From the course: Learning Digital Painting
Customizing mouse behaviors
The key to expressive digital painting is the input device used to create the brush strokes. This device, from your finger, to a pressure sensitive tablet, determines the range of expressivity that is possible. In this chapter, we'll take a look at the range of input devices used in tandem with digital painting, and provide you with the key points needed in order to making an informed decision when selecting one. To begin with, let's start with something that you likely already have, the mouse. The venerable mouse is the universal input device for desktop computers, making it a tool which everyone is familiar with. Because it's limited to the x and y axis, the use of the mouse as an expressive input device is severely restricted. Is there any hope for mouse only users? Yes, there is. Some apps offer customizable behaviors for the mouse. Photoshop offers the brush pose option, with which you can substitute some of the axis of motion with static settings. Painter offers the velocity option. In which the speed of the mouse is used to alter brush width, rather than pressure. The mouse is best used as a device for screen navigation. If you are absolutely restricted to using a mouse as an input device, utilizing the options we've discussed here can open a crack in the expressivity door. But honestly, as I've said many times before, drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a bar of soap. It is absolutely at the bottom of the list of expressive input options.
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