CompuServe Messages

I was going by what the Fractal manual itself said. The only time I ever actually saw the Calcomps was at SIGGRAPH. We have a Kurta XGT here, and it's nice and all that, but tilt and bearing would be even nicer. I understand the big advantage of the new Wacoms is two-handed input — using a stylus in one hand and a puck in the other at the same time. I can't really imagine a practical use for that. On the other hand, I hear the "feel" of the new Wacom stylus is much better than the bulky, somewhat top-heavy (due to three digital-watch-type batteries in the very top of the pen) Kurta stylus. Painter has a specific installation for the Calcomp. You choose it when you install the program, and it should work fine. I can't imagine they would ship the program with that specific install without testing it first. The Kurta does not have a specific Painter install. Instead, you have to download the WINTAB driver for the Kurta from their BBS to get the full performance. Otherwise, you're stuck with Wacom emulation. With WINTAB, you have the best of both worlds: pressure-sensitivity in Painter and other Windows apps that can use it (Corel Draw 4.00B and higher, for instance), and compatibility with non-pressure Windows apps (they see the tablet as just another mouse). Once you have installed Painter's Calcomp driver, you open one of the Brush windows (I forget which one — someone misplaced my manual as I type this) and you will find options for the various ways a brush's behavior can be controlled. Since so few people have Tilt/Bearing capable stylii, I think none of them have been set. But you can set up as many of the brush variants to be reponsive to Tilt & Bearing as you want. For instance, you could set the Van Gogh brush to get its Angle from Bearing, and its Width from Tilt, and other parameters from Pressure.