"Orbit Point of Interest" mostly useless at the moment. Things to make it usable

[office]

Orbit Point of Interest / OPI is fantastic orbiting method but I think there are also downsides to it so many users, me included, are not using it.

The main reason for this is that when the cursor is not over an object when you orbit, your view just flies away somewhere. Sometimes my aim is not great and this often happens. That's the main reason that I almost never use this orbiting method although it has the potential to be great and even the preferred method of orbiting of all 3ds Max users if it is improved in a few ways.

Here are the ways in which this orbiting method can be improved:

1. Make it so that it orbits around the object or sub-object selection when the cursor is not over an object
   As I mentioned, when the cursor is not over an object when you orbit, your view just flies away somewhere in the scene. This happens an awful lot. Not good. I can bet most users stop using it for good after this happens more than a few times.
   
   Making it orbit around the object or sub-object selection when the cursor is not over an object will also help when orbiting around splines
   At the moment it's pretty much impossible to do this. Just try it and you'll see OPI is useless with splines. Also imagine having to work with polygon objects and splines at the same time. With the current implementation you'd have to switch between OPI and Orbit SubObject a lot and after a while you'd just stop using OPI because all this switching gets tedious fast.
   
   
2. Always orbit on the surface of objects, regardless of the viewport shading mode
   When you are in Wireframe shading mode, OPI should work the same way it works with the other viewport shading modes. At the moment OPI detects when the cursor is over a wireframe line. I don't see the point of being able to orbit around individual wireframe lines. It's very confusing and also very hard to always try to put your cursor exactly over the thin wireframe lines to orbit around them. I think a better solution will be to orbit on the surface of objects always, regardless of the viewport shading mode.
   
   
3. When there's no object selected and also no object under the cursor, the point of interest should always be the surface of the Home Grid
   At the moment OPI orbits somewhere below the Home Grid (or above if you're view is below it) when there's no object under the cursor. What's the reason for this? I think it's much better to have it orbit on the Home Grid. This way things are much more predictable and consistent (if no object surface below the cursor, use the world surface) and you always know that when there's no object below or no object is selected, you'll be orbiting on the Home Grid.

I guess these are my thoughts on Orbit Point of Interest. Hopefully these improvements will be considered so we can make use of this orbiting method. There are no major changes needed, the functionality is already there, it just needs some slight adjustments to be usable so it shouldn't be hard to implement these suggestions. Otherwise I think all the work gone into developing this tool would have been a waste of time and resources. If you have any other ideas and suggestion please post them here.

[monster.blues]

My suggestion is for it to act like Orbit SubObject at all times UNLESS you have your cursor over geometry. Then it Orbit's Point of Interest.

[michael_spaw]

Thanks.

-Michael

[Anonymous]

While most may not feel the way that I do, it seems that the viewport focus point could use an enhancement that would certainly benefit my workflow. Currently, the viewport pivot works by anchoring to an invisible point that is pre-set by a certain distance from the viewport camera that can be moved by panning (alt+mmb) / (ctrl+mmb). The pivot, ofcourse works wonders when zooming out and selecting an object (relying on the pivotal point of an object) or pivoting the average point of your selection. It becomes problematic for me when I am working up-close to hammer out fine detail. When I need to pivot the working area after I've droped my selection is when a frustrating thing happens. My viewport nav. camera no longer locks onto my original selection and I am rotating about the scene. This is much worse when working in ortho mode considering I switch between perspective and ortho constantly.

My idea is that there be a means (preferably a customizable key + ui toggle button) to toggle, set & lock a visual representation of the viewport camera pivot point. So, there's three features in this idea.

1. Toggling Viewport Navigation Camera Focus/Pivot
   1. User presses defined hotkey or toggles from placed ui button and can physically see the pivot point as they navigate the scene in either ortho. or perspective view mode.
2. Override/Change viewport navigation camera pivot point manually or by ray-casting collection when "focus view-point option" is toggled on.
   1. User can select, drag and set the x/y/z position of the viewport nav. pivot point which will work respectively with snapping enabled.
      • Note: Enabling a user to utilize snapping in tandem with moving the navigation pivot point would uplift ease in making quick pivot changes without having to check depth on each axis.
   2. User can optionally set the viewport pivot point positioning by "ray-casting". For those that are unaware of what ray-casting is, imagine an invisible line coming from a camera based on whatever it's aiming at. If this line hits a triangle, the x,y,z coordinates of where this hit occurred can be referenced. To reitterate, the pivot point would be set by referencing the viewport camera location/angle which then seeks to collide with object boundaries (if not a mesh/poly) or, if in sub-object mode, polygons. If a collision is made, the focus position that is currently available adjusts to the new target location. If no target was found, set the pivot to collide with the floor which would be the location of where the ray collides with 0 (Z-Axis) - or nothing happens at all, either or....
3. Viewport Navigation Pivot Overrides
   1. While in a "viewport pivot override mode", the user can freely navigate between any object while retaining the original pivot point.
      Example:
      
      1. User Enables "Viewport Pivot Override" by UI input or by defined hotkey.
      2. The viewport navigation camera pivot resets to 0,0,0 and during this time is where the user can change orientation and position while navigating the scene.
      3. User disables "Viewport Pivot Override".
      4. Upon disabling this pivot mode, the camera resets its angle, position and location back to where it once was.
   2. This, in my opinion, is the most important. If toggling the pivoting position & locking it is not reasonable - I would be ecstatic to, at the very least, be able to do this.

As always, thank you Audodesk & the community for all that you do.

[Tupaia]

Bit hard to follow your thoughts...

Are you aware that Max already has a 'Orbit point of interest' option in it's little orbit pop-up at the bottom right?

Works just fine (Cinema4D's orbiting works like this, too).

However, that ugly green raycast pimple on the surface should be toggle-able.

[StephenMF]

It all started going bad in 2008!

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/3ds-max-forum/new-mouse-wheel-zoom-behaviour-old-is-gone/td-p/4000968

Since then all types of feature have been added that make the navigation unpredictable.

Stephen 

[Anonymous]

Or simply point of interest be the last place clicked on mesh, while clicking on a new part of the mesh dynamically changes POI. This is similar to how maya's camera toggle works and is very useful when working on really elongated meshes, like splines, but also things like vehicles and such that are joined together.

[markus]

A few versions ago the Orbit point was introduced as a new method when orbiting around in your scene. However, in many situations, the orbit point isn't ideal. Unless there is mesh/poly geometry in the scene the orbit point does not "hit" anything. Also if you miss an object it will pivot around the background.

An example is if you are isolating a spline in the viewport you will end up orbiting around points far away from your spline. I think this is a problem. The orbit point should be able to snap to shapes/splines. There should also be some sort of fallback solution if the orbit point doesn't hit any geometry. The orbit point should NEVER be the empty space far away from whatever object is selected. Maybe if the point doesn't hit anything the fallback should be to rotate around your selected object or sub-object?

Also I agree the green ball is ugly. Could anyone come up with something better?

[Anonymous]

For me, the "orbit point of interest" selects a different PoI position each time that I orbit and can vary greatly in position from close to distant. I am working fine and then it grabs a distant PoI and it swings away. 

Shouldn't there be a static rotation center when you do not have an object "selected/centered"? Rotate, move and zoom the VP allowing you to place the center where you want it to be, independent of selection, and all your orbits will be from the same point until you move it to a new position. No need for PoI lock. No need for green ball.

Am I missing something?

[StephenMF]

I have posted a "fix" in Stack, that I have figured out through the years.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/stackthis/posts/1647733265573163/

"

Thank you for pointing this out.

This is the FIRST thing I fix when installing a new Max.

And YES you can get it back to what it used to be...

That means Max-Orbit will again behave like it used to and like, Maya, Unity and Blender.

I have collected links to posts and a 5 minute procedure to fix it.

First, yes, change the 3dsmax.ini file, add AdaptiveNavigation=0 under performance.

Read all about it in this LONG thread:

https://forums.autodesk.com/.../max.../td-p/4966960/page/6

Next... Disable the SteeringWheel.

By renaming AutoCamMax.gup to AutoCamMax.gup.old located in c:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2023\stdplugs\

Read all about it here:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/.../Turning-off...

Final thing is to use the "normal" orbit tool.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/3DSMAX/2023/ENU/...

Now you can hit Z to focus an object and pan/orbit in a way that makes sense.

I am dreading the day that these fixes will be made invalid.

I hope we will one day get an preferences check mark that takes this back to the old way of doing things... Like we did with Caddies.

Does anyone use Caddies? I mean TAB key does not cycle the input fields!!!"

[markus]

The orbit point of interest in Max could definitely improve!

1. It should be able to orbit objects that are frozen
2. It needs to work when only working with splines.
3. When it hits an empty area in the viewport it should orbit the last position it remembers
   (like most other 3d software)
4. Having to constantly switch modes between "point of interest" and "Sub object" is very annoying and unproductive. If point of interest was improved or some hybrid mode existed my life with 3dsmax would be easier!

Has there been any new development to this?

[thiago_oliveira1]

@StephenMF  I just had to post here: thank you sooooo much for this fix, that new orbit system is THE most annoying thing in 3Ds max for me ever since they changed it back in the 2012 if i'm not mistaken, up to 2011 it was perfect, i really do not understand why they did this back then, thank you!