Hi! What is the keys mapping you use for your wacom pen in Blender_

posted to: Shaping the Face

Hi! What is the key mapping(how to configure your pen, what keyboard buttons to assign to your pen´s buttons)  you use for your wacom pen in Blender? at the beginning there was a recommendation to use wacom pen but no any guidance on how to configure it - can anyone share a link to an article and if there is an article by Kent would be great. 

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  • Omar Domenech replied

    The only article that comes to my minds is this old one:

    https://cgcookie.com/posts/big-idea-digital-tablets

    But I'm guessing that mapping from the 1 to 1 space from the screen to your tablet surface you set to your liking, there is no hard rule or best practices on that that I know of. So you're probably good just testing it out and see how you feel more comfortable with.

  • Blaine Jensen(Theebline) replied

    Best to try an see what you like. I think I have middle mouse button mapped to my lower button and nothing on my upper button because I have fat fingers and always hit it by mistake. Don't forget you can map hotkeys to the buttons on your tablet too (I'm assuming you have buttons on yours). But really it all just comes down to preference.

  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    Hey Mikhail,
    Most Wacom tablets, certainly mine, are plug and play. Meaning you just plug in the USB and it's ready to use.
    In the software for the tablet are key (button) settings you can change, mine has 4 buttons on the tablet and 2 on the pen, each of these can be configured to match a keyboard shortcut, like F and Shift+F to adjust the strength and radius of brushes, the pen can match mouse buttons.
    This means you can move your keyboard and mouse out of the way so you can use your pen and tablet easier.

    The tablet you choose is up to you, more buttons, bigger surface area, with or without a screen, most will do the job, and should come with instructions on how to set your preferences.
    A tutorial would probably not be much use as all makes and models will vary to some extent.

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  • Mikhail Bakhrakh(Mikhail) replied

    thanks! got it! I wanted to get some best practices for buttons configuration for wacom pen-tablet :) Like what Kent is using for instance or some other professionals.

    My concerns are :

    1) at the beginning of the course mentioned ¨we very much recommend using tablet´s pen¨ 

    2) while studying this course I am not sure how my intuitive 0,2-0,5 second actions on the laptop´s touchpad can be replaced with a pen - for instance I use two fingers touch to rotate screen then shift-two fingers to move screen and swipe two fingers to zoom AND in the next half-second I already start drawing with the same finger (one finger removed) . 

    3) I googled internet and found only one more or less clear feedback - ¨use the pen only for explicit sculpting¨ - For now this is only the option I think when I need truly intensive-accurate drawing to be done with a pen instead of mouse.

    Okay - anyway I bought already my first Wacom (trusting Kent´s words back from I do not know what year - ´I use wacom CTH-XXX´:))) - will test it. 

    Thanks! Great thing that the  community here  is very friendly  and supports fast in the forum 🤝

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  • Harris Clook(Yeehawcowboyletsgo) replied
    In regards to what to map to the pen and tablet buttons - I suppose the button mapping depends what you're using the pen and tablet for, whether it's sculpting or texture painting etc. They've got rather specific functions in their respective workflows that might not be used elsewhere as often.

    Perhaps instead consider what hotkeys or functions that you would use throughout blender as a whole to assign. For me personally, my favourite functions that I've got mapped to my pen and also the side buttons on my mouse are to swap in and out of local view, and also frame selected. I've been using my pen for texture painting lately, and being able to jump in and out of local view (NumpadSlash) to see my painting in perspective of the other objects has been great. And being able to quickly frame selected objects (Numpad Period) has been a life saver when rotating and panning the viewport to such an extent that I get virtual vertigo. Preferences like these that can be used throughout blender are what I'm talking about!

    That being said, Quick Favourites is a more contextual based option to keep in mind!


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  • Kent Trammell replied

    I have MMB mapped to the lowest button and RMB mapped to the upper button. LMB mapped to the pen tip which is default usually.

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