Looking for a Tablet for Blender

Well, for 2014 I’ve decided to expand my physical tool set to (finally!) include a good graphics tablet that’s both compatible and useful in Blender mostly for sculpting.

Please keep in mind I’m using Ubuntu Linux here, and I’ve heard there have been some problems with Wacom tablets lately with the current Linux kernels.

Anyone have any suggestions for a nice, useful graphics tablet for Blender sculpting tools, keeping the price under $300 (US)?

Thanks in advance!

Dan

EDIT: Whoops, sorry, mods. Didn’t know you preferred this stuff in Tech Support. :slight_smile:

For example GTX 560 Ti 448 2Gb or 570

Just seems like hardware companies are caring less and less about good drivers and support.

Wacom doesnt even list a Linux drivers, they use to, guess not these days…

And as for Ubuntu, I didnt see any lover for driver for the few weeks I tried on the wifes APU(that AMD) Laptop, and Ubuntu was so flaky…

BTW, DD, long time? Id look into a dual OS boot?

I think it might be something that David Revoy might be able to help with his notes here

Thanks, all for your replies. I decided on a Wacom Intuos Pen Small CTL480. Nothing flashy, but it’ll be a good start. I haven’t had compatibility issues with any hardware with my current set-up, and I’ve got a GeForce GTX 560 TI like odil24 mentioned, and haven’t had any problems, so I should be okay. :slight_smile:

Let’s hope.

Dan

Could you report back your experience? I for one would be interested hearing if there were issues with it.
Few words, like “works! I like it” or “not recognized, it’s crap” would be enough for me.

@JA12: No problem. I’ll let you know when it comes in. :slight_smile:

Dan

Thanks JDaniels.

+2, on that Wacom Intuos Pen Small CTL480 feedback?

I’ve got another week before it arrives by UPS. It’s being shipped from across the country, I guess. So I will let you know when it comes in and I get a chance to test it out.

Dan

Wacom tablet arrived today. Pretty good. Took a few minutes to set up and find the drivers for it for Linux, as it didn’t work right out of the box. After some doing, I had it going.

Entire time to get it working perfectly: about 2 hours.

Now time to learn how to use it. Never had a tablet before, so this is a new experience for me. :slight_smile:

Dan

Another BA member also reported that the wacom tabled he has used to work out of the box in earlier version of Ubuntu but newer version needed some fiddling. Well, at least there is a way to get it to work, that’s the main thing.

Congrats on the new tablet. I’d like to try one too. I don’t know what it’s like but a mouse feels very limiting sometimes.
Oh and thanks for reporting back.

Got mine today and thought I report back. I also bought Wacom Intuos Pen Small (CTL-480S).

I’m running Ubuntu Linux 14.04 64-bit, Gnome 3 Classic desktop.

First impressions and observations:

  • I connected the cable between the tablet and my computer and that was all the setup I had to do. Everything works out of the box, including pressure sensitivity in Krita (2.9 pre-alpha from dev ppa), Gimp (2.8.10), and Blender (2.71)
  • The cable that comes with the tablet is too short. If you plan to buy one and you’re using a desktop computer that is not next to your keyboard, get a USB extension cord. The connector on the tablet end goes deeper into the thing which protects the connector from breaking or getting loose. That means you might not be able to use whatever other cable you might have around, the connector might not fit
  • Tablet surface sounds rough. It doesn’t feel rough but I can hear this grinding/sanding sound, not depending on the applied pressure. Some user reviews said that the surface is too rough and it ruins the nib very quickly but idk. I taped a glossy coated sheet from a magazine on the tablet and this removes the sound and it’s easy to slide the pen on it.
    I’m not sure if I need to do something about the surface but I don’t think my quick fix is good. Glossy paper gives in a bit and pen tip makes very small indentations on it, which might not be good for high resolution pressure sensitivity in the long run. This also makes it harder to slide hand on it, which is why the tablet comes with the surface like it has, I think
  • Gnome 3 settings for Wacom also work. There are two modes: absolute (screen) and relative (touchpad), I’m currently using it in absolute mode which is the default, it maps the screen to the tablet surface. I did a test where I placed a glass on the tablet and drew a circle which came out egg-shaped. I had to set it to map the aspect ratio and now when I draw a circle on the tablet it’s a circle on the screen
  • This tablet has 4 extra buttons that also seem to work out of the box. Top left corner has two, which are left and right mouse. Not sure what the top right ones are, but they work, forward/back in Firefox
  • Those buttons feel and sound like plastic, they are, but the tablet doesn’t flex underneath while pressing those so not too bad
  • I haven’t used the tablet much yet but it doesn’t feel too small

Thanks again JDaniels for reporting back. Your comments weighted heavily on my decision to buy this thing and I’m not regretting that yet. You’ve been happy with it?

Anyone have comments about the tablet surface, or other comments?

I got the Intuos pen & tablet about week ago and just got a chance to use it for about an hour last night.

It worked with Windows 7 right out of the box. I have not tried to do any changes to the default setting yet. I did play around with the screen mapping but could not get the active area small enough to where I could cover the entire screen without moving my forearm. With the mouse I can get my pointer from side to side, top to bottom with a small wrist movement.

edit-- One thing i forgot to mention about the pen. The cursor will automatically jump to the relative position of the pen on the pad. So if my cursor is in the upper left corner and I want to move it a little bit I have to put the pen tip in the upper left and make the move. If I just put the pointer anywhere it will jump there. This will take a bit of getting used to.

In Blender it worked fine but the default button layout does not work for me. Once I remap those I think it will be nice. I really like the pressure sensitivity in sculpting. I really look forward to digging into my dynotop sculpts with it.

The surface does seem a bit rough while using the pen, as reported earlier.

What I really like is that it does not prevent the mouse from working while the pad is plugged in. I was a bit worried about that.

My first impression is i will use the pen extensively for artistic stuff (sculpt paint) but use the mouse for mechanical stuff (box modeling, selecting options etc.)

the tablet surface sounds rough or sound scritch when doing fast stroke lines
but i think it will be remove if the tablet is overused as time goes

these are the reasons why i quickly sell my wacom intuos (medium )

im lookng that time for my 4 year old bamboo pen replacement because there is a crack that is very noticeableand they said it was already phase out and replace the Intuos Pen

after 1 week i feel that these tablet is not comfortable for me
and sadly there is no refund or return policy ( iddnt bought it at wacom store but store with different gadgets different stuff )

but luckily i sold it quickly for 150 bucks and the one who bought it was satisfied
these are things i notice

Cons :

1 ) surface has minimal slight Slope top to bottom the bamboo doesnt have slope and Intuos 4
if you like switching 2048 and 1024 pressure like me or or have a syndrome type of person who can affect easily because of small things because of sudden change in enviroment then i really dont recommend getting intuos pen this just my opinion it really depends on person

2 ) for me the button is not designed wise
bamboo and Intuos 4 did the right thing they were aligned at 1 straight column so both hand is stationed without interrupting the drawing hand i think they place it at top to reduce the size for more portability but later on you will ignore these features ( buttons ) instead you will use keyboard as button for shortcut when working at specific application

Pros of Intuos Pen

  1. Radial Menu
  2. Can set preference of button Hotkey specified on application ( auto switch )
  3. Updated Driver
  4. Has Storage For Nibs / can change rubber ring color of pen
  5. Has More Paper Rough Texture Feel
  6. the pen is very light compared to bamboo
  7. The Revision Of Design for more portability