3ds Max context sensitive button settings

Valen Wagner · Post by **Valen Wagner** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 1:07 pm

It would be nice if you could have multiple button configurations assigned to different areas of 3ds Max. For example, you could have your buttons assigned to certain modeling features when in "Edit Poly" mode, and you could have other button settings active when you are working in the UVW Unwrap editor. This functionality is already implemented into Autodesk Inventor so I know it is possible...

Thanks!

Artesiastp · Post by **Artesiastp** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 6:59 pm

I believe this would have to be put into the program itself for the SN or SE... otherwise you could get a SpacePilot... thats what's its main feature is...

Valen Wagner · Post by **Valen Wagner** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 5:28 pm

Can you clarify what you mean by "this would have to be put into the program itself"?

It is possible to be done with the SN and/or the SE. I use it every day in Autodesk Inventor and the driver for Inventor allows you to have different button configurations depending on what area of the program you are working. It is not necessary to have a SpacePilot to produce this behavior.

Post by **rstadie** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 3:45 am

Hi Valen,

Inventor provides different environments (actually Inventor has around...21 environments?). This means Inventor tells your 3D mouse "now we are in Inventor Flat Pattern mode" which means your 3D mouse can switch to this specific configuration.

But as far as I know 3ds Max does not have these modes - or how could a specific mode be recognized by your 3D mouse?

tesiastp is right - the SpacePilot provides different configuration sets and you can use the config button to toggle through them. But there is no automatism like in Inventor.

Valen Wagner · Post by **Valen Wagner** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:04 am

I'm not a programmer, so I don't fully understand what constitutes something to be an "environment". But it still seems to me that comptuers and/or 3D mouse drivers are smart enough these days to know what area of a program is active. For example, the pseudo code would look something like this:

if (ActiveWindow = "PerspectiveView")
....use ButtonConfiguration1
else if (ActiveWindow = "UVWUnwrapEditor")
....use ButtonConfiguration2

Like I said, I'm not a programmer. But if I can come up with the pseudo code, then I'm sure there is a programmer smart enough to write the actual code. Correct?

Thanks,
Valen

Valen Wagner · Post by **Valen Wagner** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:22 pm

Is there any update to this? I don't think this would be a very difficult thing to implement, and it would be a huge upgrade and make the SpaceExplorer MUCH more useful. 15 programmable keys are nice, but that's not very many when you're working with 3ds Max.

I understand that the SpacePilot is designed for this purpose, but I see no reason why the driver for the SpaceExplorer can't handle it. And my SpaceExplorer works great - I don't want to spend $500 to get the Pro when I shouldn't need to.

Like I said previously, the driver just needs to be able to detect what window is active in 3ds Max and it will use button settings based on that active window. Easy, right?