hi there im in the process of porting over to xsi , due to its adavanced nla system and its cheaper than maya , but one thing im finding sooooo anoying is the transform i_con set up. why on earth carnt you just select the icon in the vieport and move , rotate, scale in the desired direction , instead of short cut key mouse click every time you want to move something . modeling is just made so difficult when it need not be ? how come . softimage should take a leaf out of discreets max .and its transform icon set up !. so it all brings me to the question of is it feasible /possible for some god like scripter to fix this situation . im sure every xsi user would be indebted to who ever could do this !
regards rob
press "B" on your keyboard and you'll get a manipulator.
Matt
Matt Lind
Animator / technical Director
Softimage certified instructor:
Softimage|3D
Softimage|XSI
speye_21@hotmail.com
personally I think the MAX manipulators suck. They're always getting in the way, and dragging an axis to constrain movement to that axis should not affect the tool contraint settings. The XSI system is much more user friendly once you get used to it.
thankyou for your informed coment ! holding down b does not solve the problem i would rather have one click of a mouse rather than several shortcut keys and mouse clicks , to say max's transform icon sucks maybe correct for u but i like its set up it works and is much faster for me with my work flow , so it still boils down to can a script be created to give me the option to manipulate the transform icon in the viewport . so if there is a scripter out there who fancy's a challenge let me know !
regards rob
XSI is hotkey driven for a reason - speed mainly. Its alot quicker to navigate a scene via hotkeys than it is to drag a mouse cursor over to an icon every 3 seconds.
I do wish XSI would adopt maya's QWERTY keys by default though - a more logical approach.
File->Keyboard Mapping
create your own keyboard mapping.. or duplicate Maya's mapping if you like.
Then you can package this new mapping and send it to your friends / coworkers.
As for MAX's icon driven approach, I find it the most counter-productive thing ever invented. Like Matt suggested above, just click B when you have an object selected and you get an intuative and complete SRT manipulator.
And hey... changing 3D software always involves adjustments on the part of the user as well.
zxcv sit under your four fingers with your thumb on the space bar very natural and easy to slide your hand over and feel with out looking down. qwerty could also sit under your fingers keeping the thumb on the space bar but I find it more difficult to find without looking down unless I pop out the tab key