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I'm doing a lot of sculpting. I want the upper button of the Wacom pen to smoothly roll the view in the same manner the default settings of the lower button pans and zooms the view.

The reason for needing it to do this is when there are a lot of short, tight, controlled strokes that need to be done. Steven Rude in The Art Of Comic Book Inking teaches this method to get his perfect inking strokes. The edge of the palm is pressed down on the table, the pen is braced, and the wrist only is extended to make the stroke. This method restricts you to a very limited angle, but is the only way to get this kind of tight control with a stroke. Due to the limited angle you can make with this stoke, the view must be rolled often.

enter image description here

This is the closest I have been able to get it, but it will not roll smoothly and it requires a click to move a degree vs. how Zoom and Pan operations will continually zoom/pan when you drag the pen: enter image description here

Here are my Wacom settings: enter image description here

I want the view to roll by drawing up or down with the Wacom pen while holding the upper button of the pen and holding the Ctrl key down. Up stroke should roll left. Down stroke should roll right.

If there is no way with the interface controls, is there a hack to make it do it?

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Jordan Evans
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  • I think you will have to add in to your question what you have set those Wacom Pen buttons to, e.g. right-click, middle-click etc. – Ray Mairlot Jan 21 '17 at 17:03
  • Map the top button to pan/scroll on the wacom control panel. Enable "emulate 3 button mouse" in the user preferences in blender. to rotate sideways use Alt+Ctrl+top button+Drag. To rotate up/Down use Shift+Alt+Top Button+Drag –  Jan 21 '17 at 17:33
  • @RayMairlot, I will update the question with what the top button is set to. Thanks for editing. Looks nice. – Jordan Evans Jan 22 '17 at 01:29
  • @cegaton, I tried your advice. I was only able to get it to roll one way. It also did not roll when I stroked the pen (drag). I had to click. – Jordan Evans Jan 22 '17 at 01:37
  • You can't get the action you want by using the middle mouse button? – cmomoney Jan 22 '17 at 18:58
  • @cmomoney My view doesn't roll with the middle mouse button by default. Does yours? Or what are you implying should allow this action? – Jordan Evans Jan 23 '17 at 01:29
  • I have the same set up as Patdog in his answer on a Wacom Bamboo CTH-470. I can roll smoothly in any direction by hovering and clicking the top button(lower button by your settings). – cmomoney Jan 23 '17 at 01:47
  • @cmomoney Are you sure you don't have to click the pen to get one increment of roll view? Are you saying that you can drag the pen with Control Key pressed, pen key pressed and drag up and down to roll left and right without having to press the pen button every time you roll? – Jordan Evans Jan 23 '17 at 04:10
  • It works exactly like pan and zoom. Middle click = roll in any direction, ctrl+middle click = zoom, shift+middle click = pan. – cmomoney Jan 23 '17 at 04:21
  • Let us continue this discussion in chat. – Jordan Evans Jan 23 '17 at 04:28

2 Answers2

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Perhaps your Blender preferences are the issue, not the pen settings?

I have set my top button to 'Middle Click' and my lower button to 'Right Click' because I think it sits easier in my hand for orbiting the view. With Ctrl you can zoom in and out and Shift for panning view. It is both simple and it works.

I do not have 'emulate 3 button mouse' set as I have a proper keyboard and the pen essentially has nothing to do with this. Turntable or Trackball will behave very differently, as will Dolly or the other 2 choices. These are my settings...

enter image description here

The view manipulation settings will also have great effect. I do sometimes change to 'Zoom to selected' but that does depend on where the object center is. Most I prefer to Numpad . to View select which allows me to focus on one object.

enter image description here

Update: With regard my comment below about the pan/scroll button (my setup is in dutch)...

enter image description here

Patdog
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  • I'm not understanding how these settings adjust the Roll. For example by default, Ctrl + Lower Pen Button + drag the pen causes a smooth zoom. I want to do the same thing but use the top button for Rolling the 3D View. – Jordan Evans Jan 23 '17 at 01:14
  • There is an option called pan/scroll in the pen menu which you can set to the button - if you keyboard Ctrl + Shift and press it does the same thing as if you were doing the scroll wheel. It jumps in increments - just like the scroll wheel - and not exactly smooth.... – Patdog Jan 23 '17 at 07:00
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I found a way to get it real close to what I want...

Here are my settings:

enter image description here enter image description here

Now with these settings, I just orbit a few inches from the origin of an object to get to act like roll, which gives me a faster way to get an angle for a stroke.

enter image description here

If anyone can do this with a Roll, I still would like it better.

Jordan Evans
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