well to me, the surface pro is about as big as a table can be to comfortably hold it in one hand and pant with the other. at one point mobility will just suffer.
so far, the pressure could feel a bit less harsh. some adjustments abilities for the sensitivity would be really helpful.
the surface pen is bad, well the software side is. it has a built in one note button nobody needs (well at least not me), an erase button where the right click should be and a rightclick button you have to press and then tick the screen with the pen tip.
I wsh we could configure those buttons, even auto hotkey doesn't register clicking one of those, so i had no luck remapping those myself.
but besides that it feels good, now that i have a touchbar like i used to have on my samsung slate
Hey Neox,
I answered one of your questions on the other forum.
Also, if you are interested, I haven't found a way to remap the two pen side buttons, but it is possible to use AHK to remap:
- the Windows/Home button (or also to disable it)
- the Volume Up/down buttons
- the single- and double-click actions of the top pen button
Hey Neox,
I answered one of your questions on the other forum.
Also, if you are interested, I haven't found a way to remap the two pen side buttons, but it is possible to use AHK to remap:
- the Windows/Home button (or also to disable it)
- the Volume Up/down buttons
- the single- and double-click actions of the top pen button
thanks a lot, i'll have to dig into remapping the hind pen button to run zbrush or photoshop ^^
the windows homebutton works like the windows key for me, i'll see if i have to turn it off while working, so far i only updated the bar so i can use it.
hm volume up and down might be interesting if software dependent so it could be brushsize or something
I got a Surface Pro 3 like 2 days ago, and granted, all I've done is sketch stuff in Sketchbook but man, N-Trig pen is FUCKED. The pressure is just so little for me, it draws all over the place where my hand is and I cannot even perceive how you can use Photoshop or Zbrush with this tiny UI and little to no pressure sensitivity. Drawing a simple sketch that would take me half an hour tops on my desktop with a Wacom takes me 2 bloody hours to get the linework I want in Sketchbook.
I dropped so much damn cash on this overpriced thing and for anything artistic it's a bloody shame. I really wanna like this thing, and all I wanted was a nice sketching laptop on the go, but it can't even do that well because N-Trig is bad. JUST BAD.
I am highly considering returning this and never looking at a tablet again.
I got a Surface Pro 3 like 2 days ago, and granted, all I've done is sketch stuff in Sketchbook but man, N-Trig pen is FUCKED. The pressure is just so little for me, it draws all over the place where my hand is and I cannot even perceive how you can use Photoshop or Zbrush with this tiny UI and little to no pressure sensitivity. Drawing a simple sketch that would take me half an hour tops on my desktop with a Wacom takes me 2 bloody hours to get the linework I want in Sketchbook.
I dropped so much damn cash on this overpriced thing and for anything artistic it's a bloody shame. I really wanna like this thing, and all I wanted was a nice sketching laptop on the go, but it can't even do that well because N-Trig is bad. JUST BAD.
I am highly considering returning this and never looking at a tablet again.
You might want to try a different program. Could just be a driver/software issue.
You might want to try a different program. Could just be a driver/software issue.
Yep, I've downloaded the latest N-Trig Drivers, updated the OS to the latest version, and after doing all that last night I decided to take my overly long sketch that I made in Sketchbook and took it to PS.
Works way better. Alot better. It's actually enjoyable and not frustrating, now it isn't as quick as the old pencil to paper. But it's a good experience, so looks like this Surface Pro lives to see another day.
This is main complaint with every tablet I've ever used. The drivers and the software never play nice everywhere. Some places it works, some it doesn't. I don't understand why it's so hard to just have it "work."
have any of you been able to disable the annoying tablet pc bubbles that popup when holding your pen on or near the surface and pressing ctrl, alt, or shift on your tablets? I've looked all over and it seems that windows 8.1 is different than win 7 when it comes to disabling it.
I've been using a surface pro 2 for 9 months or so. I like it quite a bit. I use the art dock app which works pretty well with zbrush for all the alt/ctrl/tab/spacebar hotkeys. I use art rage for 2d stuff. I turned off the rotate functionality of the tablet so it doesn't rotate when drawing and I can just draw and rotate the tablet like a piece of paper.
Its been a couple of days since i got my hands on a surface pro, Apart from the bullshit that is windows 8, i haven't been able to get art dock to work properly for me, which basically makes the tablet useless to me.
@EtotheRic - Do you mind confirming something for me? In the applications i can get art dock to work on if my palm is on the screen i can't press a button, but i can put any amount of digits on the screen and the buttons work fine, it just doesn't like my palm.
Is this the case with your art dock?
The art dock app is kind of a pain to get used to. It doesn't work if your drawing hand is touching the tablet so you have to keep your palm off the surface.
Something I found useful for zbrush use is I made a custom tool palette with all the common functions I use in it and another for brushes.
for the windows 8 crappyness with the metro stuff, install classic shell, which is pretty much like windows 7 with start button and all, works pretty much like windows 7 now for me.
I used my surface for about an hour last night and the battery went from about 50% to 0. The fans kicked on full blast and all I was really doing was browsing the web. I tried killing pretty much all tasks so that I was just sitting idle on desktop and the tablet was STILL loud as ever. The fans blasted for a good 10 minutes I'd say which just crushed the battery.
Have you guys experienced anything like this? How are your battery's holding up?
I really wanted to love the device. Its sooo close to being everything I want but ultimately there were a number of issues that led to me returning it for a refund.
I went for the top model (i7 512 gb). My thinking being that 8gigs of ram are a requirement and 512 gigs of hd space would be nice for future proofing etc.
What I liked:
Form factor this is amazing feeling. Its the nicest feature of the surface.
Screen size Also quite nice.
The keyboard- this was surprisingly good and was enough to meet my needs and quick to whip out whenever I needed it.
The pen - the feel of the input isn't bad... but there were some other issues (see below)
What I disliked
Clicking noise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlS6Fe2GviA Im guessing my device had issues because in my first night of use I noticed this slight clicking noise when using it . This type of thing happened out of the box and is the main reason Im returning it.
The pen Although the pen feels pretty good, its ultimately a negative for artists IMO for the following reasons:
1. The Nibs wear down quick and you have to call Microsoft for replacement packs (free). I noticed almost immediately that my nib was flaking black pieces of plastic off after only an hour of use. The pens default curve makes it so that you have to press quite hard to get a 100% input in Photoshop which amplifies this issue. To those wondering yes I had the latest drivers etc.
2. The current n-trig software has no pressure curve editing solution. N-trig says theyll be adding this but I only had 30 days to decide whether to return this or not.
3. The current n-trig software has no way to remap the buttons on the pen
Battery life The surface is advertised as having 9 hours of battery life. I would have been happy to get 4 like Neox said, but Id say I was lucky if I got around 2. Additionally, I found that my battery drained while I was not using the device. Id leave it at 75% to go to bed and wake up to a device that was down to 50% or even lower. Again maybe my unit was just bad?
I7 throttling I was actually able to notice this a couple of times. (system fans came on and the device slowed down this happened when idle or web browsing. The worst part of this was that the fans destroyed battery life.) again maybe a bad unit?
Screen glare- I know some of you say you used this device outside but I found when I tried I could not see anything.
Default video driver color calibration upon boot up I noticed some color banding. I was able to install newer video drivers which let me adjust some settings to fix this slightly but even after that the banding was slightly noticeable.
Lack of art input support. This ones a little subjective and is really not a deal breaker for me. Still- I spent probably my first full day reading threads about the best toolbars to use for the device. I kind of feel like if Im spending this much money on a device to do art that it should have some type of suite out of the box. I know there are the tools listed in this thread to resolve this and that this may come off a little bit entitled. Still, looking at videos of the Cintiq Companion I couldnt help but be a little envious of the support they offer out of the box for on screen keys. I think were in the early days still and hopefully Microsoft or N-trig or someone can come up with a more elegant solution than those currently offered.
So there it is. Its cool to see these types of tools coming out and we're getting close to my dream machine being a reality but we're not quite there yet. I'm between waiting for a new Cintiq model (nothing is announced currently), getting the current cintiq companion that has old hardware and isn't without its own issues from what I can read, and trying my luck with an i5 256 Surface 3 from a big box store (in-case it too is defective). Haven't decided yet.
yes i still do own one and i sculpt on it as often as i can or have the drive for.
the toolbar i made for chompbar is fine, but not perfect. i am no coder so i don't know how to make it work as flawless as the artdock. The toolbar occasionally misses my finger inputs. it doesn#t support multitouch etc. etc.
i did not use max or maya or even photoshop with it, the surface to me is my mobile sculpting station, here are some examples of what i did with it.
from life at the THU workshop
my first two sketches on it
and something a bit more complex and polished
you can sculpt with it, but it could be better software wise, the hardware, as said, is great.
Wow really nice work mate! Now I definitely want one. So what specs did you get and if it doesn't support multi touch how can you use shift and the pen to smooth? Sorry for all the questions, in just on the verge of gettinng one that's all
it does support touch + pen, so shift + pen is no problem, but say ctrl+shift need an extra button, or shift and space to set up the strength of smooth doesn't work.
The way you rightclick is completely awkward, in general the buttonmapping is bad and can't be changed (hopefully yet). It has a lot of usability kinks which could be easily adressed if made open to some coders or added in their drivers. sadly, they didn't adress some of the things. But hey now you can chose if the back button of the pen starts onenote or onenote desktop! genius, that much i could change myself without a driver.
i have the i7 256gig version
I did not test marmo with it, and no this is rendered on my workstation. its an onboard intel graphics chip don't expect too much from it
really all i got installed (as on my slate) is zbrush und photoshop and all i use is zbrush and well chrome and skype.
considering my samsung slate worked great for zbrush, tho not on super dense meshes obviously, i think the i5 will be fine. just don#t expect to crunch 10 million quads through it in one subtool.
Aww damm. I've seen a few reviews on the sp3. The odd Photoshop one but it's abit brief. I really Wana see one about zbrush and maybe some modelling software
I'm trying to decide between a high end surface pro 2 and a low end pro 3. I'm leaning heavily towards the 2 because of the better specs, gpu, and no throttling.
But can anyone who has the pro 2 comment on the size? That's the only limiting factor I see, can you really work on a 10.6" screen?
I'm trying to decide between a high end surface pro 2 and a low end pro 3. I'm leaning heavily towards the 2 because of the better specs, gpu, and no throttling.
But can anyone who has the pro 2 comment on the size? That's the only limiting factor I see, can you really work on a 10.6" screen?
I find it really hard to actually WORK on a screen that small. I suggest you try it in a store first if you can.
(The screen of the sp2)
I find it really hard to actually WORK on a screen that small. I suggest you try it in a store first if you can.
(The screen of the sp2)
that's what I'm thinking, don't want to go prematurely blind.
Might just wait because I'm expecting the active digitizer market to get more competitive this year, especially if Apple throws their hat in the ring with the ipad pro.
Also, Microsoft is supposedly buying ntrig so I doubt we will see another surface with wacom digitizers. Hopefully they will really push the technology and give us a real competitor to wacom.
Also, Microsoft is supposedly buying ntrig so I doubt we will see another surface with wacom digitizers. Hopefully they will really push the technology and give us a real competitor to wacom.
Oh snap. Hopefully they also release a Cintiq alternative, then. Or maybe the SP4 will function like a Companion.
Wacom's latest active electrostatic tech looks pretty impressive. It's more consumer-grade apparently but people say it's about on par with SP3 n-trig, yet with more pressure sensitivity. Only tablet that has it right now is the encore 2 write and portege z20t.
hello polycount peeps, im having a bit of a problem. i updated the wintab driver used the
wintab -1.0.0.18-64-bit version but still while using my ntrig pen rotating is smooth but when i pan and zoom it lags and skips to places, i bought surface pro 3 mainly for zbrush now im disappointed. is there a fix for this? has anyone encountered problems like this? if so please help me. thank you
after browsing through this thread I am thinking I am gonna order the surface pro 4, looks amazingly slick and while expensive, the for a few hundred more than an ipad the useablilty alone seems great. basically would just use it as my new laptop for DJing, and any on the go work. I am assuming the windows 10 install is a full version and not the lame tablet version the earlier surfaces came with where you couldnt even install photoshop or normal windows software?
I watched some video reviews and the general consensus is that the Surface Books are awesome laptops but have some limitations for production art. Not super strong, 3D wise, so you can work but not really efficiently. Also, the pen lacks a second button AND you can't configure that button. So ... maybe next iteration.
I watched some video reviews and the general consensus is that the Surface Books are awesome laptops but have some limitations for production art. Not super strong, 3D wise, so you can work but not really efficiently. Also, the pen lacks a second button AND you can't configure that button. So ... maybe next iteration.
you can most likely configure that button with a third party app called radial menu, thats already doable on the Surface Pro 3. But yeah i would also prefer out of the box solutions by Microsoft.
The button presets are barely usable on the 3
front is leftclick as usual
next one is right click but you need to click with the front tip to approve the rightclick
Replies
so far, the pressure could feel a bit less harsh. some adjustments abilities for the sensitivity would be really helpful.
the surface pen is bad, well the software side is. it has a built in one note button nobody needs (well at least not me), an erase button where the right click should be and a rightclick button you have to press and then tick the screen with the pen tip.
I wsh we could configure those buttons, even auto hotkey doesn't register clicking one of those, so i had no luck remapping those myself.
but besides that it feels good, now that i have a touchbar like i used to have on my samsung slate
Including the "let's hype your own app" button is sooooo Microsoft
I answered one of your questions on the other forum.
Also, if you are interested, I haven't found a way to remap the two pen side buttons, but it is possible to use AHK to remap:
- the Windows/Home button (or also to disable it)
- the Volume Up/down buttons
- the single- and double-click actions of the top pen button
thanks a lot, i'll have to dig into remapping the hind pen button to run zbrush or photoshop ^^
the windows homebutton works like the windows key for me, i'll see if i have to turn it off while working, so far i only updated the bar so i can use it.
hm volume up and down might be interesting if software dependent so it could be brushsize or something
The codes for the volume buttons and the Windows button can be found in the ahk file that this guy uploaded:
http://www.surfacegeeks.net/forums/index.php?/topic/1502-surface-pro-3-simple-art-autohotkey-script/?hl=autohotkey
The top pen button is Win + F20 for single-click (so #F20 in AHK) and Win + F19 for double-click.
Cheers!
I dropped so much damn cash on this overpriced thing and for anything artistic it's a bloody shame. I really wanna like this thing, and all I wanted was a nice sketching laptop on the go, but it can't even do that well because N-Trig is bad. JUST BAD.
I am highly considering returning this and never looking at a tablet again.
You might want to try a different program. Could just be a driver/software issue.
Yep, I've downloaded the latest N-Trig Drivers, updated the OS to the latest version, and after doing all that last night I decided to take my overly long sketch that I made in Sketchbook and took it to PS.
Works way better. Alot better. It's actually enjoyable and not frustrating, now it isn't as quick as the old pencil to paper. But it's a good experience, so looks like this Surface Pro lives to see another day.
@EtotheRic - Do you mind confirming something for me? In the applications i can get art dock to work on if my palm is on the screen i can't press a button, but i can put any amount of digits on the screen and the buttons work fine, it just doesn't like my palm.
Is this the case with your art dock?
Something I found useful for zbrush use is I made a custom tool palette with all the common functions I use in it and another for brushes.
ArtDock itself should work only on the Surface Pro 1 and 2, not on the Surface Pro 3. If you want something similar on the SP3 (i.e. something that allows you to use pen and touch input at the same time), the only option at this point (and it's a great one if you can get over the language and programming barrier) is TouchKey:
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/touchkey-a-universal-artdock-alternative.63098/
Here is a user-customized version:
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/simple-arttoolbar-3for-surface-pro3-based-on-touchkey-and-chomp.64056/
You can also look into the CHOMP toolbar, which is an adaptation of ArtDock for the SP3 that seems to work quite well (although there seems to be some bugs):
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/chomp-toolbar-latest-version-0-63.63005/
For something that allows you more customization options, but that doesn't allow simultaneous pen and touch input, you can look into my own Toolbar Creator:
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/threads/toolbar-creator-v-2-1.63014/
And the good old ModLock can still be very useful for modifiers like Alt/Space/Ctrl:
http://rshepherd.co.uk/modlock/
Cheers!
Have you guys experienced anything like this? How are your battery's holding up?
I went for the top model (i7 512 gb). My thinking being that 8gigs of ram are a requirement and 512 gigs of hd space would be nice for future proofing etc.
What I liked:
Form factor this is amazing feeling. Its the nicest feature of the surface.
Screen size Also quite nice.
The keyboard- this was surprisingly good and was enough to meet my needs and quick to whip out whenever I needed it.
The pen - the feel of the input isn't bad... but there were some other issues (see below)
What I disliked
Clicking noise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlS6Fe2GviA Im guessing my device had issues because in my first night of use I noticed this slight clicking noise when using it . This type of thing happened out of the box and is the main reason Im returning it.
The pen Although the pen feels pretty good, its ultimately a negative for artists IMO for the following reasons:
1. The Nibs wear down quick and you have to call Microsoft for replacement packs (free). I noticed almost immediately that my nib was flaking black pieces of plastic off after only an hour of use. The pens default curve makes it so that you have to press quite hard to get a 100% input in Photoshop which amplifies this issue. To those wondering yes I had the latest drivers etc.
2. The current n-trig software has no pressure curve editing solution. N-trig says theyll be adding this but I only had 30 days to decide whether to return this or not.
3. The current n-trig software has no way to remap the buttons on the pen
Battery life The surface is advertised as having 9 hours of battery life. I would have been happy to get 4 like Neox said, but Id say I was lucky if I got around 2. Additionally, I found that my battery drained while I was not using the device. Id leave it at 75% to go to bed and wake up to a device that was down to 50% or even lower. Again maybe my unit was just bad?
I7 throttling I was actually able to notice this a couple of times. (system fans came on and the device slowed down this happened when idle or web browsing. The worst part of this was that the fans destroyed battery life.) again maybe a bad unit?
Screen glare- I know some of you say you used this device outside but I found when I tried I could not see anything.
Default video driver color calibration upon boot up I noticed some color banding. I was able to install newer video drivers which let me adjust some settings to fix this slightly but even after that the banding was slightly noticeable.
It gave me headachesI noticed after using the tablet for a while that my head was hurting. I looked up surface 3 eye strain and found http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/surface-pro-3-eye-strain-and-how-i-got-rid-of-it-buyers-beware.9399/ Basically I was able to solve this by never running the surface below like 55% brightness. Not that major of a deal really but it does have an impact on battery life.
Lack of art input support. This ones a little subjective and is really not a deal breaker for me. Still- I spent probably my first full day reading threads about the best toolbars to use for the device. I kind of feel like if Im spending this much money on a device to do art that it should have some type of suite out of the box. I know there are the tools listed in this thread to resolve this and that this may come off a little bit entitled. Still, looking at videos of the Cintiq Companion I couldnt help but be a little envious of the support they offer out of the box for on screen keys. I think were in the early days still and hopefully Microsoft or N-trig or someone can come up with a more elegant solution than those currently offered.
So there it is. Its cool to see these types of tools coming out and we're getting close to my dream machine being a reality but we're not quite there yet. I'm between waiting for a new Cintiq model (nothing is announced currently), getting the current cintiq companion that has old hardware and isn't without its own issues from what I can read, and trying my luck with an i5 256 Surface 3 from a big box store (in-case it too is defective). Haven't decided yet.
How have ppl been coping with the lack on buttons (alt, shift, ctrl) etc. is that toolbar a good solution?
the toolbar i made for chompbar is fine, but not perfect. i am no coder so i don't know how to make it work as flawless as the artdock. The toolbar occasionally misses my finger inputs. it doesn#t support multitouch etc. etc.
i did not use max or maya or even photoshop with it, the surface to me is my mobile sculpting station, here are some examples of what i did with it.
from life at the THU workshop
my first two sketches on it
and something a bit more complex and polished
you can sculpt with it, but it could be better software wise, the hardware, as said, is great.
The way you rightclick is completely awkward, in general the buttonmapping is bad and can't be changed (hopefully yet). It has a lot of usability kinks which could be easily adressed if made open to some coders or added in their drivers. sadly, they didn't adress some of the things. But hey now you can chose if the back button of the pen starts onenote or onenote desktop! genius, that much i could change myself without a driver.
i have the i7 256gig version
I did not test marmo with it, and no this is rendered on my workstation. its an onboard intel graphics chip don't expect too much from it
really all i got installed (as on my slate) is zbrush und photoshop and all i use is zbrush and well chrome and skype.
[ame]www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3gG8TlUVyU[/ame]
But can anyone who has the pro 2 comment on the size? That's the only limiting factor I see, can you really work on a 10.6" screen?
I find it really hard to actually WORK on a screen that small. I suggest you try it in a store first if you can.
(The screen of the sp2)
that's what I'm thinking, don't want to go prematurely blind.
Might just wait because I'm expecting the active digitizer market to get more competitive this year, especially if Apple throws their hat in the ring with the ipad pro.
256gb: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/microsoft-surface-pro-2-256gb-dark-titanium/2148006.p?id=1219070148391?ref=199&loc=JAF5WzpxbKM&acampID=1&siteID=JAF5WzpxbKM-GnuiyfMNwOZsCPjqOxiqQA
512gb: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/microsoft-surface-pro-2-512gb-dark-titanium/2147061.p?id=1219070148385?ref=199&loc=JAF5WzpxbKM&acampID=1&siteID=JAF5WzpxbKM-XcyUI5CTtO7kzdvFzu0B6w
Also, Microsoft is supposedly buying ntrig so I doubt we will see another surface with wacom digitizers. Hopefully they will really push the technology and give us a real competitor to wacom.
Oh snap. Hopefully they also release a Cintiq alternative, then. Or maybe the SP4 will function like a Companion.
wintab -1.0.0.18-64-bit version but still while using my ntrig pen rotating is smooth but when i pan and zoom it lags and skips to places, i bought surface pro 3 mainly for zbrush now im disappointed. is there a fix for this? has anyone encountered problems like this? if so please help me. thank you
you can most likely configure that button with a third party app called radial menu, thats already doable on the Surface Pro 3. But yeah i would also prefer out of the box solutions by Microsoft.
The button presets are barely usable on the 3
front is leftclick as usual
next one is right click but you need to click with the front tip to approve the rightclick
third is eraser
and the button at the back starts onenote
o_O
you can switch it from
Onenote
to
Onenote Desktop
yep they did this in a driver update, but didn't open up any key for any button