#Fractal Painter
15 messages in this thread
Painter is wonderful indeed, but I must disagree with all the many
suggestions to get a Wacom tablet for it. If you're getting Painter, the ONLY
tablet to get is a CalComp Drawing Pad II or higher. The reason? The Wacom
(and Kurta XGT, for that matter) detect and return pressure info to the
program, and that's real nice, but the CalComp does that too and ALSO returns
Tilt Angle and Bearing information as well — and Fractal Painter can USE it!!
Note: Tilt Angle is the angle of the pen to the tablet. Bearing is the
direction the pen is pointing relative to the top center of the tablet.
Marion –
As a new CalComp DrawingSlate user, could you describe how to
make the whole pressure/tilt/bearing thing work ?
My friend, who has a DB II is also interested because, until
4am Sunday, we tried to make that exact thing work at his house,
to no avail.
Thanks !
|-\\/
TODD!!! How are you? Where have you been hiding? I hope all is well and that
you have been working indoors lately. I hear it's cold up there! Drop me a
line if you get a chance.
Marion:
I'm with you Todd. I have a Calcomp DB II and like it alot. Tilt and Bearing
have never worked in Painter though. Discussed this with both Calcomp and FD
tech support on many occasions. Last I spoke with Calcomp (about 4 months ago),
they FINALLY acknowledged that it didn't work & said they would get back to me.
Still waiting. Otherwise, the board is great, particularly since it was ALOT
cheaper than anything else at the time. Dunno if that's still true.
Andrew
Just a note on tablets. Before doing anything, I will recommend
everyone to TRY the tablet on the field with the program that she/he
will use. My friends, I have arrived to the conclusion that:
1.You can't evaluate a tablet from the specs. 2.You can't evaluate a
tablet from the specs. 3.You can't evaluate a tablet from the specs.
4.You can't evaluate a tablet from the specs. 5.You can't… <g>
BTW, just to remember all of you, pressure artists, that the _all new_
Wacom UD model tablets are available. Check them out because,
IMNotSoHO <g>, they are the best tablets EVER on planet Earth. Prices
start at $375 for the 6×8 ultralite model. They are expensive… but
you will die for one 🙂
ana /krazy images
Ana,
But would you say that you can analyze a tablet from the specs! <G,D&R>
Chuck
Ana – is that the Wacom that comes bundled with Fractal Painter?
Dave
I don't know what Wacom are they shipping with Painter. I think that, actually,
there are offers from tablet manufacturers and resellers that include Painter
with other tablets, like the Kurta. Regarding if they are shipping Painters
with SD or UD Wacom tablet models… well, I suppose that you should ask about
first.
BTW, we are going to buy a new 12×18 UD (big! 🙂 so if anyone wants to get a
great Wacom 510 almost new?
ana /krazy images
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.
The Wacoms have been battery-less since the beginning of times. They
are the first and only ones with the technology to do it right. And
they have it patented. The new Wacoms seem to have a new stylus, one
that adds even more art-feeling to the thing. The stylus seems to be
programable (I mean, not the stylus itself, but the board) to act to
a limitless factors and features. They guarantee an absolute
personalization of the board, and tilt and bearing, with pressure
levels that actually seems to work, are standards in the UDs. I will
confirm that when I recieve the new board. I know that the feel of the
Wacom stylus is, for me, the best and closest thing to a real-world
tool in the market.
If you think that two-handed operation is no worthless, well, then you
have a different way to use the computer. I mean that I won't use
both hands to paint at the same time (?!) but I would like to change
from one thing to the other the same way I change from the stylus to
the mouse. The Wacom drivers actually let you use mouse and pen at
the same time, and change pressure and non pressure pens dinamycally.
I usualy use a pressure-pen and the mouse at the same time with no
problem. I paint in Painter or any other program, and when I go with
menus I just have to get (sometimes, depends of what my hand ask me
in that particular moment) the mouse moving.
Besides, I can't see your "act-as-mouse" point, the tablet always act
as a mouse, but with absolute coordinates and other nice scaling
features. All the apps, except Write, see the tablet as a mouse.
There is a problem with Write , but it is not the Wacom, it is the
Pen Extensions for Windows. The Wacom has awesome drivers and a great
control panel inside the Windows Control Panel. Actually, I think
that they are the tablets that provide more samples per second,
smooth as silk, thanks to the extension (BTW, they actualize the
drivers in their BBS -and soon in their forum here is CI$-
constantly). I just _want_ to know if there are any pen-aware
shareware word processor. Just for try it, each time I move the Wacom
in a text-app (or a dialog box field) the cursor changes to a pen
but, since I'm not in a pen-aware enviroment -except for painting
apps- I'm unable to try it and see how it feels.
ana /krazy images
ana,
All of the three big pressure tablet makers support simultaneous
mouse/digitizer use — I think that it is really a feature of the Pen Windows
interface that you can leave your mouse hooked up and running.
Donald
Yes, this is not a new thing. That's why I said I didn't understand Marion's
arguments.
ana /krazy images
Marion/Anna,
I just bought a Calcomp and a Kurta XGT in addition to the Wacom that we are
already using. If money were no object, I would buy another Wacom, (the stylus
is much lighter–this can be a real factor if you are in the habit of doing
multiple all-night painting sessions…There is nothing worse than watching the
sun rise while trying to paint that last crucial shadow only to find that your
hand is too tired to hold a stylus… True story, but, I would still buy a
Kurta. The price is right, it is easy to set up and maintain, Tech support is
good, (it comes with a demo version of Painter), all of the parts are solid,
the lift-up plastic sheath is nice and gives the stylus something to push
into…
I just spent one hour on hold for tech support from the Calcomp after the
copper wire in my cursor suddenly went Sploosh! and came disembowled on my
desk. The Drawing Board III is not a solid product. It comes with a fairly
complete Windows tablet manager, but the manager lacks pressure support. The
pressure driver, available on their BBS is still in kludge stage. I am not a
happy Calcomp customer, clear? OK.
-Donald
PS Reason #26 not to buy Calcomp. (I am feeling vindictive tonight.) If you
use HiRes QFX, you need a board that does Wacom compatible pressure support.
Calcomp does Wacom, but not in pressure modes. The XGT does everything ever
invented, including Wacom pressure.
I tried a new Wacom the other day, and I like everthing about it
EXCEPT for the light stylus. I always liked large, heavey brushes,
fountain pens, etc…, so the heavier kurta stylus is more my taste.
My Waterman pen (favorite writing instrument ever) weighs even more
than the Kurta stylus.
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
John,
The Kurta, with its heavy stylus and "soft" tablet surface does have a nice,
substantial feeling…like a soft lead on heavy paper…
Donald