I get asked constantly about why and how I use a wacom pen in Maya, so I thought I would make a video going over some of the benefits of using a pen to model.
Dude thank you so much for releasing this video. I had been waiting on a full video from you on this topic since you first talked about it on your Autodesk stream.
Made that transition close to 5 years now and reached the same conclusions you mentioned in this video. Being able to always use pressure-sensitive tools is huge. The only difference is that I moved the keyboard from being on my left to above the tablet, because when I'm programming is more comfortable for my wrists and easier to touch type placing the fingers on the home row.
super interesting, I remember when you first brought up that your using a pen to model hardsurface I was so confused, might try it sounds great for longevity
Been Modelling with a wacom pen for years now. I can use it all day but with a mouse it feels a lot slower and you start to get RSI in the pinky finger after an hour or so. It's also handy to switch easily to i.e. Maya to photoshop.
I found it the hard way that mouse size, shape and weight can influence a lot in getting wrist pain. I was getting excruciating RSI on my pinky and wrist when I switched to the logitecG402 that weighs 100+ grams, I was afraid of even holding the mouse cuz I know it would hurt like hell. But as soon as I switched back to the smaller size lightweight viper mini that's about 60g my pain totally went away.
There is the Mouse Look Navigation add-on for Blender that makes using a stylus a lot better but I can't work out how to set it so that you canswep the nib across the viewport to select multiple objects. The whole point of the tool is to be able to mimic Z Brush navigation but out of the sculpt mode it doesn't seem to be able to adapt.
Out of sheer lazyness. Cant be bothered with too many things on the table. Wacom tablets always seem to have issues as well. Texturing nowadays, atleast for hardsurface stuff, is very "non artistic". Lots of generated masks, stencil projections etc. Works fine with a mouse.
If you use one display and one application, I can see the benefit of a tablet and pen. But navigating trough windows, shifting applications, navigating menus and making quick notes or pulling nodes, there is no competition to mouse. I have met countless people who say there work faster with a pen and after I see them use a computer, I always ask the same question: How slow were you with a mouse? Pen has many benefits but it has no place in actually doing things quickly outside of a single application or multiple displays. Predicting what you do with your mouse or keyboard and adjusting your other hand before/during accordingly will be much faster every single time. Multitasker here with three displays, nuke, houdini and 5 other apps open on three displays at the same time :D
Heh, a coworker on Clone Wars always used a pen and it was just the oddest thing to see. his frustration was in Maya not responding fast enough to his movements, and it was frustrating. That stopped me for sure, it annoyed the hell out of me.
intuos + space mouse = perfect combo for modeling, especially when switching between multiple apps with different orbit/pan/zoom shortcut
Dude thank you so much for releasing this video. I had been waiting on a full video from you on this topic since you first talked about it on your Autodesk stream.
Made that transition close to 5 years now and reached the same conclusions you mentioned in this video. Being able to always use pressure-sensitive tools is huge.
The only difference is that I moved the keyboard from being on my left to above the tablet, because when I'm programming is more comfortable for my wrists and easier to touch type placing the fingers on the home row.
super interesting, I remember when you first brought up that your using a pen to model hardsurface I was so confused, might try it sounds great for longevity
Been Modelling with a wacom pen for years now. I can use it all day but with a mouse it feels a lot slower and you start to get RSI in the pinky finger after an hour or so. It's also handy to switch easily to i.e. Maya to photoshop.
I found it the hard way that mouse size, shape and weight can influence a lot in getting wrist pain. I was getting excruciating RSI on my pinky and wrist when I switched to the logitecG402 that weighs 100+ grams, I was afraid of even holding the mouse cuz I know it would hurt like hell. But as soon as I switched back to the smaller size lightweight viper mini that's about 60g my pain totally went away.
There is the Mouse Look Navigation add-on for Blender that makes using a stylus a lot better but I can't work out how to set it so that you canswep the nib across the viewport to select multiple objects. The whole point of the tool is to be able to mimic Z Brush navigation but out of the sculpt mode it doesn't seem to be able to adapt.
How funny, I went the other way. I even paint textures with my mouse 😂
man how?
Out of sheer lazyness. Cant be bothered with too many things on the table. Wacom tablets always seem to have issues as well.
Texturing nowadays, atleast for hardsurface stuff, is very "non artistic". Lots of generated masks, stencil projections etc. Works fine with a mouse.
Yeah thats fair, always really liked your work btw.
I never really had any issues with tablets, just windows ink
If you use one display and one application, I can see the benefit of a tablet and pen. But navigating trough windows, shifting applications, navigating menus and making quick notes or pulling nodes, there is no competition to mouse. I have met countless people who say there work faster with a pen and after I see them use a computer, I always ask the same question: How slow were you with a mouse? Pen has many benefits but it has no place in actually doing things quickly outside of a single application or multiple displays. Predicting what you do with your mouse or keyboard and adjusting your other hand before/during accordingly will be much faster every single time. Multitasker here with three displays, nuke, houdini and 5 other apps open on three displays at the same time :D
For blender I just use the RMB context menu to model with a mouse.
Heh, a coworker on Clone Wars always used a pen and it was just the oddest thing to see. his frustration was in Maya not responding fast enough to his movements, and it was frustrating. That stopped me for sure, it annoyed the hell out of me.
was he running Maya on a toaster?