Feature requests

I first want to say as a new member of the forum that I love the way Verve Painter feels when painting with it. I do however have some ideas... some of which have almost certainly been suggested before, but here is my wishlist if you will.

1. Brush engine:
-Correct me if I am wrong here but there is no spacing adjustment for color stamping interval?
-variable randomization options for: spacing, jitter, angle, Hue, Saturation, Brightness & opacity. basically helpful for more or less auto-stippling

2. Guides:
-I really like the perspective grid/box you've implemented. One of the most intuitive implementations I have seen I would love to see a way to constrain strokes to it as a guide. I would
also love to see concentric circle/oval guides for illustration purposes. Possibly even a french curve. Actually all the guide options in Manga Studio are pretty cool if you are familiar.

3. layer masking

4. A dedicated hotkey possibly [SHIFT+S] for blending with the smoothest brush as opposed to currently selected brush. Obviously the simplest request so far. Just a matter of convenience.
Oh, and a hotkey quick-reference popup would be of great help to new users, maybe F1 to be consistent as a help menu of sorts.

5. Some way to either load an external image or a reference image holder, or maybe even an opacity slider for the gui so that you can see images behind it. When you're working on a laptop
with only one screen, some way to look at references while painting is pretty useful when painting something specific and representational.

6. A way to turn bump off for the brush rather than the entire layer... unless I've just missed that option. I admit I am not yet expert with Verve Painter so be patient if I missed something
obvious... I have already done some lovely work with the application though. It's very fun for Bob Ross-like painting.

7. I doubt it's worth mentioning, but more brushes period. I know they are proceedural and I know it doesn't use images as stamps, maybe it could do something similar by converting a black and white image to vector or something. This might me the most involved/difficult to implement suggestion. It would be a cool 1st though... as far as I am aware. I'm not even sure if this is possible, but would there be a way to add particle brushes. It would be pretty trippy to watch the fluid run around with particle brushes. The resource load might choke my laptop though...lol

Again... love the software and thank you so much for making it available to play with. I have fun playing with mischief due to the near infinite detail, but I really miss smudge, smear and blending brushes. Verve comes through in spades though.

Oh I forgot one thing. Is there a way to get brush ghosting of the proceedural part of the brushes for more precise control over stroke placement? Just more intuitive that way for me... the ghosting can switch off after mouse down because it'd be insane to have it follow the random variations, but then reappear on mouse up.

[Taron]

Hey TGE, welcome to the forum, first of all!

A whole bunch of your requests are already in the upcoming version. I don't think I will have layer masking just yet, though, but we shall see.
- Guides are part of the plan for a while (as in since I wrote the grid, which was before I released Verve altogether, haha). But I still have to hook those up.
- I'm still just considering the custom hotkey implementation that will come, but I'm not sure, if it will be ready for the next version already.
- Help function for offline info will come, too.
- Brushes will be infinite, so.... "more brushes" will be your thing to make!
However, it may still be something very different to what you're used to, since I'm pursuing a more logical approach to brush- and cursor handling. I'm not entirely sure, yet. I will still have to implement controlled spacing as it presently is merely based on your refresh rate and not on any fixed distance. In my engine this is a little bit more challenging, because I don't go the easy route of waiting for specific distances for it to draw another step, which makes most paint apps so stuttering and choppy. But I have planned for these options as I've already got them partially implemented in the one new brush (image brush) that's about to come.
Hmmm...that one is actually just temporarily "new" as all brushes will be new by the time I release the next run. I'm reworking the brush engine from its root.

I know, this may be a strange thing to ask, but I think it's a good idea for you to look at Verve as a new medium, rather than trying to squeeze it into a shape you're familiar with. Yes, yes, I know, it's a bad thing to ask as a developer, as this sounds like I'm lazy not to reproduce the popular commercial apps so you can get a version of them for free, haha, possibly a better one?!? ...but still, consider developing a feel for the nature of Verve, which will always be different.

I still dig your suggestions and see nothing wrong with any of them, except that slight tendency, you know, that's why I said the above. Really just a tiny tendency, so don't get alarmed, please!

Again, welcome and show us what'cha got, too!!!

Oh... I am all good with non-standard apps. I used Satori Paint way back. The GUI was back asswards, but the concept was cool. I see your issues with spacing control, but I do hope some sort of similar feature gets added. It's not that I am not very greatful for Verve as is. This was merely an if I had my druthers list. Mostly because, I'd love it if I never had to leave Verve Painter for my 2D art. These are all features I have found to save me time. As far as simply painting goes. Verve provides the most realistic experience I've had on the computer with the right settings. I have most known raster based art programs for windows. I'm also a zBrush fan which lots of people hate for it's GUI. The thing is... If the features I need are there... I will jump through GUI hoops or whatever in order to learn them. Honestly, your software is a pleasure to use so far and I may very well find alternative methods and time savers when I nail down the use of all the commands. I also have PD Howler by Dan Ritchie if you're familiar... he's a little bit of a non-conformist himself with his software. There are some really fun things in it you won't find in any standard paint app though. I think I will be picking up Lazy Nezumi soon which will actually solve some of the guide features I want externally. That app is starting to get interesting itself, and they recommend Verve Painter on their site.

I still think a hotkey cheat sheet would be good. especially if it had a dynamic portion that displayed custom hotkeys as well... in case you're like me and occationally forget your own hotkey... lol

By the way, can you export the color/bump map seperately.... Would be fun to take into Zbrush and mess with in 3D sculpting the paintings as well. When high res color 3D printers become common... the world of digital art will be very interesting.

At any rate thank you for taking the time to respond... I'll see about posting some art here soon hopefully... slightly delerious at the moment though... lol

[Taron]

They WHAT? Hahaha, that's awesome!!!
I didn't know. Here I weather against advertising paid apps here, but I should pull myself together, I guess.

Yes, you can export components color and "bump" (material layer). Both as 16bit png, which Zbrush doesn't like, but you can convert those in PS. Hit [ctrl]+[shift]+[s] to save components. It will create two png files automatically with a suffix "_col" and "_mat". But all this is temporary and I'll do my best to get more sophisticated with file matters.
Verve is fantastic to create alphas/textures for all 3d apps, actually. I've used it on projects already to create bump(displacement)+alpha maps for foliage. Just a pleasure!

Felt like I've heard about PD Howler, but it just might sound familiar, even his name. Anyway, I really would love to come up with an interface that will feel comfortable pretty quickly and not send one on a tangent like Zbrush, hahahaha, man...that drove me nuts. But not just because of the interface, but the labeling of things. (Tool = object?!)
Also, I'll do my very best never to have anyone wonder how to save or load anything! That's the most stressful thing for any user, I think, if you can't figure out how to do that.

Maybe I should bundle with lazy nezumi, hahahaha!
Anyway, stuff is coming! And I hope you'll use your delirium to make some psychedelic art in the meantime!!!

Oh, also, have a closer look at the docs, you might find some interesting things for you! [tab] to hide interface, for example.