Surface Pro 3 ?
polycounter lvl 11
Hello,
iam thinking getting an surface pro 3.
Really was between a new Desktop and a Surface. But
times change, iam on a desktop all day - i dont
think that i want to be on my desk after work (alot).
so be a bit more mobile and slim, decided to get an surface pro 3.
Ill use it for some small modeling, webdeisgn and photoshop.
What you guys think ? What about an 4GB or 8GB version ?
Cause for webdevelopment and programming, i dont thing that
i really need 8 - but on the other hand modeling can need some more memory.
Thanks,
Alpha
iam thinking getting an surface pro 3.
Really was between a new Desktop and a Surface. But
times change, iam on a desktop all day - i dont
think that i want to be on my desk after work (alot).
so be a bit more mobile and slim, decided to get an surface pro 3.
Ill use it for some small modeling, webdeisgn and photoshop.
What you guys think ? What about an 4GB or 8GB version ?
Cause for webdevelopment and programming, i dont thing that
i really need 8 - but on the other hand modeling can need some more memory.
Thanks,
Alpha
Replies
I would really like to like my surface pro 3, but sadly the lack of proper art tool bars for the shortcuts makes it an expensive webbrowser device for me
my girlfriend has an surface pro - and its like a brick compared to the third one.
The second one can be an much ceaper option too..
I think that i dont use the pen too often. The surface will be used for webdevelopment/surfing/movies - and photoshop image editing.
Drawing and sculpting will be done but its not my priority (yet)
Do you have the 8gb model ?
You really can't comfortably use it on your lap, you'll end up using a table/desk any ways. Unless you stick with it in tablet mode all the time.
Sadly +1 to this.
It is the sad sad case for using SP3 with anything art related these days.
a GOOD decision with the pro3 ?
Iam wondering that the expensive one is an step back
Sculpting with zbrush is good, not worse than the wacom devices. But to me it fails at the interaction with touch and multitouch. We don't have buttons so we need a touch bar to make it usable at least for alt, ctrl, and shift. Just to be able to navigate and quickly access simple brush options.
Chomp toolbar helps, i modified it for myself to be more like the artdock has been on my samsun slate. But it still isn't there yet, the bar constantly loses commands (which might not be Microsofts or N-Trigs fault), multitouch is not possible. So instead of using ctrl+alt with 2 fingers, you have to create a shortcut in your art bar that combines the two.
Now we (a group of a hand full of polycounters calling ourselves surfaceprohipsters :P ) tried various things to make it work, but anything but the chomp toolbar failed.
The type cover is a cool thing! man would it be kickass if you could use it in Portrait mode, basically holding the tablet with cover like a book. That would open up an infinite amount of shortcuts right in your lap, no more touch, a full keyboard. You would have to remap a lot to make it better usable tho...
However in portrait mode the cover deactivates itself
The same happens for obvious reasons when you put the cover into the back of your device, but damn give me an option to at least try if it could work.
The pen is allright, i liked the one of the Samsung slate more from it's shape but it is good to sculpt with. I do not draw on it ever, so i can't say anything about it.
The pen buttons are ridiculous, you can't remap them, which is the worst to me.
The front button is Erase, not the shortcut E or anything, it is erase in most tools, including PS and Onenote, nothing else you could remap.
The second button is the rightclick, you need to press, then you have to tap the tablet to use it. Sometimes you need to do a small stroke to activate it. It is horrible, pretty much unusable in it's current state. Whoever designed it, never used it for anything but maybe opening one rightclick menu in windows or something.
The third button on the back is the One-Note button. You read right, it opens One Note.
It is the only button you can remap within the driver, sounds cool eh?
You can remap it from One-Note to One-Note Desktop!
However with autohotkey you can fetch the signal and remap it. i got it to start zbrush and artbar if zbrush is closed on one click, and double click closes both if they are running.
As said, i would like to like it. And i can see me loving it, as much as i loved my (sadly cracked) Samsung Slate with the Artdock. But it isn't there and i kinda gave up on driver updates fixing those issues.
@JohnnyRaptor: there is no artdock for the surface pro 3, or did they make it work with N-Trig? The creator himself bets on a Toolbar creator someone is making, but i might not be up to date.
http://surfaceproartist.com/blog/2014/10/12/toolbar-creator-makes-custom-artdocks-easy
i didn't have time to test it in a while, but back then, touch and multitouch together with the pen did not work
Interesting to read.
Hmm, very frustrating..the hardware is topnotch and screen and build quality all seem great, but damn shame a few thoughtless design choices seems to have handicapped it for artists. I was certain i had found a portable sculpting solution
let us remap the buttons on the pen
let us use the typecover as we like without any restrictions
and most would be settled by just these two options. besides that a working solution with multitouch WHILE the pen is on the display would be really good.
Sadly i am not coder enough to develop it myself based on my changes to the chomp toolbar.
If anyone could get a bar that never loses a touch command we would be HUGE steps into the right direction, multitouch is just a nice to have.
Are you able to turn off all the touch capability while you work with the pen? I kinda wish it just worked like a cintiq that didn't have any touch capability. I've found it annoying to worry about accidental input.
damn my bad english, hope you understand ^^
but this is just the details
seems like one of my issues have been fixed, lets try this!
thanks ken!
I just hope that the missing button presses on chomp will be fixed one day or a different toolbar pops up.
NICE!
I have to change my review then, now it is very usable and very good. Only downside is, as said, the lack of multitouch (which is only a nice to have not a must) and the pressurepoint of the pen buttons But besides that, it is kick ass! need to sculpt more at the weekly sketchgroup.
but it's really more a luxury thing, the state it is in now, thanks to radial menu is very workable and enjoyable.
Ah heres hoping more companies support it.
it's not getting hot in zbrush either, usually it's warm and some times a bit warmer but not like super hot.
Do you have to use seperate individual brushes?
with the right tool (in my case radial menue) you can
Sorry just a bit confused. Does this allow you to use the touch screen as well as the pen? So holding ctrl or shift whilst using the pen?
Okay so it supports pen and touch in zbrush now at the same time?
As of this new update, is there anything else holding this back for Sculpting?
but i can use zbrush without any troubles
Cool thanks for all your replies. Last one now haha, have you tried marmoset or 3ds max on this?
no i only sculpt on it
This is quite interesting. X7-cherry trail with optional n-trig pen, up to 4gb of ram, 10 hour battery.
Basically if you want a really slow surface 3, then sure!
There's videos of baytrail running zbrush, this is cherry trail and is said to have twice the performance graphically as baytrail. Atoms still aren't serious work CPUs but they are becoming much more respectable.
What's nice is the sheer portability, 1.3 pounds, 10.8". To me it's more attractive than a surface pro 3 since I would never do serious 3D work on a tablet anyway.
I'll wait on some benchmarks.
But yea, I didn't mean to sound too down on it. I don't think a surface could ever compare to a desktop setup for getting real work done and this could probably work well for some light sketching.