Is there anyone here using a Tablet PC for Z-Brush ?
I plan to buy the Averatec C3500 soon, but would like some advice first.
The C3500 uses a Athlon 2200 processor, integrated graphics ( 64 mb ), a small, slow hard drive , uses a 12.1 " 1024 x 768 screen, and has a limit of 1 GB of DDR 333 memory.
With these limitations, what can I expect from Z-Brush ?
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks.
There is…or was a thread I believe in the community forum…forget the exact name but something like… should I buy a graphics tablet… in which many folks chimed in with their specific loves…I do believe a few spoke of tablet pc’s and you may find some info there.
I think if you did a search, with the options at the bottom…where you can choose to list number of posts as a criteria and use watcom or tablet …it should return on the first page of the search.
i think the most important thing for zbrush is RAM if you have 1GB (like i have)and a 2200 athlon
you can you used Zbrush normally and good - only the little screen istnt for the eyes…
Nevermind.
I spoke with the guys at Wacom.
The Averatec is one the very few manufacturers that is not ‘penabled’.
( It can’t be used with pressure sensitivity in Photoshop , Z-brush etc. ):mad:
Just a ‘heads up’.
Good thinking, asking Wacom directly…
I’ve been using a Tablet PC at work lately (building a database application for on-site inventory control), and can’t say I recommend it for use with ZBrush.
For one thing, you can’t see through your own hand. I’ve mentioned this in other threads, but I can’t stress it highly enough. The PC was built around not having that limitation. Likewise, you don’t want to smudge or scratch the screen, and that’s pretty much inevitable.
For another, the visual cues are misleading – the term is “parallax”, and it’s quite disconcerting. For broad strokes, not an issue, but if you’re trying to draw something very precise, the short distance between where the image appears and where your pen touches the screen will fool the eye and make you do stupid things.
Both of these issues go away when you use (and get used to) a traditional tablet.
You can do respectable work with a gig of RAM. But more is always better, and that’s pretty much maxing out at the bare minimum that you’d want to suit your needs right now. In a year or two, it flat-out won’t be enough.
And finally, the form factor’s not going to work for you. You have more control with the screen in one hand than you do with it on your desk, or mounted to a keyboard. But in that position, you don’t have your keyboard shortcuts. And those are twice as important when you can’t count on your pointer to hit the right interface buttons…
I love the platform, don’t get me wrong. Those applications designed for it are absolutely brilliant.
And I think the limited hardware is only a problem in this one specific instance. For most anything else you’ll do with it, you can either work locally (as less resources are required), or use Remote Desktop and your built-in 802.11 adapter to control a more powerful machine, upgrading that one as needed. In this way, you needn’t worry about it becoming outdated. But for ZBrush, you do have to face these limits directly. And they’ll only get worse as the OS itself crowds out your resources with service pack after service pack.
Also, if you’re planning to buy a Tablet PC, look into Motion Computing and Fujitsu – each of these companies offer a better display technology wherein your Tablet PC can actually be used in direct sunlight. Which should give you an idea how bad it must be without that technology – you can see what’s on your screen if it’s an image of great contrast, provided you place your body between it and the sun to cast a shadow across the screen…
Do you need to use your Tablet PC outside? Maybe not. But I guarantee you you’ll find a reason to do so the moment you spend all that money and don’t have the ability. This is not something you can upgrade to later – it’s an extra $300 at time of purchase…
Hey Ctrl-Z,
Good heads up on the tablet for ZBrush. I was actually considering doing the same thing as Vegan, but for ALL my graphics applications (PhotoShop, Illustrator, trueSpace, etc.) as well as ZBrush, and I know what you mean about the screen flakiness (sp?).
Out of curiosity, how DO applications like those do on the screen? (not being able to see through your hand aside). Do you do ANY PhotoShop work on yours, or just use the Wacom exclusively?
I’m considering one of the slightly older Toshiba Tablets with the ability to hold up to 2 Gigs of RAM, but would like to confer with someone who actually USES the medium before I go ahead and purchase one (Tablet PCs in general, not the Toshiba in specific).
I have a Wacom tablet now and I love it, but was kind of hoping that a Tablet PC would be sturdy enough for actual Artwork Creation, and it would be two less things to lug around (the Wacom and its stylus).
Any further thoughts would be greatly appreciated, and thanks in advance.
~A…
PS I’m quite the fan of your Personal Journal. Keep up the good (and highly amusing) work.
Sturdiness shouldn’t be an issue if you treat it like you would anything else which costs this much. There are ruggedized Tablet PCs for use on construction sites and such, but you shouldn’t need that. For normal use, it’s fine. Don’t drop it, try to cover the screen while not in use, and don’t pull it out in situations where you think it might get damaged (ie: a sand storm).
I have not used Photoshop with this one, no. I tried it out on a Cintiq at Siggraph last year, but again, it’s better to hold the screen than to have it mounted in front of you.
I can tell you that Alias Sketchbook is very popular amongst Tablet PC users. No precision is required to navigate that program’s interface, which could possibly be an issue with Photoshop. You’ve got unlimited undo’s, though. Anyway, you can download the free trial of Sketchbook, and at least get a good frame of reference.
Haven’t really used Truespace. I tried it once, but the interface bugged me. But, the way I remember it actually works out pretty well for Tablet PC. Strange…
If you visit your local CompUSA or Best Buy, they’ve probably got a notebook-style Tablet PC on display there, most likely from Acer. Getting your hands on it will tell you a lot, though if you can find someone in your area who owns one (through Tablet PC user forums?), buy them dinner or something.
I’d repeat your question on a forum like this one, in your position.
A wacky thought… The Tablet PC’s got USB slots. No reason you couldn’t plug your USB Tablet in as a secondary writing surface. I suspect the same pen will work on both.
With that option available, and 2 gigs of RAM, and some serious ZScript work to optimize the interface for your unique needs, a ZBrush slate might be VERY nice.
Best Homer Simpson Voice “MMmMmmmmmM… Sand Storm…”
Actually, I didn’t really mean sturdy as in PHYSICAL prowess, but more in the “Can I really use this thing in a practical way to do PhotoShop, ZBrush, Illustrator, etc projects” way.
‘Robust’ and ‘Appropriate To The Task’ might have been better phrases.
Thanks for the input, I appreciate it. I’ll certainly let you (and the forum) know of my successes or failures with the Tablet PC once I purchase same.
~A…
PS Use the Wacom WITH the Tablet PC? Hmm… interesting, but it begs the question of why? Hopefully, I can just use the stylus for acceptable drawings and be done with it.
PPS But with my luck, we BOTH know the answer to THAT one.
I think the idea holds promise, frankly. You could do the vast majority of your work directly on the screen, but still have the option to move your hand out of the way and not fight parallax when you’re working the tiny details.
That’s not to say you’d have to lug everything around with you, but it might be easier to hold off on those areas which require precision until you get home to your tablet…
Aaron,
Yup, this was it, thanks.
I guess I’m going to need to see for myself how difficult these things are for details, as I’m just not getting a picture in my head of why Parallax would prevent you from doing detail work (your explanation wasn’t lacking, just my experience with the tablet screen concept).
If the guys at Best Buy et. al. ever get their act together and get a tablet to WORK when I’m in the store, I’ll even give it a go with MS Paint, so we’ll see what the week after Christmas holds.
It’s interesting that Averatec isn’t penabled, though. That rules out THAT brand as a contender.
<SARCASM> Pressure sensitivity would be a nice feature, I’m thinking. </SARCASM>
Anyway, thanks again for the input, I really appreciate it.
Happy Holidays.
~A…
You can do details, you just have to zoom. A lot. Looking for small areas of precision is really your problem.
Imagine a thin sheet of glass between your pen and the cursor tip. The cursor follows the pen, but it seems to overshoot or drag behind a little depending where you are on the screen. You experiment a while, and realize it’s actually lining up pretty well; just not with the end of your pen. It’s lining up with a point in space on the other side of the glass, in a straight line past the pen tip. How far off this seems depends entirely on what angle you’re looking from.
One overly simplified explanation is that your eye changes focus as it looks to different parts of a screen this size, and that it’s only possible to calibrate the pen for one viewing angle.
-This one’s got a picture.
Microsoft’s suggested workarounds for developers.
Someinteresting theory.
The amount of parallax distortion seems to vary from one model to the next. This review claims the unit they were looking at didn’t have much problem in that regard.
In fact… The indoor/outdoor display seems to be a huge contributing factor to the amount of parallax a unit has. If you can see the screen when you’re outside, you’ve given up significant precision. But if you can’t see the screen in bright viewing conditions, that’s a big problem too.
It’s something I think time will fix. But not for the current generation of Tablet PCs – there won’t be an upgrade path.
I bought a Toshiba M200 a few months ago and I love it. Alias Sketchbook Pro is a wonderful app. On a tablet PC, it feels almost exactly like sketching with a pencil on paper. I have ZBrush installed and have been working my way through the Practical Guide (I’m new to ZBrush). Since the M200 is a convertible, I can use it in either slate mode or laptop mode, which is nice if an app relies heavily on hotkeys. However, I just purchased a Belkin Nostromo SpeedPad which is designed for gaming, but it looks like it might work pretty well as a mini hotkey device with a tablet PC. Also, I bought a Cintiq grip pen which is really comfortable and has the duoswitch on the side (the pens that come standard with all tablet PCs only have a single side switch).
So far, ZBrush seems to work very well on the M200. I haven’t really noticed my hand getting in the way of the screen any more than when I’m writing or drawing with a pencil on paper. For artwork, I’d choose the control I get from drawing directly on the screen over a completely unobstructed view any day of the week!
As far as parallax goes, I very rarely notice it on my M200 and when I do, it usually indicates a need to recalibrate, which takes less than a minute. (When I calibrate, I make sure I hold the pen the way I typically do when I’m using the tablet.) The biggest complaint I’ve heard about the M200 is its narrow viewing angle. I must admit that it took some getting used to and I would certainly prefer a screen with a much wider view, but I’ve found that I can forgive this one weakness when considering all of the M200’s strengths. I’ve heard of other people, however, who find the viewing angle intolerable.
As you can tell, I’m very pleased with my tablet PC. I think it makes a great portable studio.
The viewing angle is what made me return my M200, but outside of that it was an amazing piece of kit. Once they fix that the sky’s the limit. Plastic Animation Paper was oustanding on it, thw two were very nearly made for each other. Hopefully the next batch of Table PC’s will fix some of the main issues.
I just downloaded the shareware version of PAP a couple of days ago. I’m looking forward to checking it out!
well j.c. vbmenu_register(“postmenu_183824”, true); another thing i dislike about that tablet (toshiba m200 protégé) is that it lacks an internal cdrom drive - haven’t tested zbrush on one yet, but got one laying around somewhere here so i’ll give that a try too 
how’s that speedpad working out for ya?
The SpeedPad works great. The only problem I’ve had with it so far is minor: it’s supposed to be able to automatically load button profiles associated with specific applications every time you launch an app. I haven’t been able to get that to work, but it’s pretty easy to manually select the proper profile from the taskbar icon. I’m probably going to use it with my desktop PC, too, and set it up the exact same way I have it for my tablet PC, so it should be seamless with no adjustment necessary when moving from desktop to tablet.
Yeah, the M200 does lack an internal optical drive, but including one would have added to its weight and bulk. Plus, you can always add an external drive. On the other hand, there’s absolutely nothing you can do about the viewing angle…
This is an old thread but really helped me… I’m a traditional sculptor for architectural mouldings etc and wanted to simplify and speed up my work so I decided to try zbrush. To help with the learning curve I thought it would be best if I drew and sculped like normal and that would be directly on the drawling or model so I thought a pc tablet would be best… I took J.C.'s advice and got the Toshiba m200 and upgraded the memory to 2gig… now I’ve never used a wacom tablet before but this pc tablet is great to me… screen size may be a bit small but I can zoom in for details… tracking seams fine to me… got it used for $350 delivered to my door…
If you have a pc tablet with wacom technology you need to download the updated driver… go to wacom.com and look for the world country links in the top right corner of their site to find your country… if you live in the USA here is the direct link to the driver… http://www.wacom.com/index2.php the driver download is under customer care
Thanks to everyone here… this site is fantastic…