3D Mouse For Map Navigation

I am extremely excited for PA and am brimming with ideas that many of you seem to share, but there is one I cannot find via the search.

I have a 3D mouse for navigating 3D computer models at work. I am completely addicted to it and it is the best means of maneuvering any object on the screen while picking points on that object with the mouse.

Please, Uber, please add native support for a 3D mouse to navigate the map and game world. A device such as the 3D Connexion mice would be best: http://www.3dconnexion.com/ They also offer a user-modifiable driver for integrating with games, so we may be able to do this ourselves once the game comes out.

The hardest part would be switching between the pan and zoom only during close in mapping to the pan-zoom-rotation of the space map, but I can imagine elegant ways of doing it.

I know, I know, the keyboard is fine, you'll say. You have not lived yet, I say. Use a 3D mouse for just a day and it will change your life forever.

Ask me anything about using them; I have a wealth of knowledge and many ideas about how they might be used for PA.

That looks extremely awesome, and I'd love to have one to make Maya a bit more fluid, but I think the time and money would be better spent elsewhere in the development of PA. The population of people playing PA who also own a 3D mouse would be... well, probably you, and maybe some of the modders here, but think of it this way - only a very small population of us use 3D software, and only a small population of those using 3D software currently have 3D mice (they're kind of a luxury device at the moment, but hopefully they'll catch on). I doubt the average Joe would pick up a 3D mouse for no particular reason, and no games really make use of them at the moment, since they're such specialty devices.

Yes, I understand that. I suggested this to CCP for Eve Online at a convention and they gave much the same answer.

The thing is, in order for it to catch on and become more than a specialty device, someone has to pick up the torch and run with it. Someone has to make it worth the while of a large group of passionate people. I can't think of a much better group than RTS users, especially fans of TA and SupCom.

Alternatively, there's the Sidewinder Strategic Commander, which is awesome for RTSes. http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-E06-000 ... B00005U21V

This looks like another of these "(2D) Mouse and Keyboard will be dead soon, cause <insert random weird thing here> is far better"-cases.
And it all never worked. So why will this be any better?
2D mouse and keyboard are just soooo good, I cant really thing of how having an additional axis on the mouse helps much. Also those 3d mice all kind of look like they are totally incompatible to the apm-level that you actually might reach when you play SupCom.
They are obviously not made for games, but rather for 3D-Design and stuff like that and they are probably awesome for that.


-Yes I have never used such a 3D-Mouse, maybe I really just have no idea-
-Yes APM is not that important in SupCom, but I still play at like 100 raw apm in 1v1 and I just need it like this to have fun-

This is what's commonly understood when I bring this up. Allow me to elaborate.



-The 3D "mouse" replaces the keyboard hand, while your other hand of choice uses your normal mouse for actions and normal input as you always do.
-APM produced only by the mouse are not affected
-APM produced by the keyboard may be affected by whether or not you get a 3D mouse with buttons. I prefer one with many programmable buttons, so this would probably be a net positive APM adjustment.
-APM lost due to using the mouse to navigate are nearly completely eliminated, since all navigation can by done by the 3D mouse. You might use the mouse to pick a spot on the minimap, but this shouldn't be necessary once you're used to the 3D mouse.
-The 3D mouse is like an analog joystick, so you can pan the screen either slowly or very fast depending on the force you apply on it.
-The "3D thing really isn't used here, though may help when zooming out to planet view.

I think that covers it. It would definitely take a bit of getting used to for most, but if I explained it well enough, it should be clear that the net result is an increase in APM possible. You'd of course still want your keyboard for typing chat and stuff. We can't really get rid of that until we have good brain-computer interfaces.

As an owner of the Razer Hydra I'd welcome 3d input support. This would be nigh impossible for sandboxed mods to do, but I don't see it being officially supported. I might try modding it in if it was possible though.

I'll start this post by saying this is my own personal thoughts on the topic and not any kind of official answer to the question.


I have a personal curiosity with 3d controllers and force feedback systems. I'm fascinated by them from a mechanical and technology point of view, but I haven't bothered to actually own anything related to these (ignoring the Kinect and Wii) since the 90s.

The 3Dconnexion 3d mice have kept a fairly loyal following in the CAD and 3d modelling worlds but are almost completely ignored by gaming. As mentioned by others this is because there's little financial incentive to do so. The argument that "that's just because someone needs to support them!" is flawed because the industry did support them quite heavily in the 90's... the result being a lot of money spent developing tech that nearly no one bought. An entire industry popped up to create devices for people that apart from 3Dconnexion all died off by 2001.

Lets go back to 1996. Descent had been released the year prior, and Descent 2 was enjoying success. Most people were playing Descent with just the keyboard, or keyboard / mouse combos, though a few (like myself) used a multi-axis joystick and mouse combo. People saw this as an opening for something better to accommodate the new 6 degrees of freedom world of true 3d gaming. The Labtec 3D's Spaceball mice were already gaining some popularity with the CAD software industry and someone had the bright idea of making a device explicitly for the gaming community to fill this hole.

Enter the SpaceTec SpaceOrb 360:


The perfect controller for the coming fully 3d, 6 dof world of gaming!


Something else happened in 1996 though, a little game named Quake. Sure, Doom was huge, but Quake eclipsed it. Here was a fully 3d world where the mouse and keyboard combo shined. No need for some fancy controller or joystick, the default input devices you already owned were already the best. As we know now, Descent and similar full 6 dof games with all of their motion sickness and complicated navigation fell to the side as the easier to play and control first person shooters took root and dominated the PC (and now console) gaming industry. Those who invested in fully 3d controllers for the PC found themselves with stock piles of devices and they either ran back to the world of CAD and medical professions or closed up shop.

This hasn't meant people have stopped trying of course. There have been a number of 3d mice over the years to try to bridge the gap using accelerometer / gyro combos like those used in cell phones, PS3 controllers, and Wiimotes, as well as more novel techniques like mechanical actuation (Novint Falcon 3d), magnetic field (Razer Hydra), camera based tracking (Sony PlayStation Move) as well as a handful of infrared and ultrasonic devices. Motion control on the PS3's SixAxis controller, once required by Sony for all devs to support, is now not even mentioned in their marketing material. The PS Move is considered mostly a flop. The Nintendo Wii games are generally dumbed down to the "wiggle" motion or just use the Wiimote's camera for aiming and ignore more fine orientation and movement. Novint Falcon garnered some interest when Valve backed the product in some very high profile events, but only barely limp along today likely due to investor funding from their connection to Valve more than any actual sales.

So, if you made it through that wall of text, 3d controllers don't make sense to support because the public in general has shown time and time again they have no interest in them.

All that said, I personally think supporting them would be an interesting diversion. The 3d puck mice, Razer Hydra, and upcoming Leap all pose interesting ideas for control and manipulation, but I suspect they wouldn't offer any advantages and may likely be significant disadvantages to use over the default keyboard / mouse combo we'll be targeting as the main control method.

I used a 3d mouse for autodesk inventor when i had a internship at a company. The feeling is really amazing as if you are holding the part/assembly (this is how its called in inventor) in your hand. No doubt it would work with PA

But since they are rather expensive not many ppl have them. I myself dont have a 3d mouse either. There is a really small group that have these and i dont know if its worth to spend money on 3d mouse support.

Interesting, thats not what I had in mind how this looks, yes.

at first sight now, but at second sight some tasks (changing the view) are transfered to the other hand, more explanation follows...

Hmm, yeah I do use hotkeys quite alot, so the 3d-mouse would end up as a keyboard-replacement?

The only navigation in SupCom was done by using the mousewheel to zoom out or in.
How could this be improved by a 3d mouse?
The only thing that comes to mind is rotating the View around Planets in PA, which I imagine as easy by dragging the view. Sure an additional controller would be nice for this, but for that single function it feels like a bit of an overkill.

Thanks to the zoom the minimap isnt used even with the classical mouse/keyboard concept

Rotate the Planet: yes.
Scrolling: no
Scrolling is something that most people dont do in SupCom and I hope it will be just as unnecessary in PA, too.

The mousewheel is perfect for a simple zoom in and out, isnt it?

Hmm, the only change I see is that the player would be able to rotate the view, but while he does that he wont be able to push any other hotkeys.

So a somehow abstract summary:

3D Mouse:
my 3d-mouse-hand either changes the view of the world or pushes hotkeys (i.e. a hotkey would select a factory that will be placed afterwards by a click with my 2d-mouse)
my 2d mouse makes boxes to select units and gives orders + places buildings selected by hotkeys.

meaning while I change the view, my 2D-Mousehand idles.
I have to first change the view and push a hotkey afterwards. The transition between using the 3d-thingy and pushing a button on the 3d-mouse involves a rather big movement of my hand.

No 3D Mouse:
my keyboard-hand pushes hotkeys and thats it.
my 2d mouse-hand gives commands, places building and changes the view.

While my 2D-Mousehand changes the view my keyboard-hand can push some hotkeys to i.e. select a factory that will be placed the moment my 2D-Mousehand reaches the target-view.

So in the "change view to build factory somewhere"-case the 3d-mouse would probably slow me down, since my 2D-Mousehand idles most of the time and nearly everthing is done by one hand.

or maybe I still dont understand how this would work correctly.

Good insight, Bgolus, thanks for the in depth reply. I was definitely unaware of the rise of 3D controllers in the 90s, as I was just a poor kid at the time. All I'm really asking of you is to support joystick or some analog input to pan, zoom, and maybe rotate the view and I'll bind those axes to my 3DConnexion mouse on my own.

Great retort, Cola Colin; I'm glad this interests you enough to provide good counterpoints.

You're right that the mouse zooming is really the way to go for major navigation of the map. It's just so good. I would honestly mostly use the 3D mouse for panning around my immediate battle group or base area, while I'd use the mouse for zipping to the other side of the planet. I guess the 3D mouse is just something I am addicted to and want to keep using.

You know what this needs? A video. I'm really busy this week, but I'll try to take a FRAPS video of me doing some stuff with it in CAD to give an idea what I'm talking about. Stay tuned.

What you said about the hotkeys is partially true. The 3D mouse would be a keyboard replacement and some of the keys on it cannot be hit while using it to navigate, but other keys can. The way I hold mine is in my thumb and pointer finger. This renders the right side buttons unreachable while I'm moving the knob. My other three fingers rest on the keys on the left side, though.

I bind all my keys on the left side to functions I very frequently call, such as Ctrl, Shift, Esc, draw line/box etc, measure, and dimension. I use the buttons on the right less frequently, so I set them to major things I don't want to hit while navigating, like delete, open file, activate/deactivate 3D axis, or snap to a specific view.

So, in short, you could be navigating with the 3D mouse while hitting a button to call squad 3, or select a structure to build. There may not be enough buttons on all 3D mice, though, so for most, the keyboard is probably best. I just wish WADS would pan the view so I could keep my hand in the usual position.

I think I can imagine how it looks, so dont go through too much trouble , but I'll watch that for sure.
Although a CAD-Application is still something totally different to a game like PA.

Yeah I guess you can reach some keys while using the mouse.
SupCom (and PA will hopefully offer similar hotkey-support) requires alot of hotkeys, though.
I only really started being able to use all these keys after putting shift and ctrl to my mouse, pushing them with my right thumb, freeing up my left hand to roam freely over the middle of my keyboard. I dont know how many buttons some 3D-mice may have, but even if they have this many, you wont be able to control them while using the 3D-mice.
That problem would be similar to my problem with shift/ctrl and the keys in the middle of they keyboard, which was solved by placing shift/ctrl on the 2D-mouse.
The function (change view) of the 3D-mice is already on the 2d-mice, so pulling it away would introduce a new problem while not really helping much, since the mousewheel is fine for zooming.

For a 3D-Application I can imagine this all to be vastly different, I guess I can understand why you are such a fan of it. I just fail to imagine how it could be used for a game like PA, which in the end is controlled mostly like a 2D-Field. The Planets might shake this up a bit -I am very curious to see how Uber will solve this- , but apart from that it maps pretty well to a 2D-Mouse.

I agree with everything Colin is saying, except for

Well, maybe for the very competitive player, hotkeys are required. But I played SupCom1 & 2 at a basic competitive level, and I hardly ever used hotkeys. The 2d mouse has everything I needed: double click to select all of the same unit on the screen, mouse wheel for zoom in/out, and shift clicking (in addition to shift+number to group and [number] to select group and issue queue orders. That's pretty much the sum of the actions/keys I used to accomplish everything I did.

IMO, the best and MOST EFFICIENT/FAMILIAR way we could navigate in PA, and the best way that Uberent could address navigation across the surface of a 3d planet, is simply using the shift/control keys in addition to the mouse wheel. I can mouse wheel to scroll the vertical axis, shift+mouse wheel to scroll to horizontal axis, and ctrl+mouse wheel to zoom in/zoom out of just about anything I use. I don't see why this familiar navigation can't be applied to covering the surface of a planet: mouse wheel to zoom in/zoom out on cursor, shift+mouse wheel to rotate planet on X-axis, and ctrl+mouse wheel to rotate planet on Y-axis. I think also that tilting the view should not be allowed i.e. you wouldn't have to worry about where the north and south pole is--the zooming in on cursor feature should adjust your view accordingly.

so IMO I see no benefit of replacing the keyboard with a 3d mouse, when IMO such navigation is already (and also familiar) possible. I think it would come down to preference

try them out, and you will understand
but yeah I do know that not everybody uses hotkeys in SupCom, but imho they are very helpful. After using them for years it feels like they are just required. It at least feels better not to have the mouse go down to select a factory and go up to place it, but instead just move the mouse to the position and concurrently push the hotkey for a factory. Imho it also enables the player to react more quickly to many situations and set up bigger queue more quickly, i.e. in this first person replay it enables me to set up longer queues at the beginning with ease.

I strongly disagree. I have never even heard of using the mousewheel this way and I am pretty sure that most people are definitely not familiar with this type of control. For myself I also think that this his highly unintuitive and does not fit well into the other standard-controls. I.e. I need shift to queue up stuff.
To control the view of the planet I would think that the most logical and intuitive way would be to drag the view simply by holding some modifier key while moving the mouse to rotate the camera around the planet. Dragging the view around is something that many other games have and that is known to many players already.

+1 OP. I *heart* my 3D mouse so hard...

you've never head of using the mousewheel in this way? open up any application and try it.

If you are using chrome (as you should be ), make your browser window smaller than this page to get scroll bars, hold the shift key, use mousewheel.... then hold the ctrl key, and use mouse wheel.....

These options are built into a large amount of applications and operating systems. Try ctrl+ scroll in a mac (thats zoom), or shift+wheel to horizontally scroll window.

This is a pretty damn universal standard IMO, and i expect to be able to do it for navigation of any 2d surface. So maybe this isn't AS applicable to 3d surfaces, but its definitely familiar.

I don't expect most people to be familiar with the ctrl + mousewheel changing the zoom size of a web page. I'm sure many people have done it, but not known how and get confused as to why things changed size.

Mouse wheel for zoom would be far more natural for most people, maybe with middle mouse / mouse wheel click for orientation; think Google Earth.

Make the most flexible interface to bind keys in any possible way and it won't really matter what the defaults are!

thats what I said for planetary annihilation, look at above post in bold print

We are talking about an RTS-game here, not a browser. Most RTS use some kind of dragging or scrolling at the borders of the display. Not the mousewheel plus modifiers.

Also: In Google earth at least I just drag around the map, too. The wheel is only to zoom out or in.

How about left click to select units, right click to issue orders, ctrl-left click to drag the planet around (or drag your view around the planet), zoom using scroll wheel.