[Pat]

FYI. Link Goodness.

-Pat

[hwslut]

Wicked -- thanks Pat.

[Matthew]

Could be scary, the 8th version that is cause I like the 7th version very much and things can be confusing with using the 8th version, or maybe not? ..hmmm, I should try it anyway, thank you for the link. :)

Matthew

[Pat]

Thankfully, the trial release wasn't bumped back again. Go download it, it's good for you.

-Pat

[Tzan]

The DL page indicates that the windows version runs on only 2000 or XP. No Windows 98se support. Hmmm...

[haohmaru]

5 minutes left...
then i can see if i get that thing working on my win98.
chances are extremely low though... :(

***update***
tried - works. =)
***update***
_________________

[ceenda]

Isn't it ironic that on the day the Painter 8 trial comes out... my harddisk explodes and dies.

I can't face installing it on my flatmate's Mac...

[Tzan]

Wow! thanks for trying that haohmaru.
Time for downloading

I wonder if that was just for the demo and the final has official 98 support. Just dont want to buy it and find out later that some commands dont work or it crashes a lot.

[Impaler]

I would rather spend the 300 bucks than try and download a 90 meg file over my 26.4 kb/s FREE internet connection.

Still cool, though.
_________________
QED, sort of.

[Lunatique]

I just spent a few hours playing with Painter 8 demo. I really love the improvements. Some of the brushes are so similar to some of the custom ones I've designed, and thank GOD they brought back the old watercolors, and then some!

The Photoshop-esque UI was a great move. Most people who complained about Painter being confusing have no excuse not to try it now.

I think at this point, they might as well just match Photoshop's editing powers feature by feature, workflow by workflow--that way, Painter will be the most perfect app for most of us. No more having to use both Painter and Photoshop.

You listening, Corel????

[haohmaru]

i still find it a somewhat confusing program.
_________________

[Pat]

I spent all day messing with Painter 8. Overall, it's a massive improvement. It's faster, better organized and virtually crash-proof. I did find one bug, a jpeg decoding error in the brush designer, which is apparently a known issue since I later found it listed in the readme file. I was one of the people secretly dreading the revamped UI, if only because I've been using Painter since the dawn of time and had grown quite accustomed to it's structure. Needless to say, I was right at home in no time... though some of the menus have been broken up into categories that seem somewhat odd to me.

The new brushes are fantastic. The old watercolors are back, but revamped somewhat. I also noticed that the v7 watercolors have been trimmed too and also made a little more useful. Sadly, several classic brushes were omitted from the v8 list, including Graphic Paintbrush and Graphic Paintbrush soft. No biggie though, as they can be recreated. The new sketch effect is pretty cool, but I've no idea who'd use it. Frankly, I thought the new mixing palette was only a modest addition; but then again I remember when Photoshop had a scratch pad as well and I do miss that.

I also noticed there's been some additions to the brush engine. Pencils have an associated .stk file and are no longer defined by XML only. It make sharing them more a pain in the rear. Still no way to 100% emulate a Photoshop brush yet, either.

-Pat

[Tzan]

My download speed on my cable modem got up to 171 k bytes/sec It took 8 minutes.

Does Painter 7 have Sponges?
Painter 8 spongyness:



You cant save anything in the trial version but you can take screen shots
I might use this as a background for an apple.

[Tzan]

Hey Pat I found the Graphic Paint Brush and soft.
They were hiding in the F-X brushes.

[digitaldecoy]

Now, I�m pretty disappointed by the "mixer". That�s just a smudge-tool! I presumed getting green when i mixed blue and yellow... useless feature in my opinion...
_________________
�Que la fuerza te acompa�e!

[Ra]

Well, I'm really disapointed by this version.
The only new feature is the mixer, that is the ONLY new thing.
The new brushes are only new presets.

The new interface is very cool.

But... THE real problem to me is that the custom palettes are gone... I don't know how do you, sijun people, usually works with painter but I got custom palettes with all my custom brushes, variants, papers etc.

Now to simply select a brush (with a specific variant), you must go thru 2 popup menus. So for people like me, who switch from one brush to another every 5 seconds, it's a real nightmare.

I hope corel will bring back the custom palette. I'm staying with painter7 for now (in fact maybe I would stay with painter 7 anyway because p8 is just a new interface).

[tayete]

For those using WIN 98, I know some beta testers had that system and Painter ran fine in it. But it isn't an official system for Corel, so you won't get specific support for it.

About the new features, I think there are many more than those you mention RA:

New brush engine
New info window (real time update)
New Sketck effect
Mixer
New brush creator (now you know what you are doing when you move any slider of your brush stroke)
Watercolors are back (the good ones)
...
_________________
_ _ _____ _ _
http://tayete.blogspot.com

[Ra]

About new features, yes that's true, my bad.
the lost of costum palette is so incredible to me that... I forgotten about those new features.

Athough they are not really new features but improvments (the brush creator, for example).

[Rhomb]

digitaldecoy - Have you actually tried the mixer pad. I think it mixes green from blue and yellow quite nicely

red, yellow, blue and white used here.

The missing custom palette feature is a big disappointment though. And the "new" brush engine doesn't seem to be remarkably (if any) faster than in P7. Have to do some more experimenting...

Ville

[Lunatique]

I can't believe they made the brush designer a seperate thing. I used to be able to tweak all the important stuff on the fly, like assigning various elements to stylus pressure, speed, or none...etc. Also the minimun/maximum brush variation sizes for tapered look..etc.

And whoever made the decision to get rid of the custom palette needs to get smacked around a bit. That was one of the best things about painter.

[Torstein Nordstrand]

That mixer looks truly yummy
_________________
www.torsteinnordstrand.com

[Pat]

My received my pre-ordered full copy of Painter 8 today, sans the promised pre-order t-shirt. "While supplies last", I guess. If they're out, they ought to take down that ad promoting it.


------------------

Here's another weird item straight out of the readme: "Corel Painter 8 brushes are not compatible with previous versions of Corel Painter." Son of a bitch. The XML defs have been changed, so older brushes can't be imported from 7 to 8. Makes transitioning from v7 to v8 more of a pain. I guess handwritten brush recipes are still a reality. S'ok though, I'm a luddite.

The loss of the custom palettes is also a disappointment. It's the number one gripe I've been hearing from other experienced Painter users. There's speculation that might be rectified in the first v8 patch. I sure hope so.

Did anyone else notice the magic wand tool is cooler now? Shift and alt add and subtract from selections now. File under "neat, but about time."

I still can't crash this version. I've caused it to freeze for a few moments, but it always comes back.

The speed and reliability are worth the upgrade price alone.

------------------

Tzan, thanks for pointing out the location of the graphic paint brushes. Why they're stuck in the FX section, I'll never know. Weird too, since the organization of the brushes seems more logical now. I do wish there was some better indication of impasto/non-impasto brushes though. Kinda weird to be playing around with an image, select the wrong brush and suddenly your in impasto mode.

-Pat

[Lunatique]

Has anyone noticed the slight lag when you access sliders for brush control, or just tool palettes in general? That's kind of annoying.

And is there a way to get the color set to open to the one you designed on start up? It keeps going back to the default one everytime I boot up Painter.

The only workaround for custom brush palette is to created a new category, and then save your variants in them. That's what I'm doing. The extra clicking sure is annoying though. Custom palette was great for click-lazy bastards like me.

I hope the update patch will have the brush designer as an option you can add to your brush control. Having my workflow interrupted with the brush designer sucks.

[digitaldecoy]

@ Rhomb:

Geez! Looks a bit like I�ve used the wrong blue. Now, it�s some time ago since I mixed real paint but does this look like it�s supposed to do?



The other colors do mix quite nicely though. So, disappointment is nearly gone!
_________________
�Que la fuerza te acompa�e!

[ceenda]

digitaldecoy: Hmn, actually, I think Painter may be little more accurate than that.



The colour you've chosen as blue there is actually quite close to purple or indigo, so perhaps the blending is being taken through a different route?

I'm not too sure about it.

[toast!]

i want that mixer brush in my canvas !! they made a totally kick ass brush that reacts like real paint and you can't use it in the canvas , that s just not fair

i totally agree with lunatique about the brush designer being a separate thing; imo too much photoshop people have interacted in the test of p8, the ui is too close to photoshop, they have taken the good but also the bad (separate brush designer, scrolls, hidden sliders..) and some of the cool things about the last interface have been taken away (custom palettes, brush designer on-the-fly ..
_________________
http://www.miguelcoimbra.com
My blog

[Pat]

digitaldecoy, pay attention.

[cut and paste from my reply to your last Painter rant]

You're still thinking in terms of subtractive color models and real paint. Digital coloring is an additive process based on an RGB color model. Sadly, in the RGB world blue+yellow don't equal green. Yellow and cyan DO.

-Pat

[Torstein Nordstrand]

Pat, remember that Painter is made to emulate the real world, so expecting blue+yellow=green seems reasonable enough to me?

Anyhew, I'd really like some more samples of doodles, strokes, colours, palettes, and screenshots if somebody would care to show off the new stuff

Thanks,
_________________
www.torsteinnordstrand.com

[digitaldecoy]

I think Torstein made the point - this mixer is designed to emulate substractive color mixing and thus it seems a little strange to me to receive violett when I mix blue and yellow. And it is especially interesting if you consider that all other colors seem to mix as they are supposed to. I think it�s just a software bug. Nevertheless is this mixer a heck of an innovative feature! If I just could handle this piece of software! It feels so odd, when you are used to PS...

But hey, did you see that owners of Painter Classic are able to upgrade to Painter 8? That�s way cool! You can even upgrade if you are registered user of Photoshop - that indeed confuses me a bit.

(edit)

Oh, and I have this Painter 8 Interface Screenshot on my webspace - if anyone likes to have a look at the new Interface...
_________________
�Que la fuerza te acompa�e!

[Lunatique]

Torstein-- Here ya go. My setup in Painter 8.

http://www.enchanted.prohosting.com/temp/painter8-cap.jpg

BTW, I've been trying to get this list of complaints to Corel's Painter newsletter, except I can't seem to get it posted. Maybe my account isn't setup correctly, or maybe they don't like what they see in this list--the language..etc. So, could someone please get this posted on the Corel Painter newsletter somehow? Jin? Anyone?

Here's the list:

"My fellow peers(professional artists working in film, video games,
illustration, fine arts..etc) have discussed about the problems they have
with Painter 8. We all agree it's the best version of Painter yet, and a
vast improvement, but of course nothing is perfect.

Here are the suggestions, taken directly from various online digital art
forum discussions--unedited--and hopefully an update patch will fix these problems:

1) "Why are we once again refused the option to Flip the entire canvas and
instead forced to go layer by layer and flip each one individualy?"

"it's a worry they haven't fixed the flipping thing. it's SO simple. and
it's the second most common complaint i've heard about painter, after the
interface. painter 8.1, maybe? "

"The lack of Flip Canvas is pretty mind-boggling, but the general Photoshop
layout is very intuitive."

"Ya, they better get that flip in there PRONTO. Better transform/edit tools
like PS would be much appreciated--that way, I don't ever have to use PS
again. It's lame to have to use 2 apps when you can just use one. I think at
this point, they might as well just match Photoshop's editing powers feature
by feature, workflow by workflow--that way, Painter will be the most perfect
app for most of us. No more having to use both Painter and Photoshop."

2)"Also, the Ctrl-Alt-Shift brush-resize thing is totally gay. It used to be
just Ctrl-Alt which was much easier. Also, I find after resizing I have to
click once on the Canvas to get it to go back to brush mode, it used to just
go back to brush mode the moment you released Ctrl-Alt."

3)"think they've made a great mistake by not including custom palettes in
this new version.. thats a big step backwards as custom palettes are
essential in a program with 500+ brushes not to forget all the papers,
colorsets etc. The brushthumbnails are also a bit too small I think."

"The only workaround for custom brush palette is to created a new category,
and then save your variants in them. That's what I'm doing. The extra
clicking sure is annoying though. Custom palette was great for click-lazy
bastards like me."

"The loss of the custom palettes is also a disappointment. It's the number
one gripe I've been hearing from other experienced Painter users. There's
speculation that might be rectified in the first v8 patch. I sure hope so. "

"the lost of costum palette is so incredible to me that... I forgotten about
those new features. "

"But... THE real problem to me is that the custom palettes are gone... I
don't know how do you, sijun people, usually works with painter but I got
custom palettes with all my custom brushes, variants, papers etc. Now to
simply select a brush (with a specific variant), you must go thru 2 popup
menus. So for people like me, who switch from one brush to another every 5
seconds, it's a real nightmare."

"And whoever made the decision to get rid of the custom palette needs to get
smacked around a bit. That was one of the best things about painter."

"that new brush choosing tool needs a lot of getting used to. it doesn't
allow for the nifty switching between different brush types."

4)"Has anyone noticed the slight lag when you access sliders for brush
control, or just tool palettes in general? That's kind of annoying."

5)"And is there a way to get the color set to open to the one you designed
on start up? It keeps going back to the default one everytime I boot up
Painter."

6)"I can't believe they made the brush designer a seperate thing. I used to
be able to tweak all the important stuff on the fly, like assigning various
elements to stylus pressure, speed, or none...etc. Also the minimun/maximum
brush variation sizes for tapered look..etc. I hope the update patch will
have the brush designer as an option you can add to your brush control.
Having my workflow interrupted with the brush designer sucks."

" hate that they "corrected" one of painter's most obvious pros: that you
could access all controls directly. now, i even need to open up that shitty
brush designer to change spacing. d'uh."

"The brush editor is pretty cool. The way the whole UI goes white when you
load it is a bit disconcerting (always looks like it's crashed) but the
wealth of options there is great. It also seems to be very stable."

"i say they should keep the brush designer for those who want to keep their
interface clean and allow those who want painter cluttered and fast as it
was to add the controls to their menus."

"I hate how you have to halt everything in order to get to the brush
designer. I can't even set my minimum and maximum brush size for pressure
variation easily anymore. And I miss my custom palette. Mine was so cool
with all these nice custom-made icons."

"Yes, you have to load the new Brush Designer window to make new brushes.
The BD window takes forever to load in my slow system, and the "Now
Evaluating Brush Directions" Progress window shows several times before I
can get to real editing. I think the program is building stroke variants
previews, and it isn't a fast process. Every time I change the smallest
setting, it happens again.
Very cumbersome. Major bummer."

7)"Here's another weird item straight out of the readme: "Corel Painter 8
brushes are not compatible with previous versions of Corel Painter." Son of
a bitch. The XML defs have been changed, so older brushes can't be imported
from 7 to 8. Makes transitioning from v7 to v8 more of a pain. I guess
handwritten brush recipes are still a reality. S'ok though, I'm a luddite."

"I do wish there was some better indication of impasto/non-impasto brushes
though. Kinda weird to be playing around with an image, select the wrong
brush and suddenly your in impasto mode. "

9)"in the color mixer, you can't hold alt and pick the color...which is
fucking stupid."

10)"Still no way to 100% emulate a Photoshop brush yet, either."

"If they've included a "dead" brush like the standard hardedged paintbrush
in PS (that doesn't make any fancy overlay and saturation tricks), I'm
switching to painter instead."

"How hard is it to come up with a brush that behaves like Photoshop's?"

"You have no idea how much I'd like just a no-frills mathematically linear
paintbrush like the one in photoshop. C'mon Corel tech dudes, pleeeeease???"


And for myself personally, I agree with all the suggestions.
Rob
www.enchanted.prohosting.com"