More on Tablet PC's
I've been playing around with my new Tablet PC . It takes some getting used to, and I had to change some default settings. When I am drawing, and I have to hold my pen down to drag an object inside of Toon Boom (2d animation program) the pen would start up the right click pop up window. This was definitely interfering with what I was doing. I had to go into the control panel to uncheck this setting. It's really not necessary anyway, since the button on the pen will do the same thing. Aside from that minor inconvenience, I've been having a whole lot of fun. I've been working on a small project inside of Toon Boon, but it's a little more complicated than the animation I did today so it will take a while longer for it to be finished. I do have a quick scene uploaded on my website that I created using PAP on my tablet PC. You can see it here . There is no denying that a tablet PC is an incredible tool for the traditional artist and I look forward to what I will be inspired to create.
posted by Gina @ 9:44 PM
9 Comments:
Gina,
I stumbled over here from the link you had on your post at CreativeCow.net. I see you are using a tablet to draw and using ToonBoom Studio.
I've not used T.B.Studio myself. For natural brushes and drawing I've used Mirage ( http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/home_LP.php ). It is an animator's tool. It also has many compositing features and is very powerful like combustion, but a totally different workflow. Just an FYI.
The run specials all the time and have some crossgrade pricing for lightwave users.
I saw your tablet coment and clicked on your hand drawing link and the first thing that came to mind is Mirage.
Michael James
www.gulfmarketinginc.com
... oh and they have a fully functional demo available to download. And one license allows you to use it on both a Mac and a PC by just moving the dongle.
That was important to me 'cause I use Modo (luxology.com) and Lightwave on my Mac and 3DS Max 7 on my PC.
Michael James
www.gulfmarketinginc.com
Hi Michael - yes I've had my tablet PC for only a few days and previous to my purchase I did some researching as to which program would be best for my needs. I believe I chose ToonBoom, simply due to the price bracket. If I recall correctly there seemed to be a substantial difference in price between TB and Mirage. However I was very intrigued by the Mirage program, perhaps I should continue to frequent their site in hopes of one of the specials you mention. I am a 3D Max user - I'm assuming you're a Lightwave user? Thanks for looking at my "hand drawing", I had a lot of fun experiencing the "old school" method. I think sometimes it is beneficial to go back to the roots of something to truly understand it and get to the core of a method, even if we know have modern programs that can make it a lot easier for us. I went to your website, I was hoping to see some of your work....Gina
I just read your second post - I have them both too. I actually had Lightwave first, but I couldn't stand the dongle and I didn't like the interface either. After that I got Max and we've been perfectly happy together ever since. G`
Sorry, nothing on my site to look at. Just a splash page as of now and no time to put together a reel or samples.
I'm busy working on a website for a new real estate company opening in town.
In reference to LightWave... I'm using it less and less as I've been slowly learning Max over the last several months. I prefer Max's layout/interface. Probably because it reminds me so much of Macromedia Director's layout (which has the stage to the left and the context sensitive property inspector to the right).
Late last year I bought Combustion 3 and am slowly learning it as well. It is a very deep program.
T.B.Studio looks great, but I have too many apps I'm trying to learn at once while working on projects at the same time. Just too much information overload to use them all.
Michael James
I know what you mean. I was very lucky a little over a year ago I took a class through Puget Sound Center - well sort of, they had some students from Boeing that round, that didn't want to travel to the class, so I had the instructor in a one on one class (at my house if you can believe it), which was fine by me! I then received my remaining Discreet certificates from Mesmer Animation Labs, which is now shutting down. I finished my courses March of 04. When I heard about Mesmer (they had a closing down sale where I got a bunch of books at discount), I was thinking "whew" glad I got in when I did. Apparently they were not getting enough clients, in fact my classes at Mesmer, both of them had just one other student. The reason is - now community colleges are holding their own animation classes, which as you can imagine has highly competitive rates compared to studio house courses. Right after I received my certificates, I jumped into some self training while the info was fresh. What I've learned though, is that each project has it's own learning curve too - aside from just the program itself! As you know the combinations that Max has, seems darn near infinite! Max and Combustion are my main programs too. In fact I'm working on a project right now that although my models reside in Max, most of the work is being done in Combustion - animating the materials. ToonBoom is new to me, and like you, I'll have to wade through some current work to get the time to pay it the attention it deserves.
Hi Gina, Nice to find a Max Blogger..
Does 3dsmax work on the Tablet PC?
Have you tried it> is It supported?
Just curious
Mike
Hi Mike, thank you. Since the tablet has the draw on feature, I primarily use it for 2D animation work via Combustion. So, I honestly haven't tried to install Max on my tablet PC, but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. My tablet has pretty good specs, good enough to run Max, considering that one of my old systems (which I now use as my gaming machine since I use better and more current systems for my work) runs Max fine, and it has way lower specs than my tablet PC.
But to maintain it's lightness and portability, the table PC has only one internal hard drive and no disc drive to back up data. Of course you could get an external drive(s) - even a high speed version (since my tablet pc has 2.0 usb ports), which you would want to do of course if you want to save your work. If you have or plan to get a tablet PC I would suggest checking into what sort of graphic card it has and compare that to the requirements listed at the AutoDesk website.
Gina,
I was wondering what you think of Combustion concerning 2D animation. I have been thinking about getting a copy of the program, to using on a rotoscope film project, but do not want to make the investment if combustion is not the right tool for the job.
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