3DConnexion's SpaceBall 5000 review

This product gets more and more popularity day by day and gains huge bavy of believers in CG world. Evermotion Team had chance to take a look at newest Spaceball 5000 and we are proud to close you up this great hardware.

Spaceball 5000 is comfortable and functional - allows users to work efficiently for many hours. How does it work? Spaceball allows us to control and navigate our scen, by operateing a sphere, which is placed on our controler. By moving or rotating it, we are able to get around our viewport. In second hand we are using normal mouse or even tablet so we can animate, model or paint in this same time. Thanks to this combination we gain to a 30% - 35% increase in productivity!!!



Spaceball is very well designed - what is very important, there are no problems to use it by left-handed people. Thanks to the symmetrical construction, they just have to move a pad for wrist to the second side of the controler. Control sphere is made from nice to touch rubber, and on both sides of it there are 12 full programable buttons, so we can attribute them our favourite and most used functions. In the bottom of controler there are solid rubber holders, that prevent controler from sliding. Designers thought about everything, even long cable, so we have no problems with placeing controler on the table.



Spaceball 5000 is anvailable in 2 versions - Serial and USB. In differently from Serial version, USB has got 6 times faster transfer of data and full features of Plug and Play device. 3DConnexion took care about wide choice of drivers - controlers can be used on Windows XP/2000, Linux, ,Unix, SUN and Mac OS X. Work with controler is pleasant and intuitive. Holding control sphere in our hand we have got feeling of holding modeled object in our hand. By moving sphere to the front or back we can zoom our model in the viewport, by moving our sphere to the left or right, up or down we are able to change position of our view. It's possible to rotating our camera around the object too. Spaceball is sensitive to intensity of pressure, so we are able to navigate our viewport slow or fast.

Spaceball 5000 supports over 100 applications, such as Softimage XSI, 3D Studio Max, ,Maya, Auto Cad, Cinema 4D/Bodypaint 3d, Adop Photoshop or even Motion builder (to see all list, please follow the links in the end of the article). Standard drivers for supported software are provided on cover cd, that we are given with motion controler. Newest versions are available on 3Dconnexion's web site . Instalation is easy and fast, automaticly almost in 100%.

In few first moments of useing controler man can feel a little confusion, but, to be honest, I have to say that this feeling is amazing:) Of course after few minutes of work everything is clear and understandable and each next hour of work is a pleasure. This review is based especially on 2 popular 3D applications - 3D Studio MAX and Softimage XSI. All functions of 3Dconnexion's plugin in 3ds max are available in Command Panel in Untitles. To find them in XSI we have to choose 3Dx Control Panel, which is placed applications' preferences (Application > Preferences). There is quite big number of capabilities of configuration of Spaceball. Motion Controller may be used with 3DS max r5 and r6. There will emerge drivers for r7 of this package soon. 3D connection made a powerful driver so you can optimize it for your personal preferences. As mentioned before, plugin for maya, XSI or 3ds max is almost the same, that's why I'm gonna expalain some settings issues basing on 3DS max. In camera/view/movement section are both camera and scene rotate capability. With move camera option marked manipulating sphere causes camera movement in scene. Opposite when move scene option is marked. In this case camera stands still while whole scene is moving. Center of rotation is base point for rotation. Camera/view -center of rotation is view or camera itself. Focal point -focal is the centre of rotation. When scene/oject option is selected point of rotation is selected object, vertex, edge or polygon (so subselection with own pivot). Disable rolling is off by default. It makes positon of camera unchanged in one of axis. It is recommended for beginners to keep this option enabled becouse it is much easier to get used to manipulator. 2D view movement (available in 3ds max only) is for navigating in ortogonal 2d views. It's quite annoying soution (perfectly designed in XSI) becouse when using Pan view option we are not able to zoom. Enable object is to move selected object. Camera stands still and only object is moving. Enable dominant axis filter is for precise object moving (it can be seen very clearly when object move is enabled), so move is restricted to one axis only. Spaceball is pressure sensitive device and we can control its sensitivity with sliders. It is split to two categories -translations and rotations what is very good solution. At the bottom of all those options we have button mapping. Here we can assign to each of 12 buttons program function. In case of 3DS max we can choose from about 200 functions but in XSI you got almost uncountable number of function which can be assigned.

Maxon, producer of great Cinema 4D and BodyPaint 3D thought about 3DConnexion users and put plugin for 3D connexion in standart version of its software, so we don't have to "fight" with drivers. Controler works with Cinema 8.5 and BodyPaint 2.0, but unfortunately they have got less functions, that co-operate with Spaceball 5000.

Very interesting looks work in Adobe Photoshop. Controler sphere in this time works like Hand Tool. Using it we are able to zoom our project too. When we choose brush tool we can use the sphere to change size of the brush. Spaceball 5000 works very good with tablets (we made test with Wacom tablet). After couple of hours we are sure that this hardware is indispensable for proffesional 2D artists.



Spaceball 5000 is a greate tool for all graphics, doesn't matter on what application they work, 2d or 3d. Thanks to this motion controler, artists are able to "hold" their models in hands, what gives them bigger control. I can say that thanks to Spaceball 5000 I felt my models frist time in my life. And what is the most important every since I have been using this 3D motion controller I have started finishing my project much faster and with greater ease. I would never consider working without a SpaceBall ever again. Thanks to this proffesional product my work is much more effective. And in todays CG world this is the most important.

 

LINKS:

-Official Web Site
-Supported Software
-Ergonomic Efficiency Testing: Two-Handed vs. One-Handed CAD Working Styles
-Overview of 3D motion Controllers
-Evermotion video presentation

Best Regards,
Evermotion Team





"The SpaceBall is an integral part of an artist's tool palette (...) If you need a
productivity tool it is worth it. Wait till you try it, it changes everything."
---- Akiko Ahsley, Executive Producer/Partner,
Luminetik Animation Studios