Viewport Navigation

[bhealy27]

I'm currently running Form-Z 8 on a MacBook Pro. I have used Form-z on and off over the years but have wrestled with one aspect of it again and again. It may sound silly but I've given up using the program at times because I become so frustrated with it. 

 

Here's my problem. I use a variety of 3D programs, one of which is Modo. In Modo I can 1) rotate my view by simply holding down the alt/option and pressing my left mouse button, 2) zoom in and out by holding alt/option + control keys + left mouse button and 3) pan by holding my alt/option + shift keys + left mouse button. 

 

I cannot, for the life of me figure out how I can set the keyboard shortcuts in Form-Z to match this setup. Sometimes some of them work, others like zoom get stuck and I can't seem to switch to another mode.

 

Is there a way or am I doomed to forever have to click on icons to perform these simple maneuvers. I cannot believe that as wonderfully sophisticated as Form-Z is that there isn't a simple method to perform these basic repetitive actions.

 

Thanks for any hlp you can give. 

[rob]

Hey B,

 

Go to the Edit Menu: Key Shortcuts, scroll to the bottom, click Interactive View Navigation, and look at the different commands.  Then customize them to your liking.

 

Navigation in formZ has tons of options, you just have to know what you are doing.  Also check out the Help Menu: Tutorial Videos: view navigation tutorials for video instructions.

 

You shouldn't be frustrated, you should be modeling!

[bhealy27]

Rob,

 

Thanks for the quick response.

 

I had played around with some of these settings before but without luck. For example I didn't know Depth Interactive was the equivalent of "zoom" especially since there are already 4 varieties of "zoom" under Navigation Tools.

 

I've figured out something that seems to work as follows:

 

1.  Hand Interactive has been assigned to  Opt + Shift + LMB.  Seems to work fine.

 

2.  Depth Interactive has been assigned to Opt + Ctrl + LMB. Seems to zoom in and out properly. However, the icon on the menu bar for Set View is turned on and The Tool Options - Set View window is showing with Rotate About Center of Scene selected. What this has to do with zoom is beyond me. Simultaneously my cursor turns into the Swivel symbol. Can't figure that one out either.

 

3.  Finally, Set View Interactive (Center of Interest) has been assigned to Opt + LMB. Seems to work fine also. The Set View Icon in the menu bar is correctly selected and the Tool Options - Set View window is displayed. However in this case the Rotate Around setting is shown as Center of Scene when, in fact, it's supposed to be Center of Interest.

 

I don't know if my machine is glitchy or what.  Anyhow, I'm very happy for the help and have something functionally very close to what I'm used to working with.

 

I'm a slightly confused but otherwise happy camper.

 

Thanks,

 

Brian 

[bhealy27]

Rob,

 

I must be losing my mind. I noted in the User Manual that there where a lot of navigation tools already built in, e.g. right and left arrows for panning, double middle mouse clicks, etc. So far I have not been able to get anything other than the wheel to zoom. None of the other keyboard things seem to be working. I'm running the latest version of Yosemite and 8.0.1. of Form-Z and have applied the hot patch. Is there something I have to enable or disable to get those to work??? I've checked Apple's preferences and there doesn't appear to be any conflict.

[Tech]

Hi BHealy27,

 

Welcome to the forum!  Yes, there is a lot of navigation functionality built into formZ.  For a quick overview, go to the Help Menu: Tutorial Videos, and set the Selected Video to Navigation.  

 

(We would highly recommend watching, pausing, and following along while watching this, and all the other videos to get up to speed as quickly as possible.)

 

Which mouse are you using?  If this is a third party mouse (which we would generally recommend -- I like Logitech in general), have you installed the latest software for this?

 

And does your scroll wheel, middle mouse button, and right click work otherwise in your system, and in formZ?

[bhealy27]

Thanks everyone for the help.

 

My brain did a little work throughout the night while I slept and the first thought I had this morning when I awoke was that maybe I had somehow deleted all of the default shortcut keys. So I looked at the Edit->Key Shortcuts... window this morning and lo and behold there was a Load Defaults button which restored all of the default shortcut keys. This immediately solved my problem in Post #4 above and all the defaults seem to be there. 

 

I then added the 3 sets of keystrokes noted in post #3 above rather than first deleting any existing keystrokes and everything worked fine. The only confusion left is why the strange Icon and Tool Option results noted in items 2 and 3 in my Post #3. It does not in any way hurt the functionality but does seem a little odd.