[Eskil]

Hi

Im a programmer who most people know as the one behind "Loq Airou" a 3d modeling app, at the moment im working on The next generation Blender technology, but while doing that im planing some future apps.

The one that has my biggest interest is paint app. A paint app especially created for "digital artists" / matte painters / concept artists. (IOW you ) and I need your help with ideas and opinions.

What this not will be:
- A photoshop clone
- image processing app
- photo cleanup app
- an app emulating physical drawing (crayons...)

No, this is an app for you to draw in, and its only made for that..

So what should it be like?
that kind of tools do you need?
that kind of tools don't you need?
what kind of interface would you like?
what kind of brush settings?
what kind of color selections?
what kind of interface?
what haven't you seen in any app but you always wanted?

One thing that i can give away, is that im planing to have a smart canvas that remembers what tools have been used on it. this means that you would be able to pick not just colors but also tools and brushes form the canvas. you can also do fun stuff like masking out any area where you have used a specific tool. what more would you like to use this capability for?

To see some of my other stuff head over to : http://www.quelsolaar.com find my modeler at http://www.quelsolaar.com/loqairou

Thanks so much and keep the great art coming.

E

[Drew]

Well Eskil, that's quite a project you're planning on undertaking. What kind of license are you planning on releasing this under? It'd be nice to have a free app like you're talking about that'll run in Linux.

To start the discussion on wanted features, I'll tell you that the reason other apps emulate physical tools is because those are what artists are used to, and what most of them will continue use in addition to computers. I think if you look at some of the best artists that post here, you'll find that they can work with many kinds of traditional media. Starting in an app with tools that work pretty much like you expect them to goes a long way to making someone feel at home.

[makototaramoto]

i agree with Drew as i know many others would too. Most people start using 'traditional media' before they go into computers because there are many things to learn to create a painting with a computer or without so using tools which you have learned to use but, want to take it to the next level is maybe a reason to using programs to paint digitally. As for...kind of tools that kind of tools kinds,of brush settings, kind of color selections,kind of interface maybe it could be like a 'skin' meaning a person could choose and edit how the program displays the canvas, or provides certain colors (ex: natural,cool,warm etc...) so a persons prefence does not have to be sacraficed to use the program but the program can change to suit the needs of the user. overall this is a great idea but i hope the price if there is one wont be too steep
mercer
_________________
mercer

[Eskil]

The license is at the time un known, at the moment I am un employed and therefor i have no good ways to support myself, so i cant rule out any thing. I want to make it free, open source multi platform and so on. If know of a company that needs a skilled CG programmer that can hire me to do some work, then i will most likely be able to release it for free.

The intelligent canvas gives some interesting features, Many people use the edge of the image to as a palette simply by drawing using some colors and then using the pick color tools. Now you can do this wit tools too so you can draw your own interface and then you just use the pick to change tools. Kind of interesting way to work.

My position on the IRLl tools is this (and Im sorry for not bringing this up in my original post):

Im not looking to do a tool like any thing you have ever seen before. If you are looking for something that looks like Photoshop go Photoshop, it is a great app, and so is the IRL tools. I have worked as an artist my self and know this too.

Not that I am very much again simulating IRL tools in a computer, Its just that i think that it is the wrong way of designing a app. I want my app to explore all to possibilities of the computer and not just be able to do what we already can do in IRL. Maybe we can create some tools that never would be possible IRL but that would very useful.

When I started designing my modeler Loq Airou, many people suggested that i should copy LW, Maya, Max,and XSI. But now Im happy didn't, and most mails i get agree. Some times You have to copy things, but every time I do I have tried to think "How can i do this in a different way that is better?"

It makes my apps perhaps a little harder to learn, but after some practice most people start to see how it all works and then they love it.

I rather make a app that is completely different and sucks then doing a clone.

E

[DrunkenMoNk]

First I'd have to start off by saying what the previous two mentioned and that is that emulating physical drawing is a must. You wont get far adoption wise if the only people that understand what your making are fellow programmers.

Second I'd seriously advise finding a professional usability expert. Theres a reason creative types tend to stick with the Macintosh and not Windows or Linux. A trip over to Apple's human interface guidelines would be a great place to start if you haven't already been there (Aqua Human Interface Guidelines).

Third is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. but I think I'm in the right. Skinnable applications are things to be avoided. When attempting to create a skinnable application your in effect taking the responsibility of creating a visually usable app away from it's creators and onto it's users. It's not up to the users to correct whatever usability problem you've created, but yours to repair. It's almost like telling the user that if they encounter any bugs it's up to you to fix them. Of course that's how Open Source products get finished, but those aren't going to be the majority of your users .

As an alternative to skinnable applications I'd recommend customizable toolbars, which would definately streamline the user interface for users. Something akin to say the Mozilla Organizations recent application Phoenix. Of course it's a browser but I do feel something similar can be done with an application such as this.

For some reason after reading your requests again I've found that alot of things you list contradict each other in my mind at least. Alot of the features that I would want are already in Photoshop, and involve image processing and/or cleanup. Am I wrong to assume that the color seperation or management tools I would find in a image processing application would be important in something like this? How about cleanup from tools like the clone stamp or the healing brush?

I'm starting to believe that you'll need some serious time with users of these applications to understand what you would need to create. Unlike most applications, Photoshop these days does almost everything you would need it to do. To start off a project that would in effect cut into a market that an application like Photoshop has a stranglehold on, with a product that by your definition is inferior is a hard war to wage in my eyes.

I say all of this because, it seems rather odd to make a painting application and then tell it's users that it can't do certain things forcing them to have to fire up Photoshop to correct these short comings. These are my usual problems with Painter for instance, Photoshop may not be able to do everything Painter does but it does enough of it to make using Painter not an ABSOLUTE MUST, something Painter can't say. If that continues to be the case, Adobe will eventually have the time to basically kill Painter off feature wise and make it entirely useless. Look at how Adobe Indesign is going, at first it was nothing compared to QuarkXPress, now quite possibly the only thing holding it back is it's adoption rate.

The thing I will commend you on though is the fact that your reaching out towards the community that will be using this application. Which I find incredibly comforting in a sense, since you at least know who the program is intended for and understand that feedback in the early stages would be invaluable. I wish more developers would reach out like this towards their target audience.

[Drew]

I suppose I should be a bit more specific. You're right, you shouldn't try to emulate Photoshop. They're way ahead of you, you'd never catch up anyway. I am 100% for you developing a unique toolset, ui, workflow, etc. However, IMO simulated traditional media should be a part of this. I'm not suggesting that you have all the tools that Painter has, but at least a small set of traditional tools such as pencil, brush, eraser and a few others. I'm sure that the tools you'd like to include would easily be able to emulate these anyway; you'd just be putting them front and center. Traditional tools have such a wide range of capabilities that to me not including them would be a handicap instead of innovation.

What I've been seeing a lot of people asking for is powerful brush engines. Speed of the brush engine is also quite important.

[Eskil]

About usability:

I have read the Aqua Human Interface guidelines, (take a look at my UI design in Loq Airou, or read this page http://www.quelsolaar.com/technology/seduce.html ) What do you think?

I totally agree on the skin issue. (the link above has a lot of anti config talk)

About the type of app:

My point is that Im not trying to do everything. I have a focus, and i think that a big problem is that an app that tries to do everything ends up pleasing no one. And here we come back to the config problem. many large apps (like Maya) that can do anything tends to be not so good un less you spend hours configuring it.

I have been doing computer graphics for 13 years as an artist, programmer and researcher. so im not a beginner, but for me to think that there are not a lot of people who can contribute would be just plain stupid. One thing that hits me is that in the 2D field everyone is still using PhotoShop, Its so old and it is just amazing that there are almost no contenders! Shouldn't some one have have evolved it in all these years? Has nothing happened in 2D at all? every 2 years there is this big evolution in 3D graphics and we have at least 4 big contenders that all have been rewritten the last few years. Im not saying PhotoShop is bad, Im just saying shouldn't there be something better by now?

E

[DrunkenMoNk]

I sure wish there would be a contender, but that's due more to the print industry than anything else. If you need to go through a certain print process people aren't just going to go around accepting your .whatever file, their going to ask for a .psd. Any plugins that you need to use? or want? Yep you guessed it Photoshop. In 3D I assume the output isn't as important as 2D, and that's just it. For a competitor to emerge not only does their application have to do everything Photoshop does, it has to do it better WITH a wide range of support.

That's why there are no competitors, it's like asking why IE or Office have no competitors... sure there are guys out there that do certain things better (Mozilla/OmniWeb/Opera, AppleWorks/Open Office/Wordperfect)... but because their the de-facto standard people gear everything towards them and ignore everything else... destroying any chance at competition.

Photoshop can do it all, and is required knowlegdge for anyone that goes into digital art. Painter has an elaborate brush system that fulfills a niche market. In order for your application to find a niche market with groups like this you'll have to offer features that go back to real life metaphors.

I find myself switching gears suddenly... lol... probably because I need some sleep. I came into this topic with the overall sense of this forum in mind, so hearing things about doing away with real tools in applications for a completely different digital toolset kind of caught me off gaurd because of the overall tone of this forum.

I think when you give the impression that static 2D applications appear to have stagnated, it's more of a lack of an understanding of the entire field. The creation of static 2D imagery is ancient, and thus as of now were probably near the pinnacle of where we can take it. Much like the change from black and white to color, were probably approaching the point where all static imagery will be replaced with motion graphics (Flash/Director etc).

3D imagery is still in it's infancy, so it evolving every 2 years or so doesn't prove a lack of innovation in static 2D design as much as it shows the approaching end of the field as a whole.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if your going to create your own digital art application and throw the past away, ignore these forums that deal with old media art and go straight to applications like Illustrator or Freehand. Vectors seem to be where everything is going as we speak, in both static and motion art, they also probably provide the most room for innovation.

[DrunkenMoNk]

Oh, I read through your UI thing and you seem to have some interesting ideas. I would argue that a certain sort of conservatism would be good, but all in all seems like you know what your doing .

All of a sudden now I'm wishing Apple just goes through with their rumored buyout of Lightwave or Maya... I'd love to see what they'd do with those interfaces.

[B0b]

i should point out here that MICRO$HAFT more or less own Corel (they bought a huge share of Corel to get into the Linux marketplace) - Corel make WordPerfect..

Oh and the next version of AOL will be using their browser interface (Netscape) .. (breaking away from IE)

the reason why they're buying software is because their Hardware isn't growing, and with so much happening in the Hardware world they just can't keep up anymore (Quark pretty much stuck their noses up @ OS X when they didn't make XPress 5 native..)

when u can buy more stable products for cheaper why buy Apple? (over the years i've seen Apple make cheaper hardware and still keep the costs high [ie the introduction of IDE over SCSI, putting the cheapest Graphics Cards in.. the MX of the GeForce world SUX! should be a minimum of a Ti4200 in the l8st Mac]), the only good thing about OS X is the look, but after about a days use of it, it doesn't add up to all that much.. its a tool, and when u can buy just as good else where cheaper why bother..

b interesting to see what you can produce Eskil

[Eskil]

This is starting to get out of hand...

Please don't turn this in to a what app is best contest. I think most people can agree that no app will ever be so good that there should be no attempt on improving it. (if you don't agree what are you doing in this tread?)

Get back to what features you want.

E

[B0b]

soz

[DrunkenMoNk]

Was interested in seeing your response to my previous little rant on the direction of digital imagery Eskil, and if you were thinking about a vector based digital imagery application, but no matter.

Anyway, drawing tools drawing tools drawing tools... hrmmm. How about a pressure sensitive system in a vector art application? The harder you press the wider your stroke and vice-versa, with a constrain setting so that you can customize how the thickness can vary (line can go no thicker than 250% of the current line setting or thinner than 25% etc).

I don't know about you but that would be an interesting feature to have, usually from what I can tell vector drawing applications tend to make every line a consistant weight throughout. By keeping the varying thickness seperate from the lines base width you could change the constrains of a line even after you've drawn it, I don't know this just seems rather interesting to me all of a sudden. Giving the artist such control over the line work that is.

I haven't seen anything like that in ANY vector drawing application (then again my use for them never went into drawing so who knows ) and would think that the problem with applications like Illustrator or Freehand is that drawing with them isn't the greatest thing on Earth.

Everyone creates a sketch on paper, passes it through Streamline to convert their work into vectors, and then imports it to Illustrator or Freehand. Why not make an app that can do away with all of the steps past the sketch? Sure this can have a great color system, but if you focus more on how it deals with the drawing of images I can imagine this having it's own little niche.

Now of course if I'm terribly mistaken about the fact that no vector art application has this kind of feature I'm sorry for wasting your time, but I haven't ever seen it and would love to see some info on how it's dealt with currently .

[balistic]

It needs to work at at least 16-bits per channel. 16.7 million colors is not enough for film, in many cases. Realtime, non-destructive exposure/tone curve adjustment would be nice as well.

[B0b]

[liv the fish]

[Eskil]

DrunkenMoNk:

about your rant: First of all I don't care that much about other apps, I want to make "Eskil style" apps. I think it is a problem that you (and many others) seam to think that the evolution of 2D is past, just like people think we already have the perfect browser, and word processor. I used to use Dpaint and brilliance back on the Amiga and some good things have been lost in time. I want to write apps that you dint know you wanted.

I don't plan to make it vector based. it will be bitmaps.

Balistic:

it will be 32bit float HDRI per cannel. Nice to see some people appreciate high bit counts. obviously whit HDRI there will be non destructive exposiure/tone control

liv the fish:

the output will be multi channel bitmaps. the app will be networked using the verse protocol to take advantages of Blender compositing , color correction and other pluggins.

About to pressure control:
Right now I am investigating an idea based on having only one drawing tool but with some very nice settings. The ideas is that you can configure the draw inputs (angle, speed, pressure, curviness, color, distance and so on) to drive any output (brush size, transparency, texture, color, brightness, effect and so on).

So if you want a pen that gets thinner the faster you draw, you can connect the speed to the brush size and then just start drawing.

My big question is will this be enough? I also want to know how many modes a brush can hold. selected color, selected tool and selected brush, and maybe transfer mode. Right now i don't know. what kind of tools do you use?

E

[balistic]

[Drew]

I was considering what having one drawing tool would mean to the end user. All of the configuration options you list sound good. So I was thinking I'd make my own custom brushes that I'd like to be able to save and access with a keypress. Then I thought that it'd be nice to have a few preset brushes to play with. But what I end up thinking about is having traditional tool emulation of a few basics with a bunch of new fancy brush presets that aren't possible in other programs, that can be chosen by either a keypress or an on screen button. Basically, exactly what I was saying before and something fairly similar to what's available now. :)

Am I missing the point of what you were suggesting?

>So if you want a pen that gets thinner the faster you draw, you can >connect the speed to the brush size and then just start drawing.

That sounds right on.

[Ian Jones]

HDRI and exposure control is an excellent idea. I really think this is very important to the future of 2D graphics. Certainly it extends the application into touch-ups on HDRI based lighting for 3D graphics. This may stray a little too far away from the original purpose of the app, but its something to think about anyway.

[Zwaeback]

Satoripaint has the ability to create natural media bitmap images with vector controls.

Xara can be used to create natural vector images.

Both of these apps are quite different from anything else out there.

As far as creating a better bitmap painter app - I think painter does a great job, but i won't touch it anymore since all of the paintings I've created & I've seen created with it look too soft or computer generated. Photoshop with its limited controls seems to do a better job & create better images.

I'd like to see a painting/drawing tool that actually creates the kind a paint "chaos" that you see in a traditional painting/drawing. It's soft, yet contains highly defined multiple layers of texture close up.

An abstract artist once remarked about Norman Rockwell's paintings something to the effect that his work is abstract expressionism, at least up close.

[Jin]

For those who've mentioned vector programs, here's another one:

http://www.creaturehouse.com/expression3.htm

Click the Guided Tour link to see what it does.

[DrunkenMoNk]

Well that was fun, you learn new things everyday... makes me wonder why the guys at my last job never really touched illustrator with features like that outside of simple logo work.

Only reason I brought up the industry and vector art was because that's how I saw things going. Of course everyone has their own outlook so that's alright, my overall idea was basically to set yourself on the side that will continue to thrive as everything evolves. To simply ignore trends in the industy in my opinion is a bit eh, but whatevers. I think the futures in vectors/motion graphics, if we differ on that though no prob bob .

Been an interesting thread, wish you well on your project, hope it actually gets somewhere unlike lots of other projects I've seen with promise .

[Eskil]

Lots of posts.

balistic:

e image, yeah I think that is one of the most interesting things in this project : to create tools with the right amount of randomness. So will definitely work on finding interesting ways to apply patterns.

good point on the refresh problems.


Drew:

Once you have drawn using one of your tools you can pick it up again since the canvas remembers you tools. so you can sort of draw your own interface... I would be kind of cool to be able to get painting form a friends and then use the pick tool command to see what tools where used to make it.

I am more and more leaning towards very few tools, but very high definition tools that can be tweaked a lot and has many small features. I guess that's a bit like in real life when you have found that favorite pen, you use it for everything. I want to make a tool kit to allow the users to create their own set of favorite pens.

Ian Jones

I think that in the future a lot of people are going to want to paint HDRI images for lightning uses. it would not surprise me a bit if in a few years the number one things lighting designers do is to paint environment HDRI maps.

Zwaeback:

About the "too smooth" look of other apps. I have been thinking about this a lot. HDRI will help a bit. but i think there could be other improvements too. like making smoothing ranges and other things.

Is it only me but i really miss ranges form back on the amiga days? they where so use full for selecting colors, I should definitely have some of that...

E

[Lunatique]

Eskil- Time and time again, people have commented that the perfect 2D app for artists would be a complete hybrid of Photoshop and Painter.

Photoshop has awesome editing capabilities, but a weak brush engine.

Painter has an awesome brush engine, but lame editing capabilities.

Combine the strengths of these two, and you have perfection.

About simulating art tools IRL:

People want it because they love the textures and the look of the marks left by the bristles of brushes on paint, charcoal on paper...etc. These marks are what makes 2D art so interesting. Without those marks, you lose a lot f visual detail. Even Photoshop leaves marks of its own--especially now that they ramped up the brush engine.

[Light]

Let me get this straight Eskil you are going to make a paint program without the features of photoshop or painter?

ahahah... sorry Eskil but there are many stripped down painting tools already in existence and gfx2 is too much out of date to be used as a model.

Wait.. if you are really serious about this and have some killer programming skills then I can help you design it. I'm one of the best in the world. (grin).. I suggest you use Delphi for components. I know C/C++ programming and its not too good for Windows. I think Delphi goes a lot further by looking at the apps made by single individuals. I gotta learn that!!

I will tell you right now that your program has to feature the following to be succesful or used by me. You can make a killer paint tool if you follow my instructions.



* Layer Support
* Very handy drawing tools like lines, ovals, etc. Photoshop really sucks in this area! Anybody know any suggestions for improving this area?
* Standardized interface similiar to Photoshop
* Powerful color selection and fast color grouping tools!! Photoshop again really sucks in this area but might be possible. Things like multiple color wheels and selectable color blending modes and types. . like choose additive blending.
* Powerful zoom controls. zoom in and out at press of button + select zoom tool. Split screen zoom modes too might be useful at select resolution.
* Black screen background as default with possible selections
* Powerful standardized selection tools required
* File support for JPG and PSD minimum
* Color support required for professionals
* FAST and ability to work at any resolution
* History support.. like last tool used (think maya), and custom tool settings
* Plugin support or/and open source

These are probably the bare minimums. Now let us talk about painting/drawing tools. Required here are:

* Drawing tools that can take full advantage of WACOM support.
* Customizable blending tools that can blend in a vareity of ways at high quality and be FAST. This is probably the most obvious tool missing from most paint programs including Photoshop. I am not speaking about blur or smudge. I am talking about high quality blending tools with selectable options, patterns, and a variety of effects at high speed. A high quality blending tool could really speed up art creation. Yes I know short cuts in photoshop etc

* 3d paint layer effects. I doubt you'll do this. This is really required to take it to the next level but adds in a lot of complexities as to the speed and resolution equation. But going to a 3d paint layer solution provides the opportunity to do realistic pencil, pen, and most importantly paints which can have more then color and opacity as options. This is very important

* Provided with above is the ability to turn off or on this 3d support. It must be highly integrated into the system. So I can choose between 3d paint and regular or simple paint.

* Vector and masking tools too put Photoshop to shame. One of the most dififcult things to use in Photoshop is the vector tools and this makes creating lines and things difficult to do. They are made to TRACE over existing lines but not to create lines so much. The tools disccused earlier would also be killer if they had vector counterparts that work like DIGITAL tools except with the HIGH LINE QUALITY associated with vector tools.

Ease of use of digital tools and QUALITY of vector tools. For example, I draw a line and it looks like a digital line. But in this mode I can go back and modify it without thinking at least some of its properties using my TABLET (no keyboard required) yet I never have to think of it as a horrid vector tool.

One of most difficult things in painting is the protection of edges in things like air brushing but also in normal painting. Fast mask modes help in this.. but maybe thinking of these vector tools for masking too would be useful.

* Not required but handy if done professionally and powerfully is powerful simple 3d shape construction as aide and perpsective tool. Painters perspective tool sucks. This needs to be POWERFUL or else don't bother.
*************

So.. again to be succesful you need all of the main digital tools of photopshop but better, drawing tools found in CAD/CAM programs cuistomized for pen only support, standardized interface like Photoshop but borrowing from innovations found in 3d, realistic sketching tools (jagged lines are not cool), powerful blending tools that blend with variety!, and innovative vector drawing tools that make turning out quality line drawings all too easy.

It must also be stable, and open ended with no stupid crap that makes it useless. Stupid crap means crashing, means the lack of a zoom tool, means the lack of saving in any format but its own, means required 10 processors to run it at speed, means using the examples found in beginning programming books about how to get data from the mouse in windows (i.e. dot dot dot connect), means placing a big red button that is pressed with shut down the computer or a tiny dot required to hit at an exact time to open the program, means having to install adware, etc!! Any of this means I will not use your program and nobody else will either.

Again most programs are lacking in the ways I mentioned and if you made a paint program as I've detailed then you'd have a real paint program of the century. The most time consuming task of painting or most negcleted are usually the blending, quality sketching tools, brush tools, quality line refinement tools (i.e vector tools), color selection and grouping tools, and masking tools.

You must remember that many of these are not hard ideas in themselves (ie powerful color selection and grouping) but you must make a darn good program before you can even start to do the cool stuff. So.. I don't expect anything from really..

If you like these ideas and want my design help (no code) then email me and I'll see if I can help you.

[Light]

A couple more notes. I think it is important when I say 3d + 2d is that it is all possible to switch back and forth dynamically. This is what makes painter such a pain. If you can't support it throughout the entire application then don't do it. Photoshop really does well because its tool are so simple so having that simplicity is a must but goign to something more dynamic would be good.

You must think what is required in making a good drawing/painting and the things here are for drawings:

* Smooth quality lines that have variety. Look at any great pencil artist to see what is required, then look at great pen drawings, etc. This is required quality to make your program a killer sketch tool.

But for painting.. we must think of these things, what is required or time consuming?

* Blending.. is most time consuming task and making custom blend tool is going to be most important. Not just a fast smudge tool but a real power blending. Maybe this tool could even be used to paint with.

* Edges. Most paintings have sharp, hard, soft, and smooth edges. Finding ways to ensure the integrity of these edges is one of most time consuming paint processes and changing a tool from making soft to sharp edges is time consuming too.

* Textures and laying down specific colors. Mostly addressed.

.. These are things you must really think about and ease of use. A great tool with a poor interface is no use. An interface should be fast and maya is a good example of a fast interface (but lacks good in-built modeling tools). Maya's interface is a bit hard though.. pointlessly so really.

Why does a pencil look like a pencil mark? because paper only collects so much of the material due to surface.. and reflection of light based on incidence of incoming angle.

I agree that having a special case solution for every real life scenario is not the way to go. BUT making something that can make marks look like a REAL PENCIL Or PEN is required or very useful. Why? becuz real pencil and pen look good and digital lines dont... Scatter modes and randomization help here but they aren't perfect.

Look at a painting by sargent. looks good! What causes some of this spontainity? He didnt use a computer and his paint had more property then simply color and opacity. It had depth, veloctiy, and angle. Thinking about these MORE properties might be helpful even as a function of time. But this is obviously is too much real media so think about a quantization of a function of time perhaps... ie paint that instantly splatters a certain amount or runs or blends not based on real time but on a setting.

There are two types of painters or ways of painting. Paint to make a good picture without regards to process (think pixelers). And painting as an expression of action (think pollock)

It is not about whether or not your program can do it. The point is is your program fun to use. And this is important to me not just simply being able to use some tools to make a good painting.

This is thing that is most disappointing with photshop.. yes it can do anything but may not be very fun. So you must always make your program fun.

A good thing to think about too is when designing it is think about how you will be able to give a demonstration of its power compared to other programs when you finish it. Think how fun your tools are to use and how powerful they are..

Anyway.. good luck.

*edit

One more note Photoshop can definetly be beat. These people have been sitting on their laurels for ages. You can give them a good lesson in what happens to monopolies. Photoshop could have been better ages ago but they haven't wanted to spend the money. Painter can be beat too.

It is true that Photoshop has tried to make a paltry amends with V7 but really that should have been freebie stuff. I don't know how the next Painter will be.

Also, photoshop will get a good lesson in defeat when 3d paint becomes the norm because most-likely there existing code base wont convert over well. This might be a hint at why they haven't did the basics of improvement they should have did.

But., anyway, I suggest you study the following types of pictures/artist:

Hals
Sargent
Airbrushed cars and highly precise objects (airbrushed + 3d)
Rubens
Comic pencil, pen, artist work Frazetta
Brom
Wheelan
Sorayama
Vallejo
Degas
Anime Manga
CAD renderings
Architectural Details
----
Now I suggest look at these and think about how to recreate these as fast as possible, as fun as possible, and at highest quality possible. You see for some things like the cars drawing tools and quality of line will be very important.

For other things like Sargent works then the dyanmics of the paint will be real important.

But go through this list and see and think of tools to do this as fast as possible, as fun as possible, and at highest quality. You may come up with a variety of solutions not thought of yet!

Remember you must think of doing the entire painting without nothing to work from or scanned sketch.

Also, if your program is good you should sell it. You can support it better that way in long run. But you must include powerful plugin ability.

I don't know about this but you might want to create a scripting engine like Maya and build everything on top of the engine. I don't know about that though.

End!

[Novacaptain]

A feature i think you could consider implementing is floating menus and toolbars (especially useful for those working with 2 monitors at different resolutions) *hint*

hehe light, you're funny.
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It's nice to be important, but more important to be nice - Scooter

[Eskil]

Sorry about my bas reply rate

Lunatic:

I agree that both apps have some great features.
Yes, but i think it is wrong way to create an app, it just means that i first have to implement Photoshop and painter, and then add features. I want to do something different.

Light:

Wow, huge post, some great stuff too.

No im not making either painter or photoshop, Progress is not about cloning the current an then adding a feature or two its about making something completely different.

Its going to be written in C, use OpenGL and portable.

im going to try to answer all your points:

>* Layer Support

Well, im thinking about it but im also considering some other options.

>* Very handy drawing tools like lines, ovals, etc. Photoshop really sucks in this area! Anybody know any suggestions for improving this area?

Im thinking about having hold down hot keys (softimage style) to that type of tools.

>* Standardized interface similiar to Photoshop

Not happening sorry, download Loq Airou and see what kind of interfaces i write.

>* Powerful color selection and fast color grouping tools!! Photoshop again really sucks in this area but might be possible. Things like multiple color wheels and selectable color blending modes and types. . like choose additive blending.

Im going to have lots of blend modes and and some cool new color modes.

One idea i have is to have the user create ranges of color then be able to chose colors by pressing two hot keys to go up and down the range. an other idea is to create non - staright rages and be able to use them to shade colors.

>* Powerful zoom controls. zoom in and out at press of button + select zoom tool. Split screen zoom modes too might be useful at select resolution.

There will be ultra fast OpenGL zoom.

>* Black screen background as default with possible selections

I have always preferred black too..

>* Powerful standardized selection tools required
>* File support for JPG and PSD minimum

We will se about the formats, I will most likely release an non save version first for every one to play with. the i will most likely have my own custom format too.

>* Color support required for professionals

Actually advanced color support will be out before the painter will be out but I cant talk too much about that.

>* FAST and ability to work at any resolution

I know. more on that later.

>* Plugin support or/and open source

I will use Verse, the greatest plug-in system you can imagine, (and its open source)

can you elaborate what you mean by 3d paint effects?

Masking tools can be kind of cool since the app remembers what tools have been used. (you can mask out anything you have drawn whit a specific tool, mode, brush color or color range)

I fully agree that a tool must be fun to use.

I know what you mean by stupid things... (they tend to pop-up any way...)

About edges: I have cool idea of creating a "fill paint tool" say you have drawn the out line with a pencil tool, it is curved but not closed. Now you cant to fill one side of the line with a color, you cant use a bucket fill tool because the area is not closed, then you use the paint fill toll and it works just like any paint brush but it doesn't allow you to pass the out line.

I guess it may be a bit inflammatory to say in this form but i also find photoshop a bit dull....

I will look at some of the artist you have named. my background is Scene/demo graphics (pixel artists) I have looked at a lot of artists in this forum, craig mullins, Feng, many film concept mate paintings, and some manga.

Novacaptain:

Im going to try to have no visible menus at all, i think it will be mainly pop-up menus.

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Ok let me elaborate a bit on my latest ideas and the current direction:

I have been thinking about one of the main problems Anti-aliasing. I know i may bee a silly problem to you but i don't think it is done right in most apps. I was thinking about super sampling, it basically means no anti aliasing at all but you store the image 9 or 16 times as high resolution and then you scale it down to get antialiasing. obviously this means 16 times as mush memory.. and with 32 bits per cannel that's a lot.

Say you have an 1600*1200 RGB 16 sample HDRI image it takes 469 megs... I guess its better then photoshop but still not very good. And 1600* 1200 is not that high right? The biggest problem with this is actually not memory its speed, you need to fill 16 times as many pixels.

so Im thing about other solutions. One is to store all the strokes and tool settings then you can draw the image in one resolution, and the render it out in a higher resolution. This would turn it in to a bitmap/vector hybrid. an interesting idea indeed...

To finish of the "IRL tool" discussion: I don't what to have a chalk tool but i want to create a paint tool that is so flexible that you can configure it to look like chalk.

E

[Light]

Eskil: I mean by 3d paint effects. The reason that you can get certain effects with paint vs digital tools is they have more properties, and this makes them more interesting to work with but harder to master. Real paint is actual "stuff" which reflects light and can be built up to create interesting effects and depth.

If you want to take painting to next level then you must think not of painting with pixels but painting with "objects" or entities. Entities can have more properties then pixels. For examlpe they can splatter over time (or quantized to a certain extent), they can be built up on top of one another, they can interact with surface in interesting ways, and bleed into each other.

I agree it is important that you don't limit yourself to real life tools as these are difficult to work with in real life but to get that type of power then your system must be able to approximate this in some way.

You can make intelligent paint. Photoshop has its own "intelligent" system but is very limited (i.e. fading). Think more about okay this "paint" has a runnieness to it. This is not just mean bleed down the page. This means that it takes into effect say the speed and way you move the pen to splatter and run.

Or it could bleed up the page as gravity is not a physical property but a property of the dynamical system you are working with.

But.. if you want to go to "next level" in my opinion then you must think of having some type of system that can simulate complex interactions of colors and paint (not pixels).

There are two ways to do this. One is to use some type of true 3d system. This hypothetically would be the most powerful but might be hard to pull off.

The other is to make a complex 2d system that can mimick the 3d system. This may be better or worse. I just don't know.

I think this is one good route to go. If you go this route then you wont start by making tools so to speak but by making the core paint entities and the "canvas". And then you will make tools to alter these paint entitie properties.

It is possible to emulate the complex properties of paint using custom brushes in photoshop but because each layer of paint is flat you never really achieve the effect.

You might create some type of zbuffer system of paint built up. But it is most important that your entity system can switch back and forth between digital paint (i.e photoshop style) with ease. There should be no limitations on what is possible like in Painter layers.

Everything should be reflective of the current mode of painting. And this brings up an interesting question about the interaction of 3d surface forms to background.. and how to achieve this without restrictions. Difficult problem that is.

Also, you will need really good drawing tools. Remember most artist use tablet and we don't want to touch the keyboard. We need real-time interactive tools. So.. if I use an oval tool then maybe I just draw an oval and it self smooths based on some setting. I don't want to have to slowly plot out an oval. It is important you envision the way people will use yuor program.. I prefer to do everything with tablet. so it is important you make all of program run well from tablet. And this should reflect in everything from your hot-key systems to your brush size changing etc.!!

The base thing is to make sure your program supports the simplest tools and has a complexity and soundness so that it can achieve the effect of any medium with fun and ease of use.

But there is also unexplored territory in thinking about the fastest ways to achieve things like texture effects or gradiations or painting in itself. You could make some really killer mods here beyond just powerful blending tools that might alter what one considers making 2d artwork.

Let us just say though for any tool to be effective it must be simple enough to understand and complex enough to produce a variety of effects.

I think the future will be in this type of 3d/2d paint program that introduces things not even thought about or "possiblly thought of" with real media.

Perhaps for example... I paint a section of clothing on a man using a few tools.. I am then able to make this one tool and paint the rest of the man's clothing. This sounds like clone brush but it is different in that it is made for painters.

Remember we want feedback too or else we could just use a filter. So feedback is real important.

There are many things to think about..