Using a Game Pad "Button Box" with Carrara

Dondec

For those that don't follow these things, there are several USB gaming "keypads" that work very well as a “button box” for keyboard/mouse intensive programs like Carrara or Video Editing software.  I’ve been using a pad called a Razor Nostromo.  That model has a mouse-like scroll wheel on it I programmed to scroll through my animation frames.   The buttons on the pad you program as you wish – per application.

For programming the buttons, I found it best to start with the most used keyboard keys like for Carrara the CTRL and ALT keys, then work your way up from there.  Before you know it, you’re almost never moving your left hand to the computer keyboard.  It’s fast and fun to go full speed with 2 hands.  Fewer mouse moves too.

All of the Razer pads seem to have a thumb down SHIFT button that allows all the finger buttons to be programmed differently than the upshifted set.  There’s also a Thumb Button that I also use as an additional 3rd SHIFT, so I’ve got 3 sets of keys programmed in all the buttons.  

The thumb "DPad button" I use for Play/Pause/Next Key/Prev Key sorts of things.

Might seem confusing from my write up to use all the buttons, but if you program the keys with an intent to get a rhythm going, using a couple keys in combination, your fingers do the remembering.   

You can find these things on Ebay or Amazon.   I'm really enjoying mine.  Hope you find this helpful.

• Don

FifthElement

Was not so useful for me in Carrara or Vue. I do not use keyboard shortcuts there much ...

However, I used to use Nostromo N50 pad for years to model in Silo, it was extremely helpful there