microsoft surface pro and harmony

I recently purchased the Surface Pro in hopes of having a more portable animation studio. Unfortunately, Harmony has the same problem with pressure sensitivity as Adobe PhotoShop. I was wondering if a fix was in the works between Toon Boom and Microsoft to resolve this issue?

I agree… I got my surface pro today… Nice machine, but the pen support is garbage with Harmony. It doesn’t support pressure sensitivity, but further it seems sluggish to me on drawing. I had read reviews where they said the pen was responsive, so I was hoping at least for that, but I guess unless there’s something done I’ll have to stick with my cintiq.

Maybe some good news… Apparently Microsoft is working with Wacom to come up with some drivers for the Surface Pro. Hopefully it will be soon and help out…

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro-surfusingpro/surface-pro-pen-pressure-sensitivity-is-not/72f34b0e-e931-4fa0-8322-5f3933b061f6

I hope they come up with a solution but I mainly us my Surface for drawing and project outlines or writing.
Good luck posting to add weight for a need to have full W8 support.

Just figured I would update this topic in case anyone is still wondering about it…

Harmony 10.0.1 has an option in the preferences under advanced - Use QT Wintab support. If you turn this off the pressure sensitivity in Harmony will work.

Also, Wacom has a new driver up that will enable wintab support with all programs on the surface. It’s called the “feel driver”. You can find that here:
http://www.wacom.com/feeldriver

Most people think this driver will end up in the next set of firmware upgrades for the Surface pro.

I’ve tried both ways and either seem to work fine. The feel driver is a more general solution - it works in photoshop, animate pro, etc. and it gives you more options.

It’s different drawing on the surface pro (I have mostly been using a cintiq 12wx), but it’s good. I find the image really small because the screen is slightly smaller, but mostly because the resolution is so much higher than the 12wx.

Anyway, it’s good that all involved have come up with solutions.

Agreed. That pen problem really made it hard for me to recommend it to people who were looking for something to work on-the-go. In fact, I was almost about to get one myself until I read the issues with the driver.

However, all seems good now. I might jump on board for the Surface on its inevitable next revision.

so i was one of the very first to buy the surface pro ans was disappointed with the Pen drivers.

With Harmony, we have the option to disable the wintab driver functionality which enables the microsoft drivers for full pen support.

now, with the release of wacoms newest dual touch drivers for tablet pc’s, full pen support is now enabled across all programs (at least all the ones that i use for production etc).

This is Hands down the device that i have been waiting for as a mobile work solution. I am happy with the choice to support and purchase this device and recommend it to other artists. Its fast, just the right size etc.

Future improvements or options/specs that i would love to see are:

options for Nvidia graphics cards (the Intel HD 4000 graphics performs well but its just not a nvidia graphics card)

larger storage options (min 256 GB) ideally 500GB and or 1TB hard drives.

solution to the recording of the sound from the cooling fans in videos and audio files from the camera and mic.

addition of a storage slot for the pen.

addition USB ports

option for sim cards and mobile connectivity.

Please be careful when updating the Surface Pro. There have been some reports of the firmware upgrade causing Toon Boom products to crash. This is currently being investigated but for the time being, try to avoid the firmware upgrade until this issue has been resolved.

If you have already experienced this issue, try setting the Surface Pro back to the factory defaults and upgrade everything except the firmware.

Surface Pro does not report the newest graphics drivers when you search for driver updates, unless they are OEM drivers posted by Microsoft. I can confirm that the newest intel drivers solves the app crashing upon start issue with Toon Boom programs and a number of others causes by the firmware updates.

Yeah I definitely have my eye on Surface Pro. I almost had to get one for my wife because she needed Photoshop on the go, but it turned out we didn’t need one after all. I’m still considering one, but I might wait until the inevitable 2nd gen comes out next year. I’m in no hurry, but it certianly sounds that since Wacom has addressed the driver issue that Surface Pro is the tablet to get for artists.

It turns out that you CAN allow the firmware update but you must install a specific graphic driver that is NOT officially listed as the latest available driver by Microsoft.

“After installing the mentioned driver (9.18.10.3071), there was no more crashing in any of the applications. The driver was available on the site when typing the number directly in the search field on the Intel site. It did not however show up as an available update when checking for it via the Device Manager. It’s therefore necessary to provide the direct link to the driver”:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=22653&keyword=9.18.10.3071&DownloadType=Drivers&lang=eng

Surface tablets are designed to be the one device for everything in your life. With ports, Office compatibility, and more, this tablet makes it possible to do it all.

The Microsoft Surface 2 is a Surface-series Windows RT tablet created by Microsoft.Unveiled on September 23,2013 and released on October 22, 2013 the tablet succeeds the Surface RT released in 2012.

The Surface debuted in two models, marketed as Surface RT and Surface Pro.Surface RT uses an ARM (ARMv7) CPU running Windows RT whereas Surface Pro utilizes an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU running Windows 8.Sales did not meet Microsoft’s expectations,which led to price reductions and other sales incentives.

I have a Surface Pro 2 and a Cintiq Companion.

The Companion works far better, and the extra screen real estate is nice. The drawing surface is better than the glass of the MS Surface as well.

The Surface Pro 2 does work though. I did have to download a Wacom driver to get the pen to work right. And sometimes the pen seems to be offset from where my pen is. Typically restarts solve this. That being said, I use my Surface for Harmony - and especially for Sketchbook Pro and Storyboard Pro - all the time. It would be VERY hard to do extensive animation on such a small device, however.

im having trouble.

I have a Microsoft pro (the first one). with toonboom on it.
Photoshop and flash works just fine.

But paint sai and ToonBoom work weirdly:
While dealing with the tool bar or select tools the stylus works just fine. But when i move to the canvas/work-space. The pressure and detection work fine, but it think i’m drawing 3 inch to the right.

Does anyone else have this trouble?

I have surface pro, 1st gen, running tbs and animate+animate.pro (demos) and I have no problem.
Maybe it has something to do with your driver.

I’ve been wondering if a surface device would work well with this. Guess I have my answer.

Thanks Darkroar, solution worked like a charm on the surface book