Active Pen does not function in viewport, cannot paint

[Salad]

Hi, started using a Lenovo Yoga 730 15 inch laptop recently with the Lenovo Active Pen 2. Have tested the pen & drivers in Blender, ZBrush, Clip Studio Paint, and Windows apps & can confirm it is working.

However, the pen appears to have no functionality in Substance Painter in the viewport.  I can see the brush cursor move around on the model but I can't use the pen to navigate or  paint in both 3d and 2d viewports.

I can use the pen to switch tools & materials but no functionality past that.

Did manage to somehow do one registered stroke with the pen on 2d somehow, but  it was laggy & unable to be reproduced.

Have tested on both  2018.3.3 as well as  the new  2019.1  version.

The symptoms seem very similar to this thread:  https://forum.allegorithmic.com/index.php/topic,26131.msg104867/highlight,active+pen.html#msg104867

I've attached the log file, thank you for your time.

[monitorhero]

I have the same problem as well on my Lenovo P52. Good to know I am not alone on this. In my case however I can paint but the brush continues even after I lift my pen. Since both devices use an Active Pen there is probably a relation.
https://streamable.com/88pkg

Did you notice problem in Zbrush and Blender when using the drag and move tools? It takes like half a second to initialize a stroke on my device. You can see that in this video:

https://streamable.com/yzq6x

[Salad]

Hi, I've tested some changes and have some additional information.
In my initial post I was using the Wacom Feel Drivers for my Lenovo Active Pen 2 (Yoga 730 15 inch):
http://us.wacom.com/en/feeldriver/

I was unable to have any viewpoint interaction with the pen aside from one stroke on the 2d view I was unable to reproduce  (with some severe lag before the 3d viewport updated).

I've tried replacing the Wacom driver with the one from Lenovo's site, the Active Pen Driver for Windows 10 (64-bit) - Yoga 730-13IWL, Yoga 730-15IWL: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles/maye01af.exe

Now I have the same behavior as monitorhero. It seems to act like a continous mouse click that isn't stopped unless you overwrite the input with the touchpad or a mouse & functions similar for drag and other navigation.

@monitorhero As for the Blender/ZBrush, I think I have the same issue in both - it doesn't seem as noticeable in quick drags but it seems like it's difficult to have subtle Move brush use. My guess is that holding the pen down is registering as the hold=right click  command. You can try swapping the Lenovo Pen driver for the Wacom Feel one and see if it makes a difference for you. The customization app for both drivers kept my settings and seem identical with a slight layout tweak(including the lack of mouse click buttons, WTF?), but it seems they're not identical as there's different behavior in Substance Painter.

[monitorhero]

Hi, I've tested some changes and have some additional information.
In my initial post I was using the Wacom Feel Drivers for my Lenovo Active Pen 2 (Yoga 730 15 inch):
http://us.wacom.com/en/feeldriver/

I was unable to have any viewpoint interaction with the pen aside from one stroke on the 2d view I was unable to reproduce  (with some severe lag before the 3d viewport updated).

I've tried replacing the Wacom driver with the one from Lenovo's site, the Active Pen Driver for Windows 10 (64-bit) - Yoga 730-13IWL, Yoga 730-15IWL: https://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles/maye01af.exe

Now I have the same behavior as monitorhero. It seems to act like a continous mouse click that isn't stopped unless you overwrite the input with the touchpad or a mouse & functions similar for drag and other navigation.

@monitorhero As for the Blender/ZBrush, I think I have the same issue in both - it doesn't seem as noticeable in quick drags but it seems like it's difficult to have subtle Move brush use. My guess is that holding the pen down is registering as the hold=right click  command. You can try swapping the Lenovo Pen driver for the Wacom Feel one and see if it makes a difference for you. The customization app for both drivers kept my settings and seem identical with a slight layout tweak(including the lack of mouse click buttons, WTF?), but it seems they're not identical as there's different behavior in Substance Painter.

Glad I am not alone on this. Maybe it will get adressed now. I used both the Lenovo and Wacom drivers with no difference. It just installs a different app from the windows store with the same functionality after all. It seems like the pen doesn't register slight movements. Might be a limitation of the AES technology compared to EMR. On my other Lenovo with an EMR powered pen the problem doesn't exist but only when I use really outdated drivers. The drag problem is visible there as well when I install recent drivers. So it's probably a thing that Wacom has to fix. However the continuous stroke is a problem that I only saw in Substance Painter. I can live with some lag problems of the pen but not with the current situation. Unfortunately it's unusable.

@Developers: Is there a way we can assist you to fix this? If I didn't ive in Germany I would have sent you the laptop for testing.
Maybe you can aquire a device with AES technology to figure it out?

[bgood]

i have the same problem on x1 extreme ... no response of dev team as always ...

[Froyok]

I just wanted to chime in to let you know that we monitor this kind of thread. While we don't have news to share on that subject for now, we keep it in mind. We plan on reworking a bit how we handle Tablet Graphic in future versions. While we focus on Wacom hardware, other kind of pens/tablets should benefit from it as well.

I don't have a precise ETA to share at the moment.

[Salad]

I just wanted to chime in to let you know that we monitor this kind of thread. While we don't have news to share on that subject for now, we keep it in mind. We plan on reworking a bit how we handle Tablet Graphic in future versions. While we focus on Wacom hardware, other kind of pens/tablets should benefit from it as well.

I don't have a precise ETA to share at the moment.

Thanks for the reply! A rework sounds promising, but I do want to correct one important thing:
https://forum.substance3d.com/index.php?topic=28834.0
https://forum.substance3d.com/index.php?topic=26131.0
All the users talking in this thread as well in previous threads here are talking about the same technology: Wacom AES pens for Lenovo and Dell laptops, so it is Wacom technology having the issue.

In fact, I have had no issues working with both my Huion 610 Pro V1 drawing tablet or my Huion Kamvas Pro 13 display tablet in Substance on my desktop at all. Right now the only way I would be able to use Painter on my 2-in-1 laptop is if I were to attach one of the Huions.  I have also read that people use Substance Painter a bit with the Surface Pro which is also not Wacom tech.

Jeremie Noguer responded in monitorhero's thread about working with Wacom on this issue in May. As Substance is subscription based I hope the update comes sooner than later. There was a bit of side discussion on how Wacom pen technology for laptops are buggy in ZBrush in this thread, but it's still worked in every program I've seen except in Substance Painter. It's honestly a shame that it seems it's never worked for Wacom AES technology since it seems amazing being able to work with Painter on a laptop directly, but with alternatives to Wacom becoming more popular, it sounds like it will be a good idea to rework pen support to encompass more.

[Salad]

Just want to update the situation after testing Substance Painter 2019.3.1. Can confirm it is now working on the Lenovo Yoga 730 with Lenovo Active Pen 2 which is using Wacom AES technology! Curiously the Windows Ink issue with "stuck" sliders doesn't seem to be happening with this setup. Sadly the update has made the experience worse on the Huion Kamvas Pro 13, laggy sliders plus the lack of touchbar scroll usage makes it difficult to enjoy the updated brush system.

I hope the issues with Windows Ink can be fixed on the substance side since it seems to be affecting a lot of tablet users, including on the high end wacoms. But on the bright side it is really exciting being able to use the stylus on a 2-in-1 laptop in Substance! Feels like magic