Trackball troubles
Steelblade
Posts: 54
I'm having trouble with my trackball. I've already trouble shot the heck out of it, there's another thread all about it. Here, I am asking a diferent question.
Do you use a trackball or touch pad? Which one and how well does it work in Daz3d?
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I use a Logitech Marble Mouse actually. Which is basically a trackball. Been using the design for decades now, never had any issues as long as the mouse wasn't worn out. Well, other than the ball likes to roll under tables if you drop your mouse... the ball removes for easy cleaning of the bearings/movement scanner. I haven't seen a wireless version, but then I'm not a fan of wireless anything except for maybe my internet.
https://www.logitech.com/en-us/product/trackman-marble
It works fine for me in Daz, Photoshop, pretty much any program I throw at it. It is also symmetrical, which means you can use it left or right handed (I'm left handed). Just swap your left and right buttons, if you are left handed.
Which trackball are you using?
Logitech M570 trackball
Have never had any issues with it other than desert sand slowly eating away at the finish on the ball itself causing it to not roll smooth anymore.
I have the m570, it's the one giving trouble but only in Daz. Everywhere else it's fine. Tried it on my desktop and laptop, exact same issues in both.
I tried a marble mouse, or something similar. Not good for my hand, it actually hurt after only a few minutes. Something in the ergonomics isn't erging right for me.
Anyone out there use a touch pad?
Logitech Marble Mouse trackball... I use one on all of my workstations [I have 3]. My DS install is running on a Lenovo dual Xeon 8-core. Never had any problems using it with DS. I've been using these trackballs for the last twenty years... they last about 7+ years before they need to be replaced. Not bad for a $23 trackball [Amazon Prime price]
I have big hands so some of the other Logitech trackballs are too small and I get finger cramps... If you're likely to get wrist strain get a wrist pad to cushion your wrist...
Well, the only thing I can think of is that it's software related. I haven't updated my marble mouse drivers for years, maybe it has something to do with the driver package you are currently using?
You did jog my memory on something however, related to the touchscreen on my laptop.
About the only issue I've noticed in Daz is that I occasionally have to click on another app tab, then click on the Daz tab again to get the viewport to 'reset' after it goes blank, or maybe to select a scene element, but I've attributed this to the touchscreen on my laptop, as it likes to give me these sort of issues/doesn't liked prolonged click-drags. If I am click-dragging sliders back and forth in photoshop, after a few seconds I'll lose the adjustment window ('cuz the touchscreen has a timer on it, which seems to carry over to the mouse), but usually I can just click on the active document and the window appears again. I'm pretty sure it's my touchscreen drivers causing me grief, because I never had this issue on my other (non-touchscreen) laptop. My workaround has been to stop drag-clicking every few seconds, then resuming the click-drag, so as to 'avoid' the touchscreen issue.
The other thing that happens in Daz is that sometimes, when I am selecting another scene element in the tree hierarchy, sometimes it'll select all of the elements in between, or make the second item I click the 'parent' of the item previously selected. I then use the undo feature in the menu to 'reset' this on the rare occasions when this happens.
Daz is a somewhat quirky program for me, and I've grown used to it, but in thinking back about things, yeah I do have mouse issues occasionally. I don't think it's trackball specific though, I'd imagine that any mouse would exhibit similar behavior. I do have a trackpad on my laptop, but I almost never use it (hate those things, that's why I use the marble mouse).
There is an adjustment for this supposedly (the prolonged click reset issue), short of disabling the touchscreen, but the adjustment hasn't 'stuck', so I just put up with it. I do occasionally use the touchscreen (2 in 1 laptop), hence why I haven't simply disabled the touchscreen completely.
Does this sound at all familiar as to the issues you are seeing?
Use Crtl-Z for undo [on windows]... it will undo the last command [except if that command was to add an item from your library].
Trackpads can cause issues... generally it is best to set them to turn off if an external pointer [mouse of trackball] is attached. Why? I've had the pointer move or click just by waving a hand or an arm over the track pad. You might look to see if there is a way to turn off the touchscreen with DS open...
When you mouse left handed, Ctrl-Z isn't as convenient... but yeah that's the undo command, but the edit/undo menu option is readily available if your off hand is otherwise not in position, or if you can't see your keys.... my next laptop WILL have a lit keyboard!
And yes, touching the trackpad while using an external mouse of any kind (not just trackballs) can cause odd behaviour. I keep the trackpad enabled just in case the external mouse isn't available/disappears (happens extremely rearely if the USB bus disables itself, I had this happen that one time recently to a few of my USB ports - I had to disable and renable them in the device manager to get them to work again, without the trackpad or touch screen that would have been much more of a chore as I don't know the 'no mouse' navigation options from memory, although the touchscreen makes that much easier to work around). As for turning off the touchscreen, it hasn't come to that yet... and I haven't researched disabling the touchscreen for specific apps in any case. Who knows, I might want to attempt using Daz in tablet mode at some point... probably not though!
Maybe something went bad in your windows install? You could always try reinstalling, or doing a system restore to a point before it started acting up.
Computer is less than a year old. No idea what point I'd be looking for assuming I have such a point to find.
Anyway, I gave up on that idea. I just need to find a working peice of hardware to use in place of the M570.
You could always go buy a new one of the same mouse, and if it does the same thing return it.
OK, I read through your other thread to get up to speed. You've checked the mouse operation using a 'traditional' usb mouse, and have isolated the trackball.
I'm sure you've browsed the Logitech support forums by now? I'm seeing the M570 coming up a lot there:
https://community.logitech.com/s/topic/0TO31000000UKPMGA4/pointers-trackballs-and-trackpads
These seem to wear out fairly quickly for some users, due to the tiny plastic bearings wearing down, but then I think you'd see more general issues, not just in Daz.
I'm assuming that you are using the Logitech SetPoint drivers. One thing that I did in Daz which improved Daz responsiveness in general was to enable hardware anti-aliasing under the Daz Edit menu.
Edit > Preferences > Hardware Anti-Aliasing: set it to on
I'm actually using the default Win 8.1 drivers for my mouse, which of course doesn't enable my extra 2 buttons (for scrolling) on this laptop, but are you using the Logitech Setpoint software? As I remember, you can adjust mouse sensitivity there (installing now).
Edit: so, the SetPoint software has a couple of adjustments for mouse sensitivity, those being speed and acceleration. I set my speed really low, but then set acceleration to max, so that I can zip the pointer across the screen at a good clip, but still have fine control of brushes in Photoshop.
What I'm not seeing is a 'refresh rate adjustent' for the mouse. It's the 'scan rate' that I think might help in your case, but the Hardware Anti-Aliasing set to On in Daz helped a LOT with my mouse pointer issues, so that's what I'm more curious about.
I got a Logitech k400 keyboard/touchpad and that seems to work so far. Maybe the m570 was just old like mentioned above?