I’m just curious about which you use and why. The video of the fluid sims had somebody using it with trackball and that got me thinking about it.
I first of all used the trackball and I did so for a while but now I can’t stand it. I find it takes far longer to get something to where I want.
If you haven’t tried the turntable before, I think you should seriously consider it because although you can’t view things certain ways, I found it to be much faster and you find that you hardly ever need to view things in the extra ways trackball allows. Imagine it like your head, the neck is like the vertical axis, think how many times in a day you tilt your head to the side.
You may have to try it for a while before you get used to it but it really helps.
To change it, go into user prefs > view & controls and choose turntable. If your view was set at an odd angle before, you will need to reset the view using an ortho view first.
Is there anyone who has tried turntable view a lot and switched back to trackball and if so for what reasons?
I am on the opposite side. The few times I tried turntable, I got quickly annoyed.
When I model, I rotate my view a lot, very quickly, to push vertices around to shape things or to see how straight an edge loop is. I don’t care if everything is upside down.
I had used other 3D programs and had no problem adjusting to Blender’s default. In fact, I loved it right away.
I think Houdini uses the same rotation mechanism but I quickly looked for a way to change it and couldn’t find the option - maybe they can only use that method of rotation.
One thing I wonder is if you find that you do more rotations to see something the way you want. When I see other people using that rotate option, it looks like they are doing nearly double the amount of movements and I feel I do the same with the trackball. I guess that would make sense because you control rotations around 3 axes with the trackball as opposed to two with the turntable and since a mouse only has two degress of freedom, it is easier to control a turntable. It would seem to me that trackball view would only be fully controllable if you used a trackball mouse (one that understood spinning the ball anyway).
One thing I had thought about was that the only real difference between the trackball and turntable is the extra axis. So why not have a modifier that controls the tilt - for example alt-mmb. In other words, you get the stability of the turntable but you can rotate around the extra axis when you need to. This has the advantage that you can do an exact view tilt, which you can’t really do with the trackball because it’s not stable enough. For example, consider trying to spin an object horizontally (left to right) around it’s own z-axis.
In turntable view, this is not possible because you can’t tilt the view so that the z-axis is horizontal (left to right) you can only make it horizontal (in and out).
In trackball view, well, you can see how difficult it is to maintain an exact line when spinning the object, the grid falls all over the place.
In turntable view + 3rd separate degree of freedom, it is not only possible but stable and you can easily spin the object perfectly so the grid is a single line wide.
Very interesting, I have always used the trackball setting. The turntable offers a faster spin without all the adjustments which are some time necessary when using track ball. Regardless, I primarily use the Ctrl Alt and Shift keys when I am rotating my view. I have only used the trackball (Middle Mouse) a hand full of times.
This is all personal preference, of course, but I much prefer turntable. I learned 3D on Blender, so trackball was what I was used to. Then I started using other apps, and instantly liked the turntable style rotations. I quickly got sick of Blender’s trackball system.
Fortunately for me, Blender added the turntable system as an option. Now I’m a happy camper.
Mostly, I just think it’s great that Blender gives you the choice between the two. You can use whichever way you prefer.
I swear mine must be broken. I can’t see the difference between them. I sat for about an hour one day when that option came out trying to see just one smidgen of difference and it ended with the Old Queen thinking I’m loco.
Trackball is the only choice for me. I tried to use the turntable, but most of the time I needed a view of my object, that the turntable coundn’t provide.
Trackball definitely
Turntable sometimes seems faster, but I find it way too limiting. I want to be able to turn the scene into any given position. For example: looking “along” an edgeloop to see how smooth a curve it has, or a surface also to check for smotthness, are any vertices sticking out, etc. Also useful when vertex pushing for hours to get the model just the right way that I want.
They are the same. Alt-left-click is an equivalent combo for the MMB so that laptop users can do rotation.
Lol. The difference is that if you move the mouse up and down anywhere on the screen, the turntable view will only rotate up and down. In trackball view, when the mouse is at the center of the screen, it rotates the view up and down but towards the edge, it instead tilts the view.
It’s easier to think of the rotation axes (not the scene axes but the viewing axes). Let’s say the x-axis is going left to right.
Turntable rotates round the x-axis and z-axis - you lose the degree of freedom round the y-axis (the axis that always points into the screen).
Trackball allows you to rotate round this y-axis if you move the mouse anywhere beyond the exact center of the screen. However, this is what makes it unstable because you rarely move the mouse in the exact centre of the screen so it tilts too.
Correct, so what do you think about having turntable with an extra more-controllable degree of freedom so that you’re not trying to control 3 degress of freedom with 2?
I mentioned alt-MMB above but that wouldn’t work because I forgot alt-LMB is used for MMB. What if there was a 3rd view mode, say turnball where towards the middle 70% of the screen, there were two degrees of freedom like turntable and then towards the outer 15%, you had control over the 3rd degree of freedom? This way you get accurate control over all of the rotations.
Haha. In a way it’s true but in the same way you are a lightweight if you aren’t good at Super Monkey Ball. One reason that it’s challenging is that you are controlling 3 degrees of freedom.
Super Monkey Ball. What in the world? Oh, is that the one where the first player to develop an opposable thumb and depth perception wins?
Though I have to say it took me a really long time to get used to trackball mode. Now, with the keyboard alignment keys (particularly the dot on the numpad) it’s just there.
Can’t complain at all. In lightwave it’s still possible to actually turn the viewport so far to the pole that the the program locks up. Theres a funtime moment for the memories.
Well, I need to tilt the view, lets say, 70% of the time, so the usual trackball suits my needs the best. That’s why I don’t really care, what modifivations are done to the turntable or additional viewport modes.
trackball here…
i’ve tried turntable … sometimes the way how it makes model spinning feels kind of nice, but then again at the same time, it limits too much… i get the feeling my view is stuck, and i can’t rotate it properly where i want… it just spins…
so… trackball is my choice… more freedom. and as toloban, i rotate my view a lot, and don’t really care about what is up and what is down either when i’m modelling. and if i want temporary turntableism, i can use numpad 4 and 6.
Nice idea, I think that might be a very good solution for me… Anyway - I got used to the way it works now and think this would be just a ‘nice to have’ feature.
In Modo if you hold alt and flick drag the trackball the view will smoothly rotate the view automatically slowing to a stop. Verk sheek