Top products from r/blenderhelp

So heres the thing. The pen acts like a mouse in all respects to blender with the exception of pressure sensitivity and absolute positioning, as I'm sure you already know.

I am an avid pen tablet user, I've dabbled with blender, and I've been especially a linux user. Now that you know that, let me tell you my thoughts.

Pen input is okay with blender. You can use it as you expect, it takes some figuring out how to get it to work. (Or it did when I was trying to use it.) Getting into sculpting mode, and working with an object was not easy, nor did I find it particularly intuitive to do anything. In short, I gave up... So take my opinion with a grain of salt.

But I will note, that I found something else that works great in tandem with a pen tablet, a 3D Mouse. Personally I got the 3DConnexion Space Navigator http://www.3dconnexion.com/products/spacenavigator.html as something to play with. (You can find them on ebay for half of the retail price.) So throw away your USB Mouse, plug in the tablet, and get a 3D Mouse for moving your 3D objects.

Sadly, the wacom you chose doesn't have a mouse option. That makes me disappointed. I would've recommended looking for a Intuos4 http://www.amazon.com/Wacom-Intuos4-Medium-Pen-Tablet/dp/B001TUYTZW/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1413163434&sr=1-1&keywords=intuos4

Either way, wacom works great on linux, it's normally built into the kernel so no additional software needed.

The biggest issue that may arise is what to do with the keyboard. For blender it is the most used tool, right next to the mouse. (Duh)... but it's an important part of blender. There is no answer to how to make space, find something comfortable for you, maybe invest in a good keyboard tray. Take into consideration your handedness when placing the tablet.

Just remember, the tablet for all intents and purposes replaces your mouse. Don't think it's a two handed use em both at the same time thing, which is why I recommended the 3D mouse. The biggest issue is switching from the pen to the keyboard, depending on your handedness.

Good luck.

Well, if you can visit the building in person, you can get reasonably precise measurements with this or something similar. Not only will it give you point-to-point distance, it has a built-in function to get the height of an object that's not immediately nearby. It's just the pythagorean theorem of course, but it's convenient. And if you need distances greater than 120 ft, there's a more powerful version.

thanks. I was wondering if this one is a good one

You need to learn anatomy. Get books on artistic anatomy.

An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists (Dover Anatomy for Artists)

The Art of Animal Anatomy: All life is here, dissected and depicted

Animal Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form

Start simple and learn the different techniques you'll need. Then build your knowledge by combining things as you learn.

I'll just take time and practice. Lots and lots of practice.

If you plan on animating them, then you will need ...

Muybridge's: Animals in Motion (Dover Anatomy for Artists)

and watch videos of them.

This pretty much sums it up: The Road to Learn Blender

Most professional artist I've seen uses a trackball for fine-tune control. Like the logitech 570

But if you're looking for a standard mouse, I'd suggest the G500s and really load up the optional weight so you get better control. link

I find that I can use a very small mini mouse comfortably with a laptop if I use the flat area next to the trackpad as my mousepad. However I do have smallish hands so your mileage may vary.

This is the kind of mouse I'm talking about: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0093H4XG8/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you don't like video tutorials, I found this book to be a big help

personally i use a logitech g600. takes some getting used to but its nice for games and blender. i use it to switch layers quickly in blender and fast weapon switching in games.

Maybe there I was a little unclear with the term "fully understand".

If I read a well documented C++ header-file, I'd say "I fully understand that function now" even though I've never looked at the actual implementation. To me "fully understanding" some code or a software feature (at least on a user level) just means that I know what it does, not how it does it.

I am aware, that there are a lot of great resources on how shaders and computer graphics work in general, like Wikipedia or this book (that's actually sitting on my shelf right now). However every implementation of these general techniques has it's custom behaviour, unique quirks and exceptions. So you're right in stating, that I'm looking for an encyclopedia (that'd be perfect tbh) but one on Blender, not on computer graphics in general.

Right now I just want to competently use Blender's material system, without having to read through their actual source code. I mean just imagine, instead of having decent documentation, people would expect you to read through the implementation of every piece of code and software you'd like to use. If that was the case, no sane person would use operating systems ("Hey, how do I mount a hard-drive in Linux?" -- "It's all open source, just read the code, dude."; sounds weird, right?).

Btw. I mixed something up. I actually have never used HLSL, I used OpenGL. No idea how I could confuse those two...