The CUBE i7 Stylus uses WACOM technology for stylus support. You can install their driver to get better control like Pressure Sensitivity. Expresii has built-in Pressure Adjustment tool, and it should work in conjunction with WACOM's. On Win8+, the stylus works with Expresii with or without the WACOM driver. If you want to buy a CUBE i7 Stylus and you're not within reach of these shops at taobao (they may ship to Hong Kong, Taiwan, or even Singapore) or can't use Chinese to communicate with them, you can check out this page for more information. We'll have more demos coming using this nicely-built and affordable Chinese tablet. Stay tuned. |
Last winter, we got the PiPO W5, an 8" Atom-based windows tablet. It is fast enough to run Expresii Lite, but Expresii Full is too heavy for it. In first half of 2015, new Intel Core-m based tablets are coming out and we were eagerly anticipating models that come with stylus support. We recently acquired the CUBE i7 Stylus and we're impressed! Finally, we have mobile device that can run Expresii Full smoothly! And it's not expensive at all - US$360 ($325 if bought from within China). Stylus sold separately. (update 2015-10: Taobao shops now often include the stylus as a ' gift') Just watch this quick demo of playing around with our virtual ink - it's a dream come true, really: The compression in the video makes the screenshots fussy. Check out the following shots instead or head over to Flickr to see the shots at full HD. The Core-m processor in the CUBE i7 is rated at 4.5W and is passively cooled i.e. the tablet is fanless so there's no noise coming out whatsoever. The only complain we have for the i7 is that when running heavy application the left side of the tablet is too hot to touch. You have to put it on a holder, and even want to use an external fan to cool it. We hope Intel's next generation processor would improve on that. Looking at the graph on the right we have faith on that.
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OMG! Wet Dream come true! 水墨淋漓如何?Ladies and Gentlemen, what you're about to see would amaze you. Since the introduction of the Apple iPad in 2010, people have been dreaming about using tablet devices with realistic paint simulation to paint, and in fact, even the recent Adobe video ad "the future of Adobe creative applications on Microsoft devices" suggests exactly that. 用平板配像真度超高的虛擬顏料畫畫,自從iPad 2010 年面世就有人夢想過。最近Adobe發了影片,內容是,將來他們的軟件配合微軟的平板可能會怎樣怎樣。其實片裡只是廣告效果,現在Adobe的軟件沒那麼神呢! How about having the future *now*? Would you like to paint with realistic watercolor that flows as you tilt the surface? The flow should not be predefined with some kind of bitmaps that you load into the app, but react to your interaction. Okay, I'd let the video do the talking: 不過其實逼真水彩/水墨,用我們的技術已可達成,且小平板一樣可用(雖然慢點)。多講沒用,看片: This is done on a US$150 Windows tablet PiPO W5, with pen and touch support (palm rejection built in). Can you believe it!! Although it doesn't provide the silky smooth user experience you get from a desktop PC or a gaming laptop, its cost-to-performance ratio is extremely high. For comparison, if you're in the Apple camp, a pressure-sensitive pen like the Wacom Creative Stylus 2 would cost you $80, not to mention the ipad itself costs you at least $250 (for an old model). And, remember on the ipad (in fact any platform), you won't find painting app that does such a realistic watercolor like ours. By the way, the GPU inside the W5 is no match for the Tegra K1 found inside the Nvidia S hield Tablet ($299 lowest), and just imagine what we can do with such a powerful GPU. 雖然 Atom CPU 運行速度慢,但影片裡用的PiPO W5 的確性價比超高。8寸的大小,方便攜帶。你很喜歡 Wacom Cintiq Companion 但買不起?嫌它太重?那可以考慮PiPO W5 喲,才人民幣 888 (= 美金 142),萬一丟了也不太心疼吧。比較下如果你是用ipad方案,價錢也不便宜,還有就算用了Wacom專業畫筆,也不是每個app 也支持palm rejection 呢。 In the above video you'll see that every time you put down the paint the outcome is so natural, thanks to our full-fledged fluid simulation. The following is another demo showing the use of the brush in "sprayer" mode. 上面影片可看到,每次下筆,出來效果也不一樣的,這也是水彩/水墨可貴之處。以下影片裡有用‘噴筆’模式來下墨的: You may say it's just a cool demo - it's not practical for creating art. Well, if you're a watercolorist, you know the use of flow patterns. You can use those abstract forms for backgrounds, fills for your subjects, etc (see e.g. this video). The organic quality is really irreplaceable. Let me show you a piece we did: 你可能覺得這樣只是個玩具,實際上難用於繪畫?那下面給你看個示範圖吧: This Gandalf in Chinese ink painting style was done on a desktop PC previously, with a "wash" layer that utilizes the paint dispersion and another layer used for line work. And, before you ask, yes, our simulation focuses on Chinese watercolor now. Our Software Architect Nelson Chu would come back to Western media again later (At Microsoft, Nelson worked on oil and pastel simulation, which you now find inside Fresh Paint).
這幅水墨 ‘甘道夫’就是之前用Expresii 在桌面機畫成的。用桌面機比較快,比較爽啊!片裡是用W5打開並展示給你看。圖分兩個圖層,一為‘線條’,另一為‘染色’,傳統上說‘有筆有墨為之畫’,在電子世界裡可以分圖層多好啊! Conclusion: We are very excited by the recent development of Win 8 tablets. Finally software and hardware working together to make a dream come true! We're going to release the Lite version of Expresii first (preview available now), and the Full version later (no set date yet). 2015 looks like a good year for digital painters! 結論:沒想到 Intel 的CPU 進步那麼快!把我們 GPU-intensive 的水墨模擬放到小平板只是想試試而已,但出來效果絕不是Atom CPU一貫給我們的印象中那麼差喲!夢想,逐漸因軟件和硬件的配合而成真了。 ୧༼ ヘ ᗜ ヘ ༽୨ 我們會先推出 Lite 版本(Preview 現已可下載),之後再推出 Full 版。大家,看來2015 是數位繪畫的一年好年! Support us by liking our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter. Help us spread the word! 如果你喜歡我們所做的努力,請多多支持,好讓中國水墨也能在數位世界發揚光大,謝謝!請讚我們的FB粉絲團啊~ Let's try some Chinese Brush sketching! 走,試毛筆速寫去![Continuing from last entry] So we took the W5 out and tried sketching on it with Expresii Lite. Frankly, the W5 is not a powerful machine and the frame rate is only 35-50 FPS. While you can easily get 10 hours of usage for an iPad, the W5 only gives you less than half of that, like 4-5 hours. The W5 doesn't come with a built-in stylus pressure curve adjustment tool (Wacom's driver does) and the larger Hanvon stylus feels too hard on the W5. We will add an adjustment tool in Expresii to help with the situation later. [續上回] 今回要試試拿 Pipo W5 用 Expresii Lite 出外寫生了!因w5 比較慢,其實不能‘速寫‘啊,筆劃如果太快會出角,畫者要自我調整。還有W5 續行一般,只有4-5 小時,比較下 ipad 則可以有10小時。那支漢王筆用起來比較‘硬’,要適應一下,我們之後增加軟體筆壓調控到Expresii 去改善情況好啦。 We found that unplugging the machine from power doesn't affect the drawing frame rate. This suggests that the CPU throttling works really well in lowering the CPU frequency while you're not painting, and increasing it while you are. 沒接電源,感覺沒影響繪畫速度,都是 35 到 50 FPS。 I ended up doing only rough sketches and then finished them when I got home, with the luxury of a Wacom Intuos 3, which gives me stylus-tilt sensing. 最後還是把sketch 帶回家來完成,而且忍受不了 W5 沒有筆的斜度感應,用回wacom的 intuos 3了!W5 是一部完整的Windows PC,是可以連接intous的。以下是完成了的作品,隔天帶回原地對比拍照,呵呵。 CommentsTip: hold the stylus vertical to the surface, so that the pressure gets registered. I was so tempted to slant the brush when I need to do texturing, just like in traditional painting - only to be frustrated by the W5 not supporting tilt sensing and that a too-tilted stylus won't get its pressure registered. 有別於西畫,中國畫重線條表現,毛筆的使用為之關鍵。傳統“皴法”很多需要側鋒用筆,W5沒有筆的斜度感應,只能透過UI調好角度才下筆,發揮不得意。W5屏幕較小,畫畫時經常需把畫面放大縮小,但好處是可以單手拿著來畫。 ConclusionIf for sketching with the W5, the pros and cons are:
Granted, the W5 is not a perfect sketching tool, but given its price which is only 1/12 that of a Wacom Cintiq Companion and 1 / 5.3 that of a Surface Pro 3, you should consider it if you are on a budget. 用W5來畫畫並不完美,但它的價格是最便宜那款Wacom Cintiq Companion (US$1800) 的1/12,最便宜的Surface Pro 3 (US$800) 的 1 / 5.3,初心者可以考慮 (btw, Cintiq Companion 其實挺重的)。期待下一批 Core-M 跟Cherry Trail 平板於2015年的出現,並希望廠商可以加入筆的斜度感應,配合我們Expresii 軟件,打造完美的毛筆水墨寫生利器! Update 12/31: The maximum output size of these sketches generated by the W5, which has only 2GB of RAM, was 5,120 x 7,680 pixels. If you load the artwork on a desktop with a discrete GPU, you can easily get 8k x 12k. 測試發現,用W5輸出,最大為5,120 x 7,680,但你可用家裡有獨立顯卡的電腦讀進作品檔,就可輸出高達 8k x 12k 的圖檔了! Check out the 5k x 7k output at here. Update 1/6: The following are screenshots showing you the details of one of the sketches we did (in case you can't watch the youtube video above). It's amazing what such a small device can handle. 中國書法,歷史悠久。電腦時代,何從適配?最近一批廉價 Windows平板電腦湧現,再配以 Expresii Lite 軟件系統,一個真正便攜又廉價的數位書法方案便誕生了! Authentic Digital Chinese Calligraphy! 真。數位書法不是夢![Continuing from last blog entry] We first try the original stylus included in the PiPO W5 package. We found that it's not as easy to control as the other styli from Hanvon that we have. Check out the test video below. We keep getting bad strokes due to the less-than-ideal pressure control and the friction of the stylus tip against the screen. Fortunately, using the other styli that we have, we get better control and are able to get some nice results. [續上回] 感覺 PiPO W5 原來的筆,筆壓操控沒那麼好:輕壓力容易劃不到線,壓重一點又很容易變得太粗。換了一支大一點的漢王筆,這筆比起wacom intuos 的筆要硬,但在這塊 W5上用卻發揮剛好。W5 本身驅動沒有如 Wacom 自帶的壓感輕重調控,日後如加入這樣的軟體調控,望可有幫助。 Below is another session with the larger stylus. Notice how organic the strokes are! These styli do not support tilt angle sensing, but the resultant strokes are not bad. We of course still want tilt sensing (available in high-end graphics tablets) for best results. :) Tablet makers, are you listening? 這些筆都沒有斜度感應,筆劃還好,但當然我們還是想要斜度感應的,書法嘛,就是要以筆的操控來畫出美的線條啊~ Below shows yet another session with the large stylus. The Atom Bay Trail used here is a very low-power CPU. Because of that, we cannot make very fast strokes without jaggedness. However, we are still very impressed by Intel's advances in their GPU-integrated CPU's. As you can see from the videos, zooming in to see stroke details is no problem, although it's not the smoothest experience like we have on desktops. To appreciate the advances, be informed that the 4 year-old TabletPC HP Touchsmart TM2 gives a mixed performance gain/loss compared to the Pipo W5 (table below) but is actually more than 5 times heavier! Performance Comparison running Expresii Lite: TM2 W5 Start-up 18 13 sec. Stroking 65 49 FPS Idle 200* 110 FPS Zoom Pan 20 75 FPS * The max FPS is capped to 200. Potentially the W5 can give better performance, as the CPU boost rarely pushes it to the maximum of 1.8GHz (ref.: the last video below). In the last video below, we show again a comparison of the original W5 stylus and another Hanvon stylus. You can literally hear the sound of friction as we get a broken line in this video. Maybe a matte screen protector can solve the problem? 除了壓感,原w5的筆還有摩擦問題啊,換一張屏幕保護膜可解決嗎? In conclusion, we now have a very good candidate for an education tablet for school students. These Windows tablet are easy to carry, certainly much cheaper then an iPad, and are capable of running millions of .EXE applications already exist in the Windows ecosystem - be it content-creation or office applications, for examples. Android tablets can compete in terms of prices, but are quite limited in terms of applications. Professionals would probably opt for more capable (and more expensive) Windows tablets which are also available now. And, you know, if you still need to use some Android applications, you can always try an Android emulator like DuOS-M (paid) or Droid4X (free).
結論:學校如果要為學生配平板電腦供教學用途,這樣的Windows平板的確是個不錯的選擇。另,為中華文化傳承,也請各教育機構,認真考慮參與數位書法的發展。 Next blog entry, we will try sketching with the W5. Finally, we wish you a Merry Christmas and happy painting in 2015! What advances do you expect in four years?雖被稱為“山寨機”,Pipo W5 的確比我們想像中好。除了電磁筆在屏幕邊緣失靈,筆太小和機身沒筆槽外,考慮到價格我們基本沒什麼投訴。以RMB 888 的價格,它的確性價比超高。用Expresii Lite 的時候,覺得它的筆壓感應不夠靈敏,這個我們下一篇部落格再談。 I'm pleasantly surprised by the recent release of affordable Windows 8 tablets and impressed by the Intel Atom Bay Trail CPU and HD Graphics GPU inside. - Nelson Chu Five years ago, there weren't many tablet PC's with both pen and touch support. The HP Touchsmart TM2 was one released in 2010. We have one that is equipped with discrete GPU ATI Mobile Radeon HD 4550, which was sold for $1100 at release. To be frank, the 12" TM2 weighting 2kg (add 400g for PSU) isn't very portable. It has a Wacom pen that comes with an eraser tip (but no tilt support, so there's still a reason for a Cintiq ;-). We acquired a Pipo W5 earlier this month. It has an 8" screen, weights only 375g and is available for less than $150 now. The W5 and the TM2 both have a screen resolution of 1280 x 800. The pen module in W5 is rumored to be from Hanvon (HanWang or 漢王 in Chinese), which is likely to cost ~$30 since a similar model without pen from Pipo costs $32 less. The pen that comes with the W5 is certainly too small for most users - it's remarkably similar to one that comes with a Samsung smartphone Galaxy Note (see above)! Fortunately, we found that styli for an old Hanvon graphics tablet actually work with the W5. None of these Hanvon pens come with an eraser tip and there's only one side button, however. In the next blog entry, we will show you how the W5 performs with Expresii Lite. We're impressed by how much technology has advanced. Stay tuned. Where to buy? 很想要?Update 2015/1/11: If you can't communicate in Chinese with sellers on taobao.com (China's online shopping site, lowest priced W5 at RMB888 = US$143), you can get a W5 (or other low-cost Chinese Win 8 tablets) from resellers likes Banggood (currently at US$184), MeriMobile ($177), Geekbuying ($183) or AliExpress ($176).
淘寶可以直接寄到台灣跟香港,貨運很快。我們沒有commission 的啦,只是方便大家找個買的地方!
This video shows a quick demo of Expresii running on a laptop with NVIDIA 750M and WACOM Cintiq Hybrid. We just love the multi-touch manipulation + pen control provided by the Cintiq. We also show a shot of using GUI to adjust the moisture and surface tilt. Remember to view it in full HD to appreciate the quality of the rendering.
片裡有用GUI操控水的示範,請用Full HD 觀看。新的Cintiq Hybrid 還讓你用手指觸控來把畫面放大和平移,實在太爽了!片裡使用的是配有NVIDIA 750M 的筆記本電腦,算是中等級別的GPU。 Yes, it is possible to run Expresii on a Mac via Parallels Desktop. However, in our test case, it's about 25% slower than running on Boot Camp.
FYI, Wacom tablet doesn't work out-of-the-box under Parallels, but it's possible to fix it. Due to these limitations, we recommend running Expresii on Boot Camp so that you get the performance your hardware is capable of. However, if your machine is a very fast one like the Mac Pro 2012, it's probably okay to have the 25% performance hit. Expresii 兼容 Parallels Desktop,但我們建議使用Boot Camp 來跑Expresii,因為測試中用Parallels Desktop會比Boot Camp慢約25%,而且wacom 繪圖板不能用到壓力和斜度感應(有補救方法)。如果您的電腦本身很快(如Mac Pro 2012),那慢25%應該還跑得順吧。 2020 Update : Running via Parallels Desktop 15 or later |
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