Boar & Piglet demo & Huion's tilt sensitive tablet H950P

I can't  emphasize  enough on Pressure+Tilt.  The minute change in your hand movement should translate to the marks you are making. 
用Expresii作畫，最好配有 【側鋒感應】 的繪圖筆。一劃、一點、一提、一按 ，特別有韻味╭( ･ㅂ･)و ̑̑       

Trying out Huion's new Tilt-sensing tablet

Recently  there are more tablet makers releasing models that support pen tilt sensing.  One of them is Huion.  

We got hold of a new version of  Huion H950P (US$80) that supports tilt sensing.   The following is a quick demo video of using the Huion H950P.   以下試用 《繪王》品牌的 950P 繪圖板，利用【側鋒(tilt)】+【筆壓】做出多變筆觸：

用後覺得，硬件方面，build quality 很好、筆很輕，且重心適中地落在握筆位置，還配有像Wacom 的rubber grip，故拿筆不累。筆不用電池所以不用換電或者充電。 軟件方面，Huion 自家config程式有時會偵測不到板子，不過這算小問題，且有機會日後軟件更新可解決。還一個小問題是那個火山口形的筆座的設計：筆座看起來是學Wacom 的，但卻改小了。可能Huion 不知原 Wacom 設計，是筆平躺和直插均可，改小了的Huion  筆座承托範圍有限，令  平放筆時很容易掉下，直插時卻又不知為何弄到筆座凹處跟筆頭角度不匹配，導致插着怪怪的不穩當。∑(O_O；)​

相比Wacom 的專業有tilt 系列，Huion 的價格絕對是優勢(現在最平宜有tilt 的Wacom 是Intuos Pro Small US$238)。用慣Wacom 的筆者，發現 Huion 的筆，壓下去很容易就到壓感最高值，而Wacom 的是 壓值越接近最高值你越要用力，所以挺不習慣。現在Expresii 是較適合Wacom 那種壓感特性的，所以現在用Huion 寫字覺得有點難控制(已試過調pressure curve)。也許這是個人習慣問題，所以建議大家先到體驗店親身試試看。有機會我們會把Expresii 的内部pressure curve 調控範圍廣大，希望可以有所改善，或者希望Huion 也可以硬件或者軟件上加入讓用家可切換成模擬Wacom那種壓感反應的可能，還有希望提供像Wacom 那種有彈簧的筆尖，以便更好模擬毛筆的提按。筆者覺得，寫不寫到好字，那個筆尖’軟硬‘度跟軟件配合是成敗關鍵。

還有一點要點讚是，Huion 的斜度感應，像Wacom那樣是懸空時也可以讀到的。要知道其實Surface Pen 跟Apple Pencil懸空時是讀不到 tilt 的呢（2019-03-06 更新：Surface Pen 起碼在 Surface Go 上有hover tilt，但2017 Surface Pro還是沒有）。懸空有tilt 有什麽好處？就是讓我們下筆一刻，可看到筆頭正確角度，清楚知道下筆是怎麼樣的筆觸咯～

期待之後試用他們有tilt 感應的pen display，如US$400 的   Kamvas Pro 13。

I am too used to Wacom's pressure profile. ​​A Wacom stylus requires significantly more force to reach the max pressure value in comparison to the Huion.  Right now Expresii is more tuned for Wacom's pressure response so it's a bit hard to control the height of the virtual brush to do calligraphy with the Huion. It could be a personal preference, but so far even after adjusting the pressure curve in both Huion's tool and also in Expresii (yes, internally we do have it), I was still not able to write as well as I can with a Wacom.  I'd try to adapt the pressure curve and see if helps. I also hope Huion can adjust the spring in their stylus so that it can better mimic a brush.  I'm glad that they would invite me to their Shenzhen Headquarters.  I haven't met them yet  and I look forward to a fruitful discussion.

I  think Huion's stylus sensing technology is really close to that of Wacom. Huion's tilt reading is as stable as Wacom's, and I'm glad to see tilt reading is also available while hovering, just like a Wacom (note that Surface Pen and Apple Pencil won't give tilt reading during hovering). Previously, the main advantage of Wacom is its ability to sense pen tilt+twist (i.e. 6 DOF totally).   No other stylus makers can sense pen twist just yet, so Wacom still have some technical advantage.   I have always been eager to tell Wacom what to improve in their technology and I  did tell them last time I was at Connected Ink. However, I'm not sure if they would do anything about what I said.

I look forward to testing Huion's new Pen Display featuring tilt sensing such as  the  US$400    Kamvas Pro 13.

In conclusion, I think the Huion has made signification improvement (last time I tried it wasn't that great) and is now  a company that can rival Wacom. This would be good for the consumers as they now have more choices that are budget-friendly. I hope Wacom can up their game by developing new technology for brush sensing.   I am of course always ready to offer my opinions on how things can be improved.

- Nelson Chu

Verdict

The Good:

• Low cost
• Nice    build quality
• Pen is battery-free, light-weight, with    good weight balance

​The Bad:

• Sometimes their own software tool couldn't detect the tablet

acknowledgement

We thank   Huion Hong Kong  for providing the hardware  and Huion Taiwan for connection.