Painter 11 misses and skips brush strokes with Intuos 3

#1

I’ve downloaded the trial of Painter 11 and have been trying it out as I’m considering the upgrade from IX.5. What is immediately apparent is that with my Intuos 3 it will often miss a beat and skip a stroke, refusing to apply any paint at all until you start a new stroke. This happens at all pen pressures and velocities, once the stroke has failed to start no amount of pen pressure will make anything appear. It can happen as regularly as every 6 to 9 strokes, or at longer intervals but it never goes fully away.

It is happening with all brush types, both the old style brushes and the new ‘real’ ones. Toggling Enhanced Brush Ghosting on and off doesn’t help (though with this on there’s a noticable lag when the stroke is skipped). I have tried setting my Brush Tracking under Preferences but this doesn’t help. I have up to date Wacom drivers.

My system is:
Vista 64 Home Premium, 8 GB RAM, Q6600 CPU, Wacom Intuos 3 A5 Wide

This is really frustrating and a real show stopper. Has anyone else encountered this and/or got any solutions?

#2

I’ve just downloaded the trial version of Painter 11, tried it out,…and… what a disappointment! Though it may have a couple of improvements, it’s not much better than Painter X. I love Painter X and I was looking forward to some real improvements in the next version considering the way some brushes behaved, the preview size, etc. but this did not do it for me at all. Anyone considering buying… I’d recommend staying with Corel Painter X for now. It’s a far cheaper alternative vs. going for version 11 and paying a couple hundred dollars more. I really don’t think it will affect your work in a way that would justify the upgrade. No thanks! As some before me said, this should have been a free uprage, not a new version of the software. How frustrating!!!
One positive feature - the resizing of objects is a little easier in the new version. It works somewhat in the same way as it does in Photoshop.

#3

Yes, I’ve been using Painter 11 intensively over the last couple of days and I am experiencing this exact same problem - first stroke missing. It’s not something that stops me working but it is really unacceptable. It’s a small thing but a HUGE bug for something like Painter and I’d advise Corel to sort it out immediately. I’ll log on to Painter Factory and report it if it hasn’t been already.

#4

It pains me to admit I am throwing up the white flag, as I’m an “upgrade” type of user and a huge fan of Painter.

I have several issues w/ P11, including VERY annoying brush cursor artifacts left on the screen (signs of serious hiccups) where the brush just was (I hate that), etc I guess this thread proves it’s just not me). Window resizes are choppy and slow compared to PX. I have to go back to X.5 to finish a job I’m on, as it is simply not pleasant in 11.

Steve at Corel has been listening to me, but for now I suspect we are at a standstill. The Color Management is improved, however, for my work flow needs, I need the color of the secondary monitor to be what Painter sees. W/ the current CM settings this is not possible.

Speed issues – For me over all it maybe worse than X.5, saves are as slow or slower (Layered psd files bog it down), window resizes are way worse than in X.5. The fact that it’s not fully dual core, or uses open GL. Or the amount of RAM it can use on a Mac, is not advertised(?)

PSD files still not defaulted as uncompressed (huh?)

I do like the gray UI windows, but the color wheel I feel is not as good as in X.5. It seems almost cruder?

My two main desires I wanted for 11 are speed bump (taking advantage of the above mentioned) and improved CM.

As of this post I am bailing back to X.5 for all my work. I have never done that before w/ Painter or PS.

Again, thanks, this posts (and others here) lets me know I am not crazy/unique and won’t go through the motions of a uninstall reinstall. I’ll be waiting for some concrete better news…

T

Mac OS 10.5.6 Mac Pro 2 x 3 Ghz, 10GB RAM, 100 GB scratch disk, separate drives for OS (500 GB) and User (700 GB), 2 Intuos 3 tablets

#5

Well, I downloaded the trial and a minute later my evaulation came to an end. Not only is it far, far slower than Painter X but it every time it lags it loses track of the pen position and sticks artefacts all over the page. And I don’t mean artefacts like Painter X, when they were glitches and not actually on the canvas, these are on the canvas! Unfortunately this renders it completely unusable for me.

Here’s what I mean

All very well, but I didn’t paint any of the dots top left - these are artefacts added to the canvas due to a bug. I’m running with 4Gb and a Wacom 3 so I’m frankly astonished how this could happen.

EDIT: And reading through this thread - and others - more carefully it seems that the missing stroke bug and the artefact bug are one and the same, just manifesting slightly differently on different computers. This needs to be sorted quick!

#6

Hi Simon,

First of all, stunning work. If you have anything on the web about your work process, I’d love to take a look. Great stuff, and great lighting.

I think we all had high hopes for 11, I for one thought it would surely use more RAM (seems NO different. Somebody reported it has 1 GB limit in another thread – ?), and hoped it will use dual core throughout the app. For me, and from what I am reading, this is not going over as well as the change from 9 to X did (that was pleasant and progress, at least for me). I can’t recall ever not wanting to use an upgrade of an app in my work flow. I can’t use 11 in this state.

At first I thought the naysayers were being too harsh saying this merely an update to X and not a leap to 11. In many instances, involving the app, I feel those comment are correct. Kind of deflating, as again, I was so looking forward to speed and using hardware improvements, but this is actually slower. Wow… wow…

I feel Corel will correct this (they gotta be scrambling at all the bad news), but the power aspect of the whole app? I don’t see that for 11.1 fix, so, I’m still disspointed, while having what I think are realistic expectations of a professional level app in 2009.

T

Mac OS 10.5.6 Mac Pro 2 x 3 Ghz, 10GB RAM, 100 GB scratch disk, separate drives for OS (500 GB) and User (700 GB), 2 Intuos 3 tablets

#7

Tim3308 - thanks, appreciated. You’ve also got some great work in your gallery - the dragon looks quite Todd Lockwoody (sorry, I don’t have any process stuff on the web but maybe in time :slight_smile: )

As for Painter 11. Well, despite it being unusable for painting because of the artefact problem I checked out the other things that I suggested over at Painter Factory as fixes and upgrades. Of all the recommendations and requests I made, let’s see how many have been done…

  1. Large preview windows for effects instead of a postage stamp?
    No

  2. Bug where the layer palette sometimes resizes and sometimes doesn’t.
    No, my layers palette does not resize in 11, regardless of whether it’s docked or not

  3. A resizeable Colour Wheel
    No. Apparently it resizes for some people but not for me because it suffers from the same bug as the layers palette.

  4. Annoying glitches fixed in the Colour Set palette when moving, and glitches when dragging an image?
    Nope

  5. Fix for Cut and Paste periodically not working?
    Nope. I still can’t paste anything into Painter from outside, despite every other app having no problem.

  6. Fix for grain in Artists Oils having no effects?
    No

  7. Colour Set option to have blocks fit window horizontally and vertically when resizing
    Er, no

  8. So at least the Colour Set palette should remember your previous settings instead of restoring the defaults every time you create a new one?
    Well, no

  9. A revamped, intuitive procedure for maintaining and identifying custom brushes and toolbars instead of the torturous process we have at present? Very important IMO.
    Certainly not. No change evident.

  10. Improved Oil brushes (more natural appearance, removal of rectangular artefacts etc.), after all that’s absolutely core to a natural media tool?
    No, the only change I can see is they are much slower and buggy. However, I gather that the process for tracing photos has been improved so that’s fine then.

  11. But surely the incredible oversight has been rectified where the Brush Reset icon is identical to the Select Brush icon (not to mention right next to it) has been remedied, thereby preventing the loss of hours of config work at the click of a button?
    You’d think so, but no.

  12. OK, at least we can end on a high note. Surely the bug that undocks the Brush Selector bar and positions it off-screen when the window is “restored down” from full-screen has been fixed.
    Actually, that’ll be a no.

So has any single request, bug report or recommendation I made been implemented?
Er… no.

Being completely honest, the only differences as related to the way I work (using oils natural media tools) are

  • It’s slower
  • It’s unusable on account of brush artefacts

And if my tone is getting more truculent as this post progresses then I apologise, but I’m actually astonished at what I’m seeing. I want nothing more than praise Painter 11, as it’s the only painting software I use and of course I want it to be good, but if this is what a whole brand new version delivers then I don’t see Painter surviving long enough for version 12.

Corel need to get back to basics and remember who this tool is aimed at and start taking notice of what they want from it.

I had actually pre-ordered 11 when I heard it was coming out, before I saw the trial. I cancelled that order today.

#8

That would be so funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Good report. A number of the things you mention don’t apply in my case but I think it’s obvious that 11.1 needs to appear soon, for Corel’s sake.

#9

A quick update on this. I’m still experiencing the same missing stroke problems on my main machine but thought I’d give Painter 11 a whirl on my old laptop which has an ancient Wacom Intuos 1 serial port tablet connected to it. Guess what, no missing stroke or strange artifact bugs and despite being an old machine Painter 11 worked reasonably well on it.

So to compare:

System 1)
Shiny new computer with Windows Vista 64 SP1, Q6600 Quad Core CPU, 8GB ram, Wacom Intuos 3 USB, latest drivers. Big problems - missing strokes, artifacts, sluggish brush performance, horribly slow file handling.

System 2)
Laptop with Windows XP SP2, 1.5 Ghz Pentium Mobile, 1GB ram, Wacom Intuos 1 Serial. No missing stroke or artifact problems, brush response normal and not sluggish, file handling just as horrible.

So I guess that’s progress then? :slight_smile:

So it seems Painter 11 has issues with Vista, or issues with Intuos 3, or a combination of the two. Bit of a problem seeing as it’s being bundled with Intuos 3 tablets that will often be used on Vista systems.

Finally, before anyone says, my main computer runs Painter IX.5, Photoshop CS4 and plenty of other stuff without problems. I have also tried three different Wacom drivers, all have the same problem with Painter 11. I can’t try my Intuos 1 Serial on my main computer because Wacom decided to drop support for it. Ironic given it seems to work better than the Intuos 3 :wink:

#10

OK, I’ve managed, through trial and error, to get these to work. In case anyone was wondering, first the colour palette: What I did was I’d dragged the other elements (Mixer, Colour Sets, etc.) out from the toolbar that contained Colours. Then I tried to resize Colours. It didn’t work, even when I’d “undocked” the toolbar (10% difference in size, max). Then I tried dragging the grey bar that said “Colors” away from its own toolbar window. Of course, it couldn’t exit it’s own toolbar window so the whole thing simply appeared where I’d dragged it. No difference, except now it allows me to resize it. Obvious, eh?

And the layers palette, unless you do the unaccountably strange ritual listed elsewhere on PainterFactory (ignore the resize tab on the corner and instead hover your mouse somewhere between Canvas and the icons and wait for it to change to a line, then drag downwards) it won’t work. Once you’ve done this, however, you can resize the layers palette using the resize tab.

So yes, it is possible. However, after resizing 10 million windows on a thousand applications over 20 years I can, without fear of being wrong, say that Corel’s resizing methods are buggy and inadequate and need to be revamped to work properly.

However, I’ll stop posting about these minor matters because unless the “artefact” problem is sorted then these other points are moot, as the software is currently unusable.

EDIT: I lied, because here’s another cracker. Copy and paste does not work at all for most of the time. Mark out a selection, Copy - Paste - nothing. Paste into new image? Nothing. Paste in place? Nothing. Works fine in every other app but Painter 11 (yep, even Painter X can copy and paste within itself). I’m actually now wondering seriously if they mistakenly posted an old version for trial download because I don’t believe this can actually be Painter 11.

#11

Sad but true, I too have the following glitches in Painter 11 on my XP SP3 system:

  1. Lots of missing stroke appearing (or should I say not appearing) using the Intuos3 (don’t experience it on my Cintiq)

  2. Weird dabs appearing when using Artist Oils again with the Intuos (doesn’t seem to affect the Cintiq)

  3. Copy and Paste sometimes refusing to work.

  4. Very buggy interface between sensing tilt with Intuos3 and the new Hard Media brushes. Sometimes no tilt at all is sensed on these brushes with both the Intuos and Cintiq.

Plus all the other palette resizing stuff… except I can just about live with that.

I’m feeling very frustrated.

By the way… who thought Ctrl + Alt + T was a good keyboard shortcut for Transform???

#12

Same problem with my A5 wide SE…intel Q9450 8GB and FireGL v7600, the brushes freeze very often…poor performance for me…

#13

Here is a fairly positive review of Painter 11:

http://www.macworld.com/article/139094/2009/03/painter11.html?t=231

According to this reviewer, the performance has improved in Painter 11. For me, I see no difference from Painter IX.5 and the UI seems a bit slower. I’m still on a Mac G5 (OS X10.4), so I don’t know if the newer Intel Macs run Painter 11 faster than the PPC machines. Does anyone see better performance on MacIntels and Leopard?

#14

No. Not here on my intel. It’s worse than X.1 on my machine (as as you can see many others here). I am not using it, until fixes are made. Back to PX.

Mac OS 10.5.6 Mac Pro 2 x 3 Ghz, 10GB RAM, 100 GB scratch disk, separate drives for OS (500 GB) and User (700 GB), 2 Intuos 3 tablets

#15

All I can say is things must be very, very different on the Mac.

From my perspective…

Faster? Nope, around 2 - 10X slower for me.

Better transform tool? Nope, the transform tool actually chops off your selection if it falls outside the workspace, as detailed on PainterFactory. This makes the feature borderline unusable - show stopper.

Revamped selection tools? Well, cut and paste doesn’t work at all for me and several others so this sort of falls at the first hurdle. Show stopper.

Resizable colour palette? Yes, if you can get around the bug that means you have to undock it from itself . Another similar “feature” affects the layers palette.

Tidied workspace? Well, if turning from white to grey is tidying then I suppose so. Nothing has been done to make the management of icons and toolbars easier (it’s still torturous) and glitches still occur. Docking is hit and miss. Restoring down still causes the brush selector bar to reposition itself randomly and occasionally so far to the right you have to restore the default layout to get it back.

Yes, the natural media brushes are good, although people have found that incompatibility with Wacom 3s is causing problems with line quality.

No mention of large lag time and random dabs - again, show stopper.

No, that statement proves the reviewer has no clue what feedback Corel got and no clue how the current package relates to that feedback.

#16

OK, I finally tried P11 yesterday. not much really buggy things you mentioned happened.
Kind of strange though.

about the stroke problem, it might be wacom and specifically driver related, mine is a
Intuos3 4x6, driver revision: 6.05-7. I am on XP32 though, have no idea if Mac with
the driver come with your boxed tablet intalled would make any difference.

#17

Thanks for the feedback, Tim and Simon. I guess I’ll stay at Painter IX.5 for the time being. Maybe a .1 or .5 bug fix update will improve things. Anyone know when we can expect that?

#18

Well, I’m on Intuos3 6x8, tried all drivers including 6.05, and I’m on XP32. I guess it depends on other factors also (certainly the painter dab only appears on certain brush variants; unfortunately the ones I use).

I wish I could answer that. I’ve asked Corel on Painterfactory to give some feedback on any of the 12 bugs I have mentioned - or even a general one-liner saying they’re workingon it - but nothing yet.

#19

For me the ‘dab’ will stop if I change the brush Opacity to Pressure (on the Artist Oils the default is none). However this doesn’t stop the missing stokes. It has me wondering if it’s the pressure sense on the Intuos3… of course this doesn’t help me in the least.

I’ve also queried it on the Wacom forum… incase it’s the driver issue. I’m not holding my breath for a fix anytime soon.

#20

It appears the Wacom Drivers are causing most of the hassles posted here. Here’s the thread were this is discussed in depth, and maybe a cure, or at least a workaround.

http://painterfactory.com/forums/t/1215.aspx