LazyNezumi - utility for controlling mouse

[Svengali]

Users of ZBrush software will recognize the term "lazy mouse" which is a special ZBrush drawing mode where the cursor and the line being drawn are separated by a kind of tow rope as shown in the illustration (the orange circle is the cursor and the orange line is the tow rope to the black line being drawn). As you can see in the control panel there are adjustable parameters which affect the smoothness of the line and the length (radius) of the tow rope. The effect is like drawing in slow-motion and the resulting lines and curves can be incredibly smooth and graceful.

Kamih is the programmer who has written a free utility that emulates this drawing mode but that can be used in other packages like PhotoShop, ArtRage, Painter and many others. He's recently adapted it for TVPaint and it works quite well with mouse and stylus except for small glitches which he will probably resolve in the next version.

Once started and bound to the TVPaint application window, the "lazy mouse" effect can be toggled on and off using Ctrl-F2.

Here is the link to Kamih's webpage to read about it or download the zip file.

http://people.happycoders.org/kamih/wordpress/?page_id=46#comment-3249

Sven

[ZigOtto]

wow, it looks very interesting !
I will download and test it asap.

thanks Sven for this find, and this input.

[Satrip]

Yes Thank you Sven for sharing this link, it works great! ^^

[malcooning]

anyone running this on x64 or Windows 7 by any chance?
(can't get it to work here...)

[Svengali]

Kamih has posted that he is still working on a 64 bit version.

From the ZBrush thread, yesterday:

It will not work with _any_ native 64bit application (in Vista or XP).
If you have a 64bit OS, you will only be able to use LazyNezumi with 32bit apps.
I'm guessing that you have a 64bit version of Photoshop and a 32bit version of Painter.
Supporting native 64bit apps is next in my TODO list, but it's going to take me a while.

On another issue: I asked him last night if he could add a checkbox option for randomizing the noise so strokes repeated over selected frames could each be unique.

Sven

[malcooning]

Kamih has posted that he is still working on a 64 bit version.
From the ZBrush thread, yesterday:

It will not work with _any_ native 64bit application (in Vista or XP).
If you have a 64bit OS, you will only be able to use LazyNezumi with 32bit apps.
I'm guessing that you have a 64bit version of Photoshop and a 32bit version of Painter.
Supporting native 64bit apps is next in my TODO list, but it's going to take me a while.

TVP is a 32bit app anyhow. Although I run it on a x64 OS, it runs TVP as a 32bit. also, I'm running LazyNezumi in comatibility mode with XP SP2. Therefore I find it strange that it's not working for me.
It's probably the comaptibilty of TVP with Windows 7, because LazyNezumi works for me with Photoshop CS4 32bit.

Cheers for the reply.

[Svengali]

Might be a Windows 7 problem though it seems like XP mode should work. Did you Attach it to the TVPaint window in the LazyNezumi File menu?

If you want to ask Kamil about it directly leave a comment on his page (at the link). He seems anxious and willing to resolve as many Windows environment incompatibilities as possible for his utility.

Sven

[Svengali]

It appears that the new Wacom driver has changed some hook that LazyNezumi uses to intercept the cursor X,Y stream, thereby breaking the utility.

Maybe TVPaint will include a new smoothing option or something similar in the next update.

[ZigOtto]

... Maybe TVPaint will include a new smoothing option or something similar in the next update.

+1
or if it's admited ... +10 !
and if possible with a "force" setting : soft / medium / high

[Peter Wassink]

... Maybe TVPaint will include a new smoothing option or something similar in the next update.

+1
or if it's admited ... +10 !
and if possible with a "force" setting : soft / medium / high

To have this included would be very nice.
It could be marketed as a perfect cleanup tool. For those who want very tight lines (like those paperless-less Disney cleanup people )

[Svengali]

Kamih wrote me to say after he tested LazyNezumi with TVPaint using the new Wacom driver he found NO PROBLEM, everything still worked as before.

I retried it on my system (with the new Wacom driver installed) and he's absolute correct. It does work. I think in my case it was some problem with not properly binding LazyNezumi to TVPaint, something I still find to be a bit tricky.

Sorry about raising a false alarm. Nonetheless, I still hope that TVPaint developers will implement a stroke-smoothing option similar to LazyNezumi in the next TVPaint update!


Kamih also sent me a sneak peak of the new version (10.3.3) which incorporated several things I had on my wish list:

1. To have LazyNezumi remember previous settings between sessions - i.e. Always-on-Top OFF and Enabled ON, so you don't have to set those each time you use LazyNezumi.
2. To have LazyNezumi test, on startup, whether another version is already running, to avoid running multiple instances of the utility.

He said he will try to have the new version posted at his site soon (not exactly sure when).

Sven

[malcooning]

He said he will try to have the new version posted at his site soon (not exactly sure when).

Sven

Nice. If you know before us, give us a heads up please.

[Svengali]

Latest LazyNezumi update (10.3.3) has been posted by Kamih >>> HERE <<<