Wacom will, of course, be on hand at SIGGRAPH next week talking about their latest partnerships in education, and also will have their new 22HD and 24HD Cintiq tablets on display. The new tablets boast full multi-touch functionality, adding a whole new level of interaction directly with your graphics. If you really want to see what the new tablets can do, swing by their booth for a great onsite demonstration:
- Autodesk experts, Lee Fraser and Marcel de Jong, will demonstrate their skills on Wacom’s Cintiq 24HD touch interactive pen display during Autodesk’s Education Summit and the 2nd Annual Student Experience. Both events will be held on Monday, August 6th at the JW Marriott in downtown Los Angeles. Including a mix of industry discussions, post-graduate tips and product demonstrations, each event will give attendees a first-hand look at how much control and precision the Cintiq adds to Autodesk applications and the artists that use them.
Patrick Shettlesworth designs concepts for Sony Online Entertainment giants like EverQuest and Planetside, as well as newer games like The Agency, and has used the Wacom Intuos for some time. Draw his concept on paper, scan it in, then touch it up with Photoshop and his Intuos, to provide the final result. In about 5-7 hours per character. He just upgraded to the new Cintiq, eliminating the paper drawing and scanning phase, and now can do the same work in 3 to 5 hours.
“With interchangeable pen nibs that emulate the feel of traditional media, the Cintiq gives you a natural drawing response that lets you be as expressive as you want,” he says. “I usually begin with a really firm pen tip, so I can keep the lines tight and clean. Once I start painting, I switch to a looser tip. It’s a process of gently laying in colors and gradually building them up, rather than going in really hard and firm.”
This new routine has transformed his process, providing an uninterrupted workflow that saves over two hours of development time per character. “It feels so much better to be on top of a drawing with your hand, the way you would do it on paper,” he explains. “I get into a rhythm when I’m doing something like this, and I don’t want to break it by having to scan or go back and forth with an eraser. And because I can move fast and loose in any direction, I can come up with way more iterations as I draw.”
A great success story, from someone in the industry using the tool every single day. Full details after the break.
Anyone who’s worked with graphic design knows about Wacom Tablets and Cintiq’s, but may have never actually used one in practice. A new collection of videos from Wacom is now on YouTube showing some of the amazing things you can do with the new Adobe CS5 collection and Wacom Tablets.
An overview of some of the new features in Adobe CS5 that become even more powerful when used with Wacom pen tablets and displays. This video covers: the new Adobe CS5 brush engine, icons, brush dynamics, the mixer brush, bristle-tip brushes, and more.
Above I’ve embedded their generic video, but they have more specific videos on Premiere, AfterEffects, Illustrator, and more that I’ve embedded after the break.
Wacom has just released a new Cintiq tablet display, the Cintiq 21UX, and CGSociety took one for a test drive to document some of the new features.
The customizable, application-specific ExpressKeys on the Cintiq 21UX are a nice touch. Eight are located on each side of the display’s bezel. Pressing the top ExpressKey brings up an on-screen display showing the settings of all the ExpressKeys and Touch Strips. The close proximity of these tools to the actual work area is efficient and comfortable and minimises dependence on the keyboard without taking focus away from the pen hand. Also new to the Cintiq 21UX is the introduction of two user-defined, four-function Touch Strip Toggle buttons which control the function of their associated Touch Strip, located on the back of the bezel
Wacom has heard the pleas of a million graphics design geeks and finally released a new bluetooth-enabled version of their popular Intuos4 tabled, making it wireless up to 33 feet (10 meters), and from the description they didn’t have to sacrifice any of the functionality to do it.
With 40 square inches of working area, this ambidextrous, medium-sized tablet provides ample workspace for most tablet users and features the same productivity features as other Intuos4 tablets including: eight customizable ExpressKeys with illuminated displays that provide easy reference for assigned functions, a finger-sensitive touch ring that controls up to four different functions per application, and best-in-class integration with popular software applications.
It charges via USB, but there is no information on how long it will operate between charges. Gizmodo claims 18-hours, but I don’t see that information on Wacom’s site.
We’ve talked about the Intuos4 before, and the featureset is one of the most complete for any tablet in the industry, short of the Centiq. Ben Long has a great review up on CreativePro about the Wacom, complete with information about the various Intuos4 dimensions and features available.
It always surprises me when I discover that an otherwise gear-laden photographer lacks a Wacom pressure-sensitive drawing tablet. I forget that not everyone understands that a Wacom tablet is an essential piece of post-production equipment, like a computer. For that matter, anyone who works with image editing, painting, or illustration software needs a Wacom tablet. Graphic designers, illustrators, visual effects artists — if you ever brush on a paint stroke, it’s silly to use a mouse.
CGSociety has some great closeup shots of the new Wacom Intuos4, and some information about the new features.
Other innovative product modifications include a refined and intelligent industrial design that provides real advancements in looks, comfort and control. Specific workflow and productivity tools to savor include the shortcut and modifier keys with multiple customisable and application-specific profiles as well as the OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays beside the keys for quick reference.
Wacom will, of course, be on hand at SIGGRAPH next week talking about their latest partnerships in education, and also will have their new 22HD and 24HD Cintiq tablets on display. The new tablets boast full multi-touch functionality, adding a whole new level of interaction directly with your graphics. If you really want to see what the new tablets can do, swing by their booth for a great onsite demonstration:
Wacom has just released a new Cintiq tablet display, the Cintiq 21UX, and CGSociety took one for a test drive to document some of the new features.
VizWorld.com 
Comments