Pressure Sensitivity with Budget Drawing Displays (Parblo Coast, Artisul, XP-PEN/Ugee and HUION)

[sonicbomb77]

Hello,

I'm shopping around for my first drawing-display - but I'm trying to do it on a budget so I'm looking at a lot of non-Wacom brands. I've used drawing-tablets for a while now and know that both driver and software support can be pretty hit-or-miss, especially with these less common manufacturers.

I'm aware of the difference in hardware on these display-tablets and not looking so much for a comparison of color or contrast or ghosting between them. I'm mostly interested in knowing if pressure-sensitivity works in Affinity Designer with each of these particular tablet drivers.

I'd like to know if any of you have experience with any of these brands and how well they work with Affinity Designer

• Parblo
• Artisul
• XP-Pen/Ugee
• HUION

I did use the search bar before writing up this post, of course
I know the Parblo Coast pressure sensitivity might not work according to this thread - does anyone know if this is still the case or has the issue been resolved yet? I'm really leaning towards getting a Parblo display, but this would really suck if it didn't work in AD

Couldn't find any posts confirming pressure sensitivity worked with Artisul

XP-Pen is rebranded Ugee hardware, I believe - and according to this thread their driver completely froze AD. Is this still the case? If not, does pressure-sensitivity work now too?

And lastly, it sounds like Huion -might- work but couldn't find confirmation regarding pressure-sensitivity. I know from other software experience that Huion is generally likely to be supported - however it is at the bottom of my list

----
I've got open-ears to other brands of similarly priced drawing-displays, however of the ones I have seen these 4 or 5 seem to be the most bang-for-your buck and also most current.

 

[gdenby]

Hi, sonicbomb77

 

I have a Huion wh1409 paired w. an iMac. The pressure sensitivity is decent. The response time is good. Very small lag. The surface is rather slick, and unlike drawing on paper. I have medium bad arthris, so do not get quite the exact line weight I would like. 

 

My daughter tried it out, found the response comparable to what she gets w. her Surface tablet. She thought it would be worth recommending to a friend who did not have a tablet.

 

I have since bought an iPad and Apple pencil. Better performance, but the pencil alone cost almost as much as the Huion. And I bought a "paper=like" surface for the iPad. Still slick, but not glass like.

 

 

[AndoniosNYC]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and just loaded the 10 day Trial version of Affinity Photo to test with my new Huion GT-191 Graphic Pen Tablet, which is the same type mentioned by Sonicbomb77 so I figured I'd give my experience with pressure sensitivity here so it might help others.

 

When I first tried the paint brush tool, it worked but no pressure sensitivity, (the line was the same thickness no matter how hard I pressed the pen on the screen), so I went looking for any setting that might help. Sure enough, this setting enabled my pen to make really thin lines and progress to thicker lines the harder I pressed on the graphic tablet screen.

 

You have to go to the "MORE" tab in the brush settings toolbar and click to open the Brush Selection Adjustments tab, then click the "DYNAMICS" Tab in-between the "GENERAL" and "TEXTURE" tabs.

Then you will see a window with all Jitter settings set to "0", I changed the first one named "Jitter Size" to 100% and left the tab next to the slider to Pressure.

That did it for me!

Now I can make very thin accurate lines with my pen and they will get progressively thicker the more pressure I put on the pen when drawing, that's what I wanted.

Notice the click setting next to the "MORE" tab which pops up info stating that it toggles pressure sensitivity does absolutely nothing for me.

 

Now, If I could only solve my main issue, and the reason I came here to begin with, whenever I lift my pen off the screen for a couple of seconds the "ERASURE" tool is automatically selected!

At first I thought this was deliberate if I turned my pen, as if to use the erasure, lol, no such luck...It does it whenever you remove the pen from the screen and never goes back to the tool you were using.

This is very inconvenient, to say the least, as you need to constantly keep selecting the brush tool you were painting with if you lift the pen too high.

 

I have the latest Huion driver installed fresh, no old drivers were ever on my system yet. No other pen drivers either. It is a clean install of windows 10 pro with the fall creators version and windows ink pen drivers.

 

If I don't find a solution in the next 9 days of my free TRIAL I can not purchase the software even at the low $39 price currently offered for the holiday.

I like the program, but I want to be using the new Huion graphic tablet monitor I just purchased which so far works fine with my CLIP STUDIO PAINT EX program I purchased.

 

Thanks for anyone's help with my issue and I hope this jitter setting helps others trying to get their pressure sensitivity working!

 

Happy Holiday!

AndoniosNYC

[SrPx]

Do you have for a chance "E" key set in your tablet driver control panel, set to delete, in any of the pen device buttons, or tablet buttons ? As other than a software bug, what I am thinking of (which is kind of a bug too, unsure if Affinity or tablet related, or in their combination) is that the tablet could be "understanding" separating the pen as an "action", which triggers the programmed key, surely "e" key. If i were in your shoes, I'd try to (for the sake of eliminating factors, mostly) reset/delete that key in all software configs in your driver (I am a Wacom user, and long since I used non wacom tablets) , VERY specially if you have it in your STANDARD, main general settings, at least in Wacom, you have a general setting, and then specific settings per application (which should override general ones but NOT ALWAYS happens). 

 

EDIT :  An easier test would be to set a different key in Affinity other than "E" and restart Affinity. But might not be conclusive... This is all a shot in the dark, but is what I'd try (first this easy method, if does not work, the above explained)...as I can't see other solution at user level...

 

Weird as it sounds, the bug could be caused for that. So, disabling it would be a first step to find a solution (and probably a good clue to developers)

 

Also, very stupid thing I'm thinking of, but I've seen it happening in companies.... sometimes side tablet buttons in the tablet margins are over sensitive....be sure that you are not triggering those with your resting hand.

 

Last thing I can think of : Some drivers DO assign gestures to actions. Just like one can set side button to be ctrl + z , a pinch, a fast circling gesture (maybe you do certain gesture by habit when separating the pen) , and is somehow programmed by default in the driver to activate the eraser. 

 

Well that wasn't the last... If some other drawing app, driver, or anything special for the pen is resident in memory or active, try to fully eliminate it (even as a process in the task manager, if you are on Windows) to see if is some sort of weird conflict.

 

My strongest bet is fidling with your huion driver control panel settings, as if is a Affinity bug with the Huion (I believe they have tested to work Huions, dunno what model), you can't solve that one, anyway

 

[jt2040]

Same for me - the pressure is not working in latest AD with Parblo Island A609.
But it works in all other programs I've tried (even in mediocre and ancient ones)