June 2009 « Ninja Beaver.net

I hate summer, anyone who knows me, knows this is true. I loathe almost all insects apart from beetles, butterflies and… oh ok I’ll admit it, I have spider fear. Also earwig fear, and I’m not too keen on flies either. On hot nights I can’t sleep, as the closer I get to sleep the more I am convinced that anything and everything with more than four limbs is going to crawl all over me while I am unconscious. This makes me itch, and once I itch I cannot sleep.

So why we’re working on a concept that is based entirely around insects is beyond me, I’m not generally given to being cathartic. Bloody-minded, awkward, stubborn and contrary, yes. Cathartic, no.

Locii

I was going to write a, somewhat belated, review of Autodesk Sketchbook 2010. But now I sit here I realise I should cap screens of the various (and wondrous) new features. Some of which I have been clamouring for, for years. I was lucky enough to be in the beta test cycle, and am proud to say that one of my suggestions made it in. Though I do not claim to be responsible for that, it may have come from someone else. I have been often outfoxed by the ‘delete custom brush’ icon being right next to the custom brush icon. But there was no ‘idiot box’ to ask me if I *really* wanted to delete that brush when I erroneously clicked delete instead of my brush… and *poof* just like that it was gone.

It no longer does that. It politely assumes I am a ham-fisted fool who couldn’t hit a barn door with a tractor and gently asks me if I *really* want to delete this brush. So instead of the yowl of frustration and minor tantrums that usually follow the winking out of existence of my lovingly crafted custom brush, I push the “christ no, don’t do that” button and carry on my merry way.

I love you Autodesk, and I promise I really will write a proper review of this software soon.

I recently decided it was about time I bought Painter, what with the latest version getting lauded for a 30% performance boost. So I did a strange little dance with Amazon – I bought painter 9.5 (full program) for the bargain price of £43, including delivery. Then I ordered Painter 11 (upgrade) for £109.00. Why? Because I saved £100 off the price of the full retail version.

But have I used it? Well…. a little.

Sketch

The above was a 15min paint/sketch. There’s no doubt that Painter is the best app out there for a real-paint effect, but I’m still having issues with it. Perhaps it’s my fault, but there’s a real performance problem on the Cintiq. I’ve tried dragging palettes on the main monitor – nice and fast, tried dragging them on the left-hand monitor – nice and fast (and this is my surfing screen) but dragging them on the Cintiq is beyond painful. I even decided to dedicate a single graphics card to the Cintiq and no joy, I tried setting the Cintiq as the main monitor (deeply undesirable to me) and still no better. The brushes aren’t too bad until you have a large file or a large brush.

So I am left contemplating whether I should upgrade to 8 or 16 MB of RAM or buy another Nvidia GTX 260 just for the Cintiq.

Or I could just use Photoshop or Autodesk Sketchbook 2010. Which both work perfectly.

You live and learn, I suppose.