[Tfug] Spaceballs

[Bexley Hall]

Greetings!

--- Rich <r-lists at studiosprocket.com> wrote:

> On May 11, 2007, at 2:35 pm, Bexley Hall wrote:
> 
> > I have no idea what -- if *any* -- Open/Free
> software
> > applications would support these.  In my
> experience,
> > most "high end" tools are just not available there
>  :<
> Found OSS drivers for these once a couple of years
> back. (Something like this:
>
http://www.gelato.unsw.edu.au/lxr/source/drivers/input/

I did a *little* poking around and I suspect
"driver" support exists.  The problem is getting
an *application* that wants to talk to them!  :<
 
> joystick/spaceball.c)  They're DB-9 connectors,
> right? Linuxes might  

Yes, a "standard" serial port.

> have drivers included, but I had a Mac talking
> through a Philips  
> chipset USB-to-DB9 thingy (at least I did after I
> hacked *that*  
> driver to work properly). There was nothing free &
> OSS that used the  
> spaceball then, but maybe Blender could be convinced
> to cooperate..?  
> (The answer seems to be yes and no:
> http://google.com/search?q=blender 
> +spaceball)
> 
> > They require a bit of practice to become
> proficient but are almost  
> > invaluable thereafter!
> Most people who try them discover their lack of
> left-hand  
> coordination, and try to hide their embarrassment
> with "this is  
> crap". It's like a musical instrument -- gotta
> practice or you'll be  
> stuck on "Smoke on the Water" forever.

<grin>  The problem is they have too many degrees of
freedom!  :-/  E.g., they are easy to use in a
joystick-esque style.  But, when you start trying
to pan/zoom, the stiffness of the control makes it
hard to "translate" (as opposed to tilt/rotate)
the ball in space.  Perhaps if you *nailed* the
base to the desktop it would be a bit easier... :>
 
> I was always disappointed those spaceball-influenced
> game controller  
> things for RTS games never really took off, and
> nobody released  
> plugins for XSI, Maya, Blender, MotionBuilder, and
> so on. That  

I think there are drivers for Maya -- some versions.

> would've been great, rather than fumbling around a
> keyboard.  
> Reconfiguring one of those to fit *all* your 3D apps
> would've been  
> great. I suppose all the great plugin authors are
> busy writing yet  
> another shader to make flesh look less like plastic
> without any  
> effort or skill whatsoever from the artist... but I
> digrrrress.

<grin>  I find it invaluable for manipulating 3D
models.  Much easier than constantly clicking
on a different coordinate system (since you can
only manipulate 2 axis with a mouse).  Very
frustrating to spend an hour building something
and then discover that you built it *behind*
the thing you wanted to build it *inside*!  :<

> > A steal at $10  :>
> Yep...

Unfortunately, they may not have made it into
the store, yet -- the DLT4000's have not
(mea culpa).

--don


       
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