Being an illustrator who has relied heavily on a tablet for many years, I found myself drooling over the 'magic-sketchpad' capabilities of the new TabletPCs and was hoping against hope that Apple would release a similar product at Macworld. Needless to say, they didn't and it seems that they may not even be developing this kind of portable for future release (which stuns me considering the legions of die-hard creatives and traditional media artists they could target with the 'ultimate digital canvas' approach, but I digress). Having worked myself into a frenzy over the possibilities that direct hands-on interaction with pixels might offer, I decided to splurge and purchase a Wacom Cintiq 15" Tablet sight-unseen based on the glowing reviews I had read about it.
First impressions -
The first thing I noticed is that this thing is heavier than it looks and is a little cumbersome, especially if you like to draw on your lap - I'd imagine the next iteration of this product will be much more lightweight (especially when one considers that this product is a couple of years old now and could probably be produced much cheaper and smaller nowadays). The screen is actually very nice with great colour and some serious built-in controls that allow for fine-tuning. There's also a nicely implemented integrated tilt-stand on the back that allows you to go from almost flat to almost upright with a grasp-click-and lift motion - very well done, this bit. About the worst thing about it physically is the tether setup - 3 seperate cords, USB, video and power (plus a transformer brick) are required - this is extremely cumbersome, so I bundled them all into a single supercord with trimmed plastic ties down to the power-brick - this has helped immensely.
Configuration -
Colour calibration was step 1 for me - made easy by the fact that your Mac sees the tablet as just another monitor, so it can be calibrated with the Display panel or Supercal. Next was the Wacom software, which is a little touch-and-go in OSX admittedly - but once one gets used to the quirks it's all good. One also needs to calibrate the position of the cursor with the tip of the stylus with a simple click-the-crosshair crosshair setup - easy stuff. Like all Wacom products, the stylus is programmable as well, with the standard rocker-switch and eraser setup you'd expect.
Hands on -
Wow! Once you experience the sensation of pixels flowing from the tip of the stylus, you'll be hooked... there really is nothing like it and once that carefree connection between hand and art has been reestablished you'll find the old-style Wacom tablet cumbersome and counter-intuitive.
- in Photoshop: exactly what you'd expect - very handy with both painting and retouching.
- in Painter: brilliant except for one extreme flaw (and this is Corel's fault) - Painter doesn't seem to recognize clicks on the canvas in an extended desktop... this renders the tablet useless when used as a second monitor. Shame on Corel for this oversight considering how many professionals use dual-monitor setups. I find I'll use painter running the Cintiq as the primary display with my Powerbook (it won't work with mirroring but plug in the Cintiq and an external keyboard and the Powerbook will run clamsehll-closed). Once Painter is up and running on the Cintiq and the primary display however, nothing compares - it's a beautiful experience.
- in Zbrush: Words cannot describe just how cool this is - it really is the closest thing to holding a piece of clay in your hand and scuplting and painting it... absolute brilliance. The Zbrush interface is also designed in such a way that menus and controls are very comfortable (even preferable) to use with the stylus alone. It almost seems as if the application was meant to be stylus-driven.
Drawbacks -
- expense: current pricing on these can't possibly reflect real-world pricing on the components... considering the price has held steady for the past 2 years while LCD prices have plummeted to a fraction of previous costs, Wacom is long overdue for a significant price reduction on these things. Having said that, I find the unit worth every penny in terms of inspiration, productivity and enhanced capability - it's paid for itself a few times over already. One bonus is the fact that these units seem to retain fairly significant resale value.
- lack of control: Aside from the heftiness and tether setup I've already mentioned, the biggest drawback (and a hugely glaring oversight in my opinion) is the lack of programmable on-screen macro buttons (or programmable physical buttons on the outer edge of the stylus itself). Unfortunately, with the exception of Zbrush, real-time painting requires the use of modifier keys to modify stroke attributes, sample or select, keystrokes to increase/decrease brush size, etc... so there's really no getting away from the keyboard at this stage. This is unfortunate, as I'd love to just pop the powerbook in behind the couch and flop down to sketch and explore - but thing get a little Frankenstein with all the wires and external keyboard. (note: if Apple ever produces a tablet Mac, they'd better get this one right)...
- hypersensitivity: another problem you might find is the hypersensitivity of controls in 3D programs like Cinema4D and Maya - for instance, clicking and dragging a window navigation icon might send you spinning off into infinity (this is because the stylus sends many times the reports to cursor location per second that a mouse or trackball will).
- pressure levels: the Cintiq stylus is limited to 512 levels of pressure, which is a limit that older Wacom tablets had - but this is really plenty for almost everyone.
- parallax: there is actually a very small discrepency between the actual tip of the stylus and the cursor... this is unavoidable due to the glass screen but one quickly gets used to it as it's pretty minor.
- boundaries: the cursor will get a little funky an jiggle a bit near the extreme edges of the screen, but who's working there anyways?
- fat stylus: no idea why Wacom makes their ultrapens so fat... especially for those of use accustomed to thinner real-world tools (and one's real-world tools would indeed be much thinner when working at this scale. The solution I found was to strip the pen of its screw-on tip and rubber grip - this makes it just a little thicker than a ballpoint but throws off the balance just a titch. The rocker switch still functions normally, however.
Overall, a brilliant and useful product that hints at (and will probably make you pine for) the shape of things to come. A must-have for hands-on illustrators and artists making the move to digital from traditional.
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