Hardware Question for a New Modeller

SgtR007

Hey folks, I was looking for opinions on a hardware purchase, and hopefully you can give some helpful insight based on personal experiences.

I'm a relatively new modeler/texturer. I use Blender and PS5 currently, and have no intention of changing the program I'm using, as I'm a very casual hobbyist, almost exclusively doing stuff for TF2. I'm looking to purchase a tablet, mostly for texturing purposes. However, I'd like to make my entire model/texture process mobile. There are several programs needed to compile these models into TF2, which AFAIK are Windows-exclusive.

Does anyone have any suggestions on a good setup that would allow use of PS with Blender, with both tablet and Mouse functionality? Will I be stuck purchasing a laptop and separate tablet, and just transferring files between the systems as I progress through a project?

Thanks for the help.

Futzy

Decent windows tablets at a reasonable price are still about a year away.

SgtR007

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm due for a new gaming machine as well, so maybe I'll just hold out until the tablet market catches up to what I want.

DEElekgolo

Sounds good. The market for tablet-like interfaces are getting more and more colorful anyways so they are bound to get cheaper.

Snader

Personally, modeling is far too hotkey-intensive to be done on just a tablet. I much prefer working on a PC with keyboard and mouse than on my tablet-laptop:

Plus, a desktop is much more powerful than a laptop and a laptop more than a tablet. (this doesn't matter a whole lot for me cuz I lurvz lowpoly, but it might apply to you)

passerby

i coudlnt really see myself using a tablet over my wacom and desktop computer.

got a full keyboard for hotkeys, and a high quality tablet, (intuos 3).

on top of that there are the other perks of a desktop, such as more ram, better cpu's, 2 large displays so i can sculpt/paint and view references at once etc.

gray

probably the only tablet that will have the horse power to use most professional software effectivley is the Cintique from Wacom. because its essentially a monitor connected to a desktop system.

i have been contemplating switching to a Cintique for a long time but i'm still undecided. it seems great for painting and sculpting. but for a traditional 3d package it looks like a pain.

the most effective setup seems to be a desktop and a Intuos tablet with 8+ gigs of ram. you can put a few hundred dollars into a system for an Intuos and you have a really nice artists workstation. that seems to be the standard most studios stick by and i don't really see any alternative setup.

i have a portable tablet its a transformer. but its really to small to work on even for a few hours. if i really get into something i eventually need to transfer to the desktop.

so in short, don't buy an over priced tablet. put the money into a nice desktop with a Intuos tablet.


@Futzy
pen tablets have been really expensive for years and have never gone down. they were never designed for artists. they were for the business market to take notes in meeting etc. i don't think the high price will change. i think it will be more like 5-6 years before we see an ipad priced tablet that has the power of a current desktop designed with a pressure sensitive tablet intefrace.

Neox

Sculpting works awesome on a windows tablet, though i really wouldn't want to model thaaat much. As others said, using hotkeys without a proper keyboard stinks i haven't tested blender on my slate, so far max runs shitty, while zbrush and photoshop run great and 3dcoat runs good enough to work with it.