Wacom And Magix

CLINT-DANBURY wrote on 3/16/2024, 12:43 PM

Hello friends and experts. My immediate goal is to put some of my own small hand drawn Diagrams in front of my viewer's face.

My friends outside of here (i.e., outside of the Magix Community) counseled me to look for something called Wacom.

I did that and I found Wacom's device: "Wacom Intuos S Black"

They (i.e., The Wacom company) actually have living speaking humans and the guy on the phone tells me that they have a good interface with windows

This won't be anything fancy, What I'm trying to do is to sketch out little hand-drawn diagrams and plop one up on the screen for the user to see.

This will be, basically, an educational thing, with my diagram Hopefully giving visual form to an abstruse idea.

I searched for Wacom here in this forum

I found one conversation from the year 2014, and another one from last year where I think it was briefly mentioned somewhere Tangentially in a comment.

So now I can ask my question...

Is the software interface between Wacom, Windows, and Magix; sufficient to facilitate what I'm trying to do here ?

__________________________________________
My Current Stuff...
Magix Movie Studio 2024 Platinum
Windows [Version 10.0.19045.4170]
Some Refurbished Dell machine with 16 Gig
External Western Digital Drives (2, 3, and 4 terabytes)

Comments

browj2 wrote on 3/16/2024, 1:12 PM

@CLINT-DANBURY

Hi,

Unfortunately, probably not. You need to create a transparent overlay file in something, save it as a png file and import it into the video editor. You can import an image from the video, same size as the video, and draw over it using the tools in the graphics program, hide the image, save your drawing as png with transparency and import it into the video editor, overlaying the video.

Do you have a graphics program that you can use? If so, which one. Maybe one comes with the Wacom.

I show how to do this using Xara, which worked with MEP/MMS/VPX, but Magix and Xara have divorced and the tool hasn't worked correctly for a couple of years. That said, Xara Photo & Graphics Designer is a very good graphics program.

Below, line drawn over dog in Xara:

Below, result in MMS with the overlay on track 3:

John CB

CubeAce wrote on 3/18/2024, 5:14 AM

@CLINT-DANBURY

Hi Clint.

Unless you want to make your Diagrams look like sketches then a tablet and stylus is probably overkill for diagrams as the point of the pen tool is it reacts to pressure so giving a thicker or thinner line. Great for actual pictures and less so in my opinion for diagrams where line or shaped objects can be selected and dragged into shape with a mouse. To my knowledge there is also no way of using a pen tool directly in MMS or VPX. I may be wrong on that point as that would be good for creating masks but I don't think you can.

I had a tablet and pen a few years back and now I'm not even sure where I put it. Getting consistent line thicknesses and shades of colour for me was really difficult and I just found it quicker using a mouse, but then I really never tried to use it for painting or drawing but like yourself trying to do diagrams. The second thing to get used to is positioning the pen over the tablet without touching the pad surface or you leave marks behind where you don't want them. The software may have caught up and improved by now but I just found it cumbersome.

Ray.

browj2 wrote on 3/18/2024, 6:07 AM

@CubeAce

Hi Ray,

Watch my tutorial. At about 4:40, I start creating a mask using the shape tool in Xara. And, I animate the mask. Please watch the tutorials this time or you won't understand what I am talking about.

In this one, I create an object, a drawing, with the shape tool.

No, you can't draw things in MMS/VPX. You have to draw in a graphics program like I said.

As far as I know, Xara is the only graphics drawing editor that does what I show in the videos, because the XAR object is put on the timeline.

The Wacom works fine with Xara as noted by users on the Xara - Talk Graphics forum. It handles pressure sensitivity when using the brush and shape painter tools. Xara is a vector graphics program, so drawing with a brush can be finely modified using the shape painter tool.

The interface still works with Xara 19, the last version that came through Magix. V20 is an update from Xara and they don't seem to want to issue any more desktop versions, only Cloud versions.

The problem for the last couple of years is that the XAR object gets emptied if the project is reopened. The workaround is to complete the drawing in one session, then in Xara, export as a transparent avi file and import that, replacing the XAR object on the timeline.

It would be nice if some other program, like Affinity Designer could be used, but the problem gets down to opening the video as background in that drawing program, then having the resulting object that can be edit again in the drawing program, go onto the timeline.

John CB

CubeAce wrote on 3/18/2024, 7:36 AM

Hi John.

There is a one time purchase offer for the 2023 version of Photo and graphic Designer (20) on the Xara website. (£95.20) or £6 a month.

I'm still not sure what Clint wants to do. If it is animated graphics then I agree Xara would possibly be the only working choice but if all he wants to do is put up a finished diagram that can then be moved around then other programs are available and could be animated with the size position rotation effect.

Personally I use Photoshop PSD files from my old copy of CS6. They can be altered at any stage and will appear altered on the timeline of a project if further edited. You can save multiple edits to the same file and have transparency selected for the background. Equally you could do the same with the new version of Photoshop elements.

Ray.

browj2 wrote on 3/18/2024, 8:20 AM

@CubeAce

Hi Ray,

There is a one time purchase offer for the 2023 version of Photo and graphic Designer (20) on the Xara website. (£95.20) or £6 a month.

That is a post-Magix offering and I don't know if it works with MMS/VPX.

Xara projects can be saved and altered later as well.

The difference between PhotoShop, others and Xara 19 and before is that Xara opens the video in the animation part of the program, and you draw over the video and animate what you draw over time. Watch the tutorials so that you understand how this works. Which other inexpensive program can do this (rotoscoping over a video clip)?

For just static images, almost any graphics program will do.

John CB

CubeAce wrote on 3/18/2024, 9:13 AM

@browj2

Hi John.

That is a post-Magix offering and I don't know if it works with MMS/VPX.

And I can't find a link to buying the Magix version so a bit of a moot point unless it is still for sale?

Ray.

browj2 wrote on 3/18/2024, 10:08 AM

@CubeAce

Hi Ray,

As far as I know, no, the Magix version is no longer for sale. Even PhotoDesigner 7 (made by Xara long ago) that came with MEP/MMS/VPX has been removed and no longer comes with 2024/VPX15. Magix has replaced the link with MS Paint as the default external bitmap editor. I hope that the same does not happen with the 3D titles, made with Xara 3D Maker.

Watch the videos anyways as you'll see the Magix that we had.

I'm reticent to try out the trial version of Xara 20, as I don't want to mess up what works.

John CB