Adobe CS6 Brush tool DOESN'T WORK with Surface Pro 4. Photoshop works fine. Using latest wintab driver.

[Raymondraws]

[Moderator moved from The Lounge to Adobe Animate CC - General.]

I recently purchased a Surface Pro 4. I have installed the latest wintab drivers and surface pro drivers from Microsoft's website. With the wintab drivers installed pressure sensitivity in photoshop works fine.

My problem is that I do animation work in Flash CS6 and Animate CC from time to time and the Brush tool as well as the pencil tool doesn't work with the surface pen. When I press the screen the pen makes a dot and just hangs there until I exit the program or use the touchpad. I am able to draw fine in Flash with an external wacom tablet installed. I am also able to draw directly on the screen with just my finger which leads me to believe it's an issue with the surface pen itself.

I've tried uninstalling the wintab driver and flash still acts the same.

Any help with this would be much appreciated, Thanks.

[Asymetrical · Accepted solution]

You're correct it does NOT work with Flash or Animate. I think it's that Flash and Animate were designed for Wacom drivers and Windows is n-trig. I have not found one person yet who can use the Surface Pro with Animate or Flash EXCEPT the original Surface and the Surface Pro 2 because THEY actually ARE Wacom which is why I suspect the n-trig drivers. Sorry it's not the answer you're looking for but if you do a search on these forums you're definitely not alone.

[DigitalDesignDude]

Ever since I bought my surface pro 4 I was able to use the surface pen for drawing in Animate CC, Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC and I still do so daily.  I even have a copy of Adobe Flash Pro CS6 and the surface pen works with both the pencil and brush tool as expected. I believe you may have to run updates on your surface pro 4, uninstall and reinstall Animate CC or something else to restore the surface Pro 4's default behaviour. It's not the best answer to the problem but regardless, using the surface pen in Adobe Animate and Flash CS6 is normally possible.

[Raymondraws]

Someone else in my studio is using a Surface Pro (the newest model) and flash CS 3 seems to work on her device. I will try uninstalling and reinstalling flash. I've installed the latest firmware for my surface from Microsoft's site so I'm not sure what else I can do.

I'm skeptical that flash simply does not work with the N-trig pen because Photoshop works fine. There must be some kind of work around or setting I've missed.

Maybe a setting in windows 10 itself regarding pen and touch?? Disabling tablet settings in the registry???

I asked her how she got it to work but she said it literally just worked with flash out of the box.

[DigitalDesignDude]

Mine worked out of the box too with the surface pen without needing to install drivers or change pen settings. I couldn't say personally what settings to disable but if it's doable I would consider restoring your surface pro to factory defaults or doing a system restore to a point before you installed the drivers. Try to get it to work with the surface pen first before you try to get it to work with the N-trig pen as there is a possibility the styluses can conflict with each other. For these cases I find it's better to restore your computer to the way it was rather than fiddling with settings or installing more drivers/software. This is because the pens are normally meant to work without the extra effort.

Hope that helps. I know how annoying getting styluses to work with Flash can be. I've had my share of problems with getting flash to recognize my Wacom tablet in the past.

[Avatar5C17]

I use a huion h610 pro and I have the same problem.

[Asymetrical]

Well earlier versions of Flash work (like CS3) and so does the earlier version of CC but once they changed the name to Animate they started to refine the brush and make it better to draw with and I think that's what caused the incompatibilities. Glad to hear some are getting it to work but can you confirm the Flash that worked was indeed the most recent version of Animate CC 2017?

[DigitalDesignDude]

Yes I can confirm that. I am currently running Adobe Animate CC 2017.5 on my Surface Pro 4 and it works with the surface pen for the brush and pencil tool. As well, I have a student version of Adobe Flash Professional CS6 also installed on the Surface Pro 4 and the surface pen works with brush and pencil tool too.

[DigitalDesignDude]

I've stated earlier that the brush tool works with the surface pen, however, I overlooked that I was not able to use pen pressure. Fortunately, after I  downloaded and installed Wintab_x64_1.0.0.20.zip from the Microsoft Download Center, the pen pressure was made available on both Animate CC and Flash Professional CS6. However, when I used pen pressure in Flash Professional CS6, it did leave a unwanted dot whenever I started to draw a line. 

  Download Surface Pro 4 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center

Animate CC 2017

Adobe Flash Professional CS6

[Asymetrical]

Wow you got it to WORK!?!?!? That's outstanding and the first time I've EVER heard anyone say pressure worked in Animate. I don't really use CS6 so I don't care much about that really, it's 10 year old software so you can't really expect too much from it but pressure working with a Surface Pro 4?!?!? That's outstanding!

[DigitalDesignDude]

I recently got a brand new Surface Book 2 and thought it would be worth sharing if it can use the surface pen with Adobe Animate CC as well.

After running updates on the Surface book 2 and then installing Adobe Animate CC 2017, pen pressure was not available but I was still able to use the surface pen to paint within Animate CC.

I then downloaded the same Wintab_x64_1.0.0.20.zip from the Microsoft Download Center and installed the driver.  Pen pressure was then made available in Animate CC as you can see from the attached screenshot.

In theory, this should also allow the surface studio to use pen pressure with Adobe Animate. All in all, this demonstrates that a straight out of the box new Surface product can use the surface pen with Adobe Animate CC. However, to enable pen pressure, one must have the wintab driver installed.

I hope this helps other surface product owners.

[Michael_Nelson2]

I recently got a SurfaceBook 2 as well, and I can verify that the above fix works! However, I still get lag at the beginning of every brush stroke.

It always seems to be the first 3-4 cm of every stroke.

The message in the center is supposed to say 'writing is impossible'. some letters that are less than the 3-4 cm range don't even register as a press.

Is this a behavior that you get in flash TheDramaStudent?

[DigitalDesignDude]

I do get similar issues when drawing strokes that are relatively small compared to the screen,. For instance, when I try to write the dot in the letter "i" Animate will not recognize my stylus movement or will interpret it as a press and hold command. Annoyingly, this then makes the right click menu appear instead of drawing a stroke.

Here is a quick video overview I made that goes over this.  It  also shows how little lag you should normally have. Please excuse my subpar video presentation skills as I am still improving.

Animate CC  Surface Book 2 Drawing Impressions - YouTube

My recommendation for any handwriting is to exaggerate your stylus movement or zoom in further on the stage so that your stylus movements cover a greater area. Animate should then recognize your pen strokes better.

[Michael_Nelson2]

If you want to disable the right click menu, try typing 'flicks' into the windows search bar. In the new window, go to the first tab, go into the settings of 'press and hold' and disable that function. Sometimes you need to do that with touch in the 3rd tab as well. (I'd have more specific instructions, but I'm on my mac right now). That should work.

Also, I managed to get a nice long session with Adobe's tech support. The first day lasted about 3 hours, and the next day lasted about 2. Over the course of 5 hours of them screen sharing with my computer, they were unable to resolve the issue. I was able to get them to elevate the problem to the engineering level, so hopefully, they will get that fixed next patch.

If they don't though, I'll likely be asking for a refund and take that money to Moho. Of course, I have no idea if I can draw in that program either.

[resulb19516862]

I am so glad you People are also drawing their (Adobe) Attention on this really big issue, as it affects every AES Technology (NTRIG) Tablet-User. I am trying for months... and finally got an proper Reply --> Adobe Animate CC on Twitter: "We are working on it internally and hopefully be able to support Windo... 

I think with some pressure they will make Surface Suit for Animate cc a high priority and realease an Update very soon!

[Guest]

 Wintab_x64_1.0.0.20.zip worked thank you!!!

[sheyc43797218]

I have the exact same problem except I have the surface pro 2. I tried contacting adobe about it but I was just sent to a forum that was entirely unhelpful. Does anyone have a solution?

[resulb19516862]

There is no solution because it just doesnt Support Windows ink and we have make more noise in order to get smthing done. But on Surface pro 2?... They should have wacom feel Driver Support?