KarmaSlave said:
I think the most important thing, in order to come close to the functionality of Colors!, is to have settings for what the pressure controls. Colors had settings to control both/either brush size and opacity.
I tried the previously MyPaint out on my PC and must say that I loved it! It had so many brushes. I couldn't try if it had pressure functionality as I have a mouse, but if it has, I would die to see that come to the Pandora!
But of course, if someone can make a program from scratch that kicks ass (or if you just try), you deserve a bucket load of respect ^^
MyPaint seems pretty awesome, no doubt. I hope someone ports it too.
I think the thing about Colors that's really cool is the record / playback. But I think I can do them one better. (personally I've never used Colors so I don't know this for sure if they have this too...) but it seems like if you store every sequence of drawing steps then you might as well have unlimited undo's (as it's basically "reversing" the drawing procedure). So I'll probably go ahead and add that in too.
I think the important thing though is to keep it extremely straightforward and fast. For example, my color picker is fullscreen:
(Notice that the color circle is offset from the point of origin - this is so that you can see it even when you're using a stylus. It also offsets from the edges of the screen so the whole color circle is always visible.) (also the red/white circle is the color you currently have selected (in case you want to choose a color "near" your current selection, it makes it easier to target.)
You can switch to the color picker at any time with a single button press and it's all calculated in advance so it loads instantly.
Of course if you're already painting you can just use the eyedropper tool to grab other colors (already added, works fine):
(Cyan is where the mouse is, it is drawing the circle live over the picture as you mouse around so that you can see better which color you've chosen.)
Having the color picker be fullscreen makes it less distracting (it clearly serves one purpose) and also much easier to choose a precise color quickly and accurately (remember our Pandora screen's gonna be quite small, and if it's fullscreen you can't accidentally click on something else.)
As I've mentioned in other threads I strive for the most efficient UI possible when I design a program (from a human interface standpoint, NOT from a computational standpoint) so once I get a pandora and this thing is testable I'll hopefully be able to get some usability input from y'all as well.
Oh and to answer your question, the pressure controlling the brush / opacity dynamically (and being able to toggle them) sure, that's easy, and I agree it's a critical feature. I'll add it in with the transparent brushes. I just didn't specifically mention it but it'll be there soon.
I will also add in the sliders for the brush and opacity. In fact I'll probably just tie these sliders to an analog stick too so you can use either an on-screen slider or just nudge it with the analog stick (since your thumb will be by it anyway, probably, if you're holding it.) I'll probably add mouse / analog panning as well, so you can use whatever's easier.
Brush support is something that should just be natively included (since I'm going to be using images as the brushes anyway so you can just make your own images.) The problem with that is that the playback of the files may not work then if you don't have the original brushes. I'll figure that out later, either have it say "i can't play this back without the proper brushes" or just play it back but with a generic brush in place of the custom one (but then the final image would look different.)
Anyway, off to bed. More tomorrow. (I'm extra-productive right now because I'm deathly ill and I'm having to sit at home all day and watch movies anyway.)
