Alias Sketch Book Pro

I was chatting with Alias about doing a review of Maya (more on this soon I promise) and they mentioned SketchBook Pro. Now I'd not been following things very closely and didn't know that they had a SketchBook application, let alone a pro version so I dutifully said “Yes I'd love to review it”.

When the review app and guide arrived in my mail box I suddenly realised this app is built for the Tablet PC market, or at least a PC with a Wacom Tablet. Of course I opened it and looked around with my mouse. Wow this is unlike any app you have ever used before and it's almost 99% useless with the mouse – really it is!

I almost shelved it. Then I decided that I was getting sick of my mouse and my inability to quickly sketch up designs for clients and I bought a Wacom Tablet. Of course I remembered I had SketchBook Pro and I opened it and wow, with a mouse this application is really amazing. It's a whole new application – if it's this good on a PC with Wacom (only a cheap one mind you) it's got to be sheer brilliance on a Tablet PC. Sadly my budget doesn't stretch that far right now.

SketchBook is a new application (new as in it was launched in 2003) that is aimed squarely at the digital designer. Take any artist, average Joe, sitting in a Seattle café, sipping hot java black thick bound sketch book on lap and a hand full of pencils scattered on the table. His mind working a mile a minute he's sketching out the next widget for Wallies Inc. When he leaves the café he has to scan in his work, colour it and prep for presentation to the board. Now introduce SketchBook Pro, and our artist is sitting in the same café with his Tablet PC loaded with SketchBook Pro. He's happily sketching directly into the app, quickly changing from 2B to highlighter, to magic marker and over to eraser, back to ink and off to pencil again. He's about to leave and flicks an email (wireless café hotspot of course) and by the time he's back in the office the supervisor has signed off on the artwork and they both walk into the presentation.

How cool is that? Now this is not where the coolness of this application stops, because during the presentation our artist has hooked his tablet PC up to the projector, and he can throw a new layer on top and create edits right there in the meeting without damaging the master artwork.

Okay lets take a quick look here. The application basically opens as a big white sheet of paper, there are no menus, palettes or other icky things to get in your way. Down the bottom left of the screen is a small curvy thing that contains a “pen driven menu”. Now this is really cool, these menus are made to be driven through natural movements that are easy to remember. So you just point and “click” in the middle of say the “pen selector” and for a 2B pencil I flick my pen straight up, for a highlighter I flick down to the 7 o'clock area and for an eraser it's off to the 5 o'clock area.

Bit strange for a start (and this is why it's useless with the mouse) but once you've done it 2 or 3 times these get stored in your memory and the movement is what you remember, very fast and simple.

I have found with the Wacom it a little tricky for somethings, and again it's really just getting used to the set up. I find when I sketch on paper I'm watching the tip of the pencil and it's easier to draw. With this I'm watching the monitor and not the pencil, harder to draw – however I imagine on a Tablet PC (primary focus of this app) drawing is as natural as it would be on paper. Another thing I've noticed (again just a set up thing) is that on my Wacom (I've mapped my dual monitors to the width of the tablet) a circle is oval on the screen. But just a set up thing.

Another area of SketchBook that is fantastic is the customisation that you can do to this app – well okay to the tools with in the app. For example if you don't like a brush just click the brush selector flick down and release. Up pops a brush selection window – nothing taking your fancy click the custom tab and build your own with 9 adjustable settings. Don't forget you can save these brushes for later too. (click image on left for full screen shot)

Now looking through the material that came with this and having played with some things myself this app is fantastic for other areas and industries not just digital artists. Alias talk of insurance agents who can load up a photo of a car and quickly add notes to the image about the crash details and flick it off via email to another part, Alias also talk of people in a company sending files back and forth, each with their own layer to add changes.

The most used part of this application for me? The app runs a Screen Capture facility in the system tray. One click and you have a screen shot of any app loaded in a layer in SketchBook Pro. Then a few scribbles here and there, “Change this colour, Make this logo smaller, shift this image over there” and I have changes on website concepts ready to be sent back to the designing artist.

Really I think this application is going to become a must have for any one in the creative industries. Pressure sensitive, pen driven, all the bells and whistles, all the pens, tools and bits you will ever need .. I just love this app, it really is a great tool to have in your tool chest.

NOTE: in addition to this I've just discovered as I write this that you can add custom backgrounds to your sketchbook to aid your drawing, grids for example for 3D sketching.

The table here shows some sample art work thanks to Alias.

» For more details, latest prices and samples .. get over to Alias.com because for US$179 this is one of the best applications you will EVER buy. Don't believe me .. get their demo version and try it for yourself.