AuthorTopic: I'm making a paint program, so useful tools, ideas and features required please  (Read 156430 times)

Offline happymonster

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True. I like playing with routines rather than the math, but it's the same kind of interesting puzzle that appeals to both of us I think. :)

I think the stick figure idea is too ambitious for me to try I'm afraid.
I have seen that real color wheel before (kind of reminds me of the Atari 8-bit palette). How useful is something like that for pixel work?

Offline happymonster

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On a whim, I brought a Watcom Bamboo today (I got some money for Christmas, so that was a christmas present to myself). I'm finding it hard to use as a mouse, but freehand drawing (I tested it in Pixe) is much smoother and easier. :)

Offline Ai

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True. I like playing with routines rather than the math, but it's the same kind of interesting puzzle that appeals to both of us I think. :)
Eh, from my POV the routines are the math, yeah. It's a computer, not a routiner :)

Quote
I think the stick figure idea is too ambitious for me to try I'm afraid.
I tried to make it as simple as possible; just proportional and non-proportional movement of vertices, plus moving the figure as a whole.
There are rigid-body physics libraries like Chipmunk[1] that can handle the rest of the calculations

[1] http://wiki.slembcke.net/main/published/Chipmunk

Think I'll have a go at a framework for it myself.

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I have seen that real color wheel before (kind of reminds me of the Atari 8-bit palette). How useful is something like that for pixel work?
If your paint program supports LAB, 'real color wheel' is not particularly useful (redundant versus LAB). 'real color wheel' is also only real under particular conditions (that wheel looks like it's intended to simulate normal sunlight)

Yeah, it's a bit too easy to drag accidentally with a tablet -- enough that GIMP has introduced a 'Lock Tab' function to prevent people throwing their docked dialogs around accidentally. Still IMO it's far far better for general UI navigation, especially if you use applications in a way that means the same UI element always ends up on the same place on screen. Very zippy.
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline happymonster

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Eh, from my POV the routines are the math, yeah. It's a computer, not a routiner
I disagree. Because you have a maths background you think in terms of mathematical algorithms to solve graphical problems.
Since I don't have that background I think in terms of how to solve graphical problems through routines, without recourse of advanced mathematics.
(This has disadvantages, but also advantages)

Anyway.. Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!!!

Offline 32

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On a whim, I brought a Watcom Bamboo today (I got some money for Christmas, so that was a christmas present to myself). I'm finding it hard to use as a mouse, but freehand drawing (I tested it in Pixe) is much smoother and easier. :)

I also got one of these, are you using the drivers that came packaged (i assume your dual booting windows to test pixe, but they may have linux drivers on their website)? the ones that auto installed made the pen work like a mouse, the cd driver works much more like a drawing pad, i find it quite easy to use as a mouse (except getting icons on the corners of the screen :P)

I haven't tried pixe yet ( i tried downloading it but it was going at like 50b/s and then it stopped downloading, i might try again tomorrow) but it looks great so far ;D

Offline happymonster

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Hiya,

I only have Windows here, but I did install the drivers from the CD. As far as drawing I'm really impressed with the pad so far. :)
Maybe there are things I can tweak to make the mouse like movement easier for me.

Merry Christmas!

Offline Ai

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Quote
Eh, from my POV the routines are the math, yeah. It's a computer, not a routiner
I disagree. Because you have a maths background you think in terms of mathematical algorithms to solve graphical problems.
Since I don't have that background I think in terms of how to solve graphical problems through routines, without recourse of advanced mathematics.
Apples and Oranges.
You're talking about how you think about it and hence think to use it. I'm talking about what it actually does; it's function is to compute, and even today, computers don't really have the notion of subroutines or functions; these are all programming-language abstractions over the CPU's ability to 'jump 60 bytes forward' or 'jump to absolute address 0xffff5080'.

AFAICS, the totality of my maths background is that I enjoy maths :) I know very little advanced maths (polynomials and splines), and don't even know some standard maths (what to do with sine/cosine to draw a circle, for example; or anything beyond very basic algebra)
So, a bit baffled :)
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline happymonster

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Well, it doesn't really matter.. ;)

Still progressing with Pixe today (fitted around Christmas of course!)
I'm been working on getting all the functionality of the recent demo version in there via the new external gui data systems. Then I can start to add new tool options and new GUI parts as well.

Offline happymonster

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Thought I'd provide a visual update..

The fileselector is currently broken whilst I'm converting the GUI to use the external data, and I haven't yet converted the palette options. Most of the other GUI panels are now in.

I've added 9 preset brush options which use an external data file for the size and shape values (so they can be changed externally). I tried icons at 24 x 24 with 8 x 8 spacing, and at 16 x 16, but the first looked too big and the last was too small for my liking. So I'm using 24 x 24 icons with no spacing which seems about the right balance to me, and still allows me to provide a visual guide to the various small brush presets (including the pixel arrangements for each brush). You can alter the shape and size of the brush if you want larger sizes..

Speaking of which, I've rewrote the slider code and they now have proper left and right working arrow buttons (haven't done the vertical sliders yet).

The GUI panels can now be changed in size, colour and position (so you could have the brushes at the bottom for example) by altering the external files.
These are still things to do, but most of that is now done.

I plan to have GUI space for layers, and a workspace (for custom brushes and the various images to be edited) at the bottom of the GUI panel. Larger window sizes will allow more gui space for some of the GUI panels as well.



 :)

Offline Dex

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I just wanted to stop by and let you know you're doing a great job with this program, it's something I could never imagine doing!

Also, the edges of a few of the tools look jagged. Maybe clean em' up?

I'm really diggin' your work here. G'luck!