir pointer when theres a sensor bar available. the chucks buttons are mouse buttons. nothing for the accelerometer yet.
The wiimote has common sculpt hotkeys and the modifiers (ctrl, alt, and shift). Also I have a wii motionplus which allows for more accurate movement detection so I want to try using it for the models orientation. If it goes well I may try to write a script for wiimoting right from blender.