keyboard shortcut for 3D effect?

[spinhead]

any way to create a keyboard shortcut for the 3D effect?

searched the entire forum for '3d' and found ZERO entries.

[firstdefence]

Assume you are talking about the 3D fx from the Layers panel, if so, there is currently no way to implement the 3D fx directly with a keyboard shortcut.

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, spinhead said:

searched the entire forum for '3d' and found ZERO entries.

One of the many cases where the forum's search engine fails completely. Try searching with Google Search instead, which gives far more relevant results.
https://www.google.com/search?q=3D+site:https://forum.affinity.serif.com
https://www.google.com/search?q=3D+effects+site:https://forum.affinity.serif.com

[firstdefence]

You could always create a set of fx including the 3D fx as styles for a one click approach. 

[GarryP]

13 hours ago, spinhead said:

any way to create a keyboard shortcut for the 3D effect?

I’m curious as to what “the 3D effect” would be, when applied via a keyboard shortcut, given that the 3D Layer Effect has so many settings.
Or is it some other “3D effect” that is wanted?

[spinhead]

6 hours ago, firstdefence said:

You could always create a set of fx including the 3D fx as styles for a one click approach. 

Ah, I suspect that's the winner. Thanks.

[spinhead]

5 hours ago, GarryP said:

I’m curious as to what “the 3D effect” would be, when applied via a keyboard shortcut, given that the 3D Layer Effect has so many settings.
Or is it some other “3D effect” that is wanted?

Layer Effects | 3D (default settings) which I use daily

[spinhead]

5 minutes ago, spinhead said:

Ah, I suspect that's the winner. Thanks.

Erm, still working on my first cup of tea and my brain is slowly coming to life. No, clicking on the Styles panel is no closer to a keyboard shortcut than clicking on the Effects panel, which is what I'm currently doing.

[GarryP]

16 minutes ago, spinhead said:

Layer Effects | 3D (default settings) which I use daily

How often are you applying the default 3D Layer Effect to things, and why are you doing it so much that you would want a keyboard shortcut for it?
(I know you said “daily” but how often each day?)

I only ask as I rarely use that effect and I always want to modify it once I have applied it, so I don’t understand why you would want to apply the default effect so often.

[spinhead]

Art. 20-30 times in a 3-4 hour creative session. Daily. Sometimes morning and evening, so double those numbers.

When the garage workshop gets too hot for woodworking here in SE Phoenix, I come inside and create repeating pattern multilayered blend mode experiments. The default 3D effect is usually enough to give the effect I'm looking for in the interactions among the blend modes of each layer. I do sometimes modify the settings, but over 80% of the time the defaults work.

Maddening not to be able to script Affinity tools. I am old school command line and have keyboard shortcuts for my desktop layouts, most apps, system settings, etc. My Affinity work stance is right hand mouse for positioning, left hand keyboard for settings. Every time I have to switch my right hand to settings instead of positioning, there's a cognitive load which, with my specific health issues, is a very real interruption.

I was able to script moving new documents from behind the tools to the other monitor, which was a big time saver, instead of having to create a new document then drag with the mouse to the other monitor. Now, it's click thumb/pinky and I don't even think about it. (The windowing tool I use is able to manipulate Affinity at a gross level, moving windows, etc., but can't dig any deeper than that.)

[GarryP]

Thanks for the extra information.

I still don’t understand what the process is but it’s obviously important to you.

Which brings me to my next question: What if someone in Serif changes the default 3D Layer Effect settings?
What if they decide to change the default radius, and/or the default Shininess, and/or the default direction, etc.?

Since the current defaults seem important to your creative process, if they change, wouldn’t that process be ‘interrupted’?
You would then have a keyboard shortcut which was of little use to you (and probably not much use to anyone else since, as far as I know, you are the only person who is asking for this).

So is there a different way to think about this?
In other words, is there something that can be done to get what you want while making it more generalised, for a ‘wider audience’, and not just for your own current specific needs?

[Hangman]

It may not be what you're looking for or give you anything more than you already have but you can assign a keyboard shortcut the the FX Panel under Layer > Layer Effects. I have 'L' assigned to mine. This will only call up the FX Panel so you'd still need to click the 3D box itself so I don't know if that would fit with your 'right hand mouse for positioning, left hand keyboard for settings' workflow?

Anyway, just a thought as I think that is the closest you can get currently since it's not possible to assign a keyboard shortcut directly to individual FX.

[Pšenda]

20 hours ago, spinhead said:

20-30 times in a 3-4 hour creative session.

Is it within one or more documents? If your document already contains this effect, then I would use its copying - nowadays very fast using drag and drop.

[spinhead]

7 hours ago, GarryP said:

Since the current defaults seem important to your creative process

In other words, is there something that can be done to get what you want while making it more generalised, for a ‘wider audience’, and not just for your own current specific needs?

1. Only part of my process because they are the default settings. My creative process is about repetition. Unless the defaults on the tool were set to something radical, beyond reasonable, they'll work because they're the simplest to apply. Click. Done. No fiddling to interrupt my brain.
2. The real solution is to make Affinity tools scriptable. If I can use AppleScript, I can mod the app to do anything I want. That, however, won't benefit me unless they also reinstitute Separated Mode, because I won't upgrade from v1 until they do.

[spinhead]

Thanks, @Hangman @Pšenda , but mouse is mouse. The process NOW is 'click the 3D effect' so 'click something else' isn't an improvement.

[Old Bruce]

The problem with making a keyboard short cut for the Layer Effects is that the Effects are 10 different types so that would mean we would need to have 10 shortcuts. Perhaps we would need one to apply the Effects layer then one of 10 to apply the 3D, I would think we could get away with just the (possibly as many as) 10. I rarely use these effects but I do see an upside to having keyboard shortcuts for them. I would thing the settings would be whatever was last used.

The closest I can come to a keyboard shortcut for applying and Effects Layer with its settings is to use the Copy and Paste Effects. Here on Mac that would mean apply the 3D effect to one layer then use the keyboard shortcut Command + Control + V to paste the effects to the newly selected, or newly made, object(s).

[spinhead]

19 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

apply the 3D effect to one layer then use the keyboard shortcut Command + Control + V to paste the effects to the newly selected, or newly made, object(s).

4 steps with 2 mouse clicks instead of 1 step, a single click. Select layer with existing 3D <click>, copy, select target layer <click> —then paste. With the panel already open, as I have it, one click, done.