Has anyone played about with one of those Wacom Bamboo tablets yet? I find them very interesting, because they are being developed as sort of a keyboard / mouse alternative for everyone, whereas most drawing tablets are too expensive to do that. These are about $80 and do most of the obviously necessary things.
Very sleek gadgets, too! I hope they catch on :P
I was kind of sceptical of having the absolute value input detached from the real display as most drawing tablets (except the bloody expensive ones) do, but a bit of fiddling has almost relieved that. I suppose it is no weirder than a mouse; just a different kind of weird. As long as I don't look at the tablet, it makes sense. It's kind of small, but come to think of it, the drawing area is larger than the area I move my mouse over. There still is trouble with something that demands many precise lines without forgiving error. Perhaps I could use the way it detects input before it hits the surface, with a pointer appearing on the screen before anything is actually drawn.
Optical multi-touch screens are also exciting because they give a lot of room for some fantastic game designs, but since those will not make it to the mainstream for quite some time, this could be a good alternative to ease the wait. (For those who are not trying to make something saleable to any kind of audience). It's always quite exciting when an input mechanism offers another way to gather information which demands nothing more from the user!
As far as backwards compatibility is concerned, I guess a design which made use of drawing and pressure sensitivity would still have to work with a mouse since that is what most people use.
What do you think is a good way to simulate pressure stuff with a mouse? My thought is to calculate the speed of mouse movement and throw that into the same number as is used for pressure, or to involve the mouse wheel, but there are probably a lot of other, superior ways...
Very sleek gadgets, too! I hope they catch on :P
I was kind of sceptical of having the absolute value input detached from the real display as most drawing tablets (except the bloody expensive ones) do, but a bit of fiddling has almost relieved that. I suppose it is no weirder than a mouse; just a different kind of weird. As long as I don't look at the tablet, it makes sense. It's kind of small, but come to think of it, the drawing area is larger than the area I move my mouse over. There still is trouble with something that demands many precise lines without forgiving error. Perhaps I could use the way it detects input before it hits the surface, with a pointer appearing on the screen before anything is actually drawn.
Optical multi-touch screens are also exciting because they give a lot of room for some fantastic game designs, but since those will not make it to the mainstream for quite some time, this could be a good alternative to ease the wait. (For those who are not trying to make something saleable to any kind of audience). It's always quite exciting when an input mechanism offers another way to gather information which demands nothing more from the user!
As far as backwards compatibility is concerned, I guess a design which made use of drawing and pressure sensitivity would still have to work with a mouse since that is what most people use.
What do you think is a good way to simulate pressure stuff with a mouse? My thought is to calculate the speed of mouse movement and throw that into the same number as is used for pressure, or to involve the mouse wheel, but there are probably a lot of other, superior ways...