Annoying Brush Square Artifact when using Vista tablet

[system]

When using my new Capax “Vistapad” in Edit Draw mode I get an erasing square forming around the brush tip that, as I press & move, forms a trail that effectively erases all the newly brushed areas of the object from view until rotating the tool snaps it all back into view again.

Changing to my normal mouse shows absolutely no signs of this, except if I switch to the mouse from the pad without rotating the object first.

I’m running Zbrush 3.1, Windows Vista 32 bit, and the tablet - according to the manufacturers - needs no drivers installed to run on Vista (however, I’ve found Vista’s tablet control pannel somewhat lacking in the options dept).

http://www.capaxtech.com.au/capax3/html2/product.asp?code=171103

The Tablet runs just Jim-Dandy on Photoshop CS-3, has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, etc, and appeared to me at first to be just right for Zbrush.

I’ve spent a good few days now hunting through options to see if there may be some sort of conflict, to no avail.

Has anyone encountered a similar artefact problem to this before?
…or would have even a theory on what may be happening here?

Thanks guys,

Woz B.

[aurick]

Make sure that you’ve installed the most current drivers from the manufacturer’s website for both the graphics card and the tablet.

What you’re describing is usually caused by the tablet drivers. Yes, Vista has built-in drivers for tablets. But these are rudimentary at best and do not give full feature access. ZBrush requires more than the built-in tablet drivers. The pen will move and draw, but your results will not be everything that they should be.

[system]

The Vista Pad Tablet’s manufacturer actually does not provide any drivers for Widows Vista. The Disk included with it was for XP, Win2K, etc only. Their supposition being Vista’s new tablet drivers were sufficient, though, as I mentioned, Photoshop runs wonderfully, quite good pressure sesitivity control range and response. Not unlike my experiences with many wacoms & clones.

My Video Card Drivers are practically up to date as of 2 weeks ago. It’s a Quadro FX 1700 bought specifically for digital sculpting. I’ve also been through all of it’s driver options on a 'try it and see" basis, with no change to the situation.

I would wonder then, if anyone else running Zbrush out there has bought one of these Vista Pads? …and worked with no problems.

[system]

The problem IS with with Windows Vista!

After searching everywhere then going back to my Control pannel mouse settings, there’s now “click lock”, an annoying function I dismissed soon after my PC was built. When activated, it will keep your left mouse button “pressed” if you hold it on anything for more than 1 second.

After ticking its innocuous little box, HEY PRESTO! the “erasing” artifact in Zbrush dissapeared.

Took my tablet over to an associate running Zbrush on Vista, hooked up the tablet, tried it with and without Vista’s Click Lock, same symptoms & same cure.

The only thing now is that with Click Lock activated, if I hold my mouse down away from an object to rotate it for more than the briefest of moments, it becomes locked down, iritatingly flailing the object around until I realise to briefly click it again.

As there are appears to be a number of similar tablets now in the works for release soon also with “plug n’ play” for Vista, it would be good to investigate whether this is a Microsoft issue or a Zbrush issue.

Woz. B.

[Crusoe_the_Painter]

When I installed my Wacom in Vista, I had to disable every tablet service or feature provided by Vista because of this cr@p, and rely purely on the wacom software.