Google came up empty, so I thought I'd ask here: Every time I sketch something in Flash it randomly spits out these circular blobs on my strokes. In this drawing you can see 3 in the hair, and 3 on the coat. The face is blobless because it was done in Anime Studio. I'm using a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet. Turning off pressure sensitivity fixes the problem, but then I lose variable line width. Drawing each stroke SLOWLY works too, but I want to sketch at a natural speed.
Anyone know what's going on and how to fix it? Thanks for any help!
If I had to guess, I'd say it looks like, while something was taxing your cpu, the pen cursor froze up and registered max pressure. You might try to repeat the problem while watching the Task Manager processes. Maybe you can catch what is bogging down.
Hopefully it's not Flash choking on the rapid freehand.
As for your 'blobs' at the start of brushstrokes - it could be how you've set your tablet prefs - a few things to try:
Set 'double click distance' to 'off'
Set 'tip feel' a little firmer (this depends how it will effect your personal preference)
Try clicking on 'about' at the bottom left of your tablet prefs and hold alt when you click on 'diagnose' adjusting the 'pressure offset' may help?? (holding alt when you click on 'about' will show a small bonus movie! unexpected but a little bit of fun!)
My guess is there is an option somewhere that is set over-sensitive for your style of use. One important thing to check is if the internals of your pen are loose in the casing http://www.lordart.co.uk/filedump/pen%2 ... 0check.png - this can cause a double-click when you go to draw a line. Wacom should replace your pen if so if you are within the 2 year warranty.
Thanks for the link DK. I am on Windows Vista, which has a Tablet PC input panel even though I am not using a Tablet PC. The article seems to identify my problem, but no fix. Bummer. I don't think I had this problem when I was on Windows XP, but I'm not sure.
Also I did play around with the Wacom settings, but no luck there.
Synth: This problem seems to be limited to Flash only. And Vista. My other drawing programs work fine.
(I just guess here, but) It seems to me that there's either double-clicks involved, or a general hang-up from the PC. I would try to avoid the latter by running flash only - no internet, no iTunes or whatever. If possible, use some diagnosis tool which you have open besides flash to check wether there are spikes of activity somewhere correlated to the blobs.
Another possibility (although I doubt it) would be a defect pen, but you already said that other programs work fine with it. If possible, check at a friend's computer with both your own and his pen, or in a shop.
Thanks for the tips slowtiger, I've already tried most of your suggestions(except the last one, as I don't know anyone nearby with a tablet.) It's definitely some kind of pen lag that only appears in Flash, but I have no idea how to get rid of it. I've turned off pen flicks/hold to right click, deactivated an unnecessary wacom driver, turned off pointer visual cues, went into msconfig and shut down a bunch of services, and tried a ton of other things but I still get those Flash blobs.
I'm using an OEM version of Vista that came bundled with the computer, so it's possible they integrated software into the OS that's somehow interfereing with Flash or my Wacom, but I can't seem to find anything. I think Vista switches into tablet PC mode with some kind of built in handwriting recognition thing when the Wacom is plugged in, so it could be a driver conflict.
I don't think this is a hardware issue since I know people sketch with Flash on much older machines just fine, but who knows.
I'm not familiar with Vista, but this handwriting recognition thing made me think. Try to search for that and find how to completely disable it, it i a very likely culprit. Usually the original wacom drivers work flawlessly, but if it's some Vista Tablet PC driver I'd be carfeul.
Thanks DK for pasting those notes in your post. I'm glad this topic came up because I've noticed small blobs in Photoshop from 2 different tablets I'm using. I was able to address it somewhat with the brush controls in Photoshop, but that diminishes the character of the stroke.
Oddly, the free Pencil software doesn't have this problem, and neither does Anime Studio Pro on my Intel and previously a PPC Mac laptop. I have a 13 year old Mac (that still works fine, it's just too slow to bother with) with an old Wacom that never had this problem.
