Re: [Tuxpaint-users] Tux Paint 0.9.21 beta 3 for Windows XP/2000/Vista/7

[Bill K. <nb...@so...>]

On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 10:19:18AM -0700, henry taylor wrote:
> Is there any way to improve the edge defining functions across the spectrum
> of Tux Magic tools? Especially when used with STAMPS. (which have a mask
> that defines the edge I believe)

I had to read the above a few times, but I think you're asking for this:

  visible feedback that tells you where (on the canvas, and in relation
  to the mouse pointer's current position) a Magic tool will be effective.

(e.g., for most of them, it'd be a circle with 16px diameter, for some it
wouldn't necessarily apply)

I think this would be benefecial, both for the Magic tools for which it
would apply, as well as for the Paint and Line tool.  It's certainly
not something, though, that I'd feel confident in adding to the code
right before the forthcoming release.  (And it's stuff like this that
makes me want to rewrite Tux Paint from scratch. :) )


In terms of a 'mask', Stamp masks are actually defined by their alpha
transparency (the alpha channel for each pixel in PNG images,
or the inherent transparency of 'parts of the internal drawing surface
that weren't drawn on when we rendered the stamp', in the case of SVG images).

> My basic test of viability is using the fill tool and hope the image retains
> coherency.


I'll try to address the following comments.  Most of these will sound
like excuses, and they are. :)  We had quite a plethora of new Magic tools
submitted, mostly initially from the 3 months of work done during
last year's Google Summer of Code program.  In many cases, I've found the
tools only just barely suitable, but as this is an open source project,
the code is available and ready for improvement through an iterative
process.  (i.e., people like you try it out and say "that's not very good,"
and then improve it.)

In fact, a number of GSOC-submitted Magic tools were improved a great deal,
prior to these beta releases.  (e.g., the interface for the Rails tool
made almost no sense, and completely failed during click-and-drag input,
but now works incredibly well, in my opinion).

We have Pere Pujal i Carabantes (who first joined the project as a
translator) for many of these.  (If I were to dedicate releases, this
would be the "Pere" release. [*])

> A silhouette is two colors and a positive negative shape
> relationship (like the button)... not grey lines on a black
> field. If I could fill the outer space with white it would be a two
> step process to achieve a silhouette and still useful...  but hand
> painting a reliable edge especially without magnification of a area
> is durn frustrating.



> A cartoon or coloring book image is a black line around spaces which
> can be actually filled...like on the starter images... making the
> black line another pixel or so wider might be a big help so long as
> the fill barrier had no gaps. I can show my kids how to clean up the
> black line if it has a bunch of little spots in it a bunch of gaps
> is much harder and produces less satisfactory outcomes.


> I do love the new apply to entire image feature. You could add it to
> a lot of other magic tools too



> a few seeming oddities:
> 
> The Rails magic is topographic and unrelated to the elevation view
> of the train cartoons in Stamps or to the isometric use of rails in
> the mine stamp... some alignment allowing features to match up would
> be very welcome

I agree.  I'd like to see Rails extended for creating pipes and other
interconnecting shapes, as well.


> Real Rainbow is not all that "real" OR aligned to science and art
> education or the sequence: Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Violet... no
> big pink space at the bottom... it looks more like a poor
> photograph.

Aww :(  I've thought about creating an alternate that uses a solid
ROYGBIV gradient, rather than what we have now -- which is, in fact,
based on a photograph of a real rainbow.


> I'm still trying to get a Picasso cubist effect or anything Picasso
> like out of "Picasso" I even try to draw the image shown on the
> Button with no luck what so ever.

I'm more than willing to rename that Tool.  I'm not sure why it was given
the name 'Picasso' to begin with, but I'm not an art historian.

Someone else came back later and created the icon for the tool, and
I did have the thought "it doesn't really _draw_ like that."

So perhaps we should change either:

  * the name and icon
  * the icon, if we can decide that the tool results relate in any way
    to anything Picasso had done
  * the code in the tool, to make it draw more like what the button shows


> Tux's Mosaic is more a very soft fine gravel mosaic texture with no
> sense of tiles which characterize the technique AND the Mosiac
> Button icon. Many Mosaic tiles are square... the random shape is
> more a post-Gaudi and modern style. A scaling slider could help with
> tiles too

*sigh*  Yes, Mosaic is kind of a side-effect tool.  The student who created
a few other tools decided that if they mixed them together (applied a few
of the other tools he was working on).  I agree that it doesn't look
like a real mosaic, but it's pretty close.

I'd love to see it replaced by something similar to what The GIMP has.

  http://www.fotothing.com/photos/452/452160e2bb9acbee8bed8697e2399ea9.jpg

Especially if we could 'paint' with it.


> Remember some of us are Art Teachers and it is hard to teach a
> concept if the software doesn't support it very well. All I have is
> a computer lab now... no traditional media studio left.

Understood.  Fortunately, it's relatively easy to disable the tools
that one finds objectionable.  (Just move or remove the .so/.dll)


> Giving Rain magic additional colors to play with could produce leaf
> and feather texture... I'm sure the boys would discover
> possibilities of blood.

Indeed.


> Flip and Mirror are good BUT can we get a ROTATE? (like the Shapes
> feature rotates) (Rain at a 45 degree angle!)

Sure, just needs to be programmed.  We'd need to consider what to do
about Starter images, the edges of the picture (use background color,
tile the rotated image?).  We don't provide a lot of UI (on purpose)
for making some of these choices, so we need to pick something that
makes the most sense.


> The Magic menu is now rather long... is it time to do what was done
> in Stamps menu and add a left right arrows and multiple Magic menus?

I've been thinking of this.  Allow Magic tools provide their own
group names.  Tools from completely different plugins could be grouped
together, so long as the plugin creators use an identical grouping ID.
(e.g., Mirror, Flip and the proposed Rotate could all go into a
'transformations' group)  The group names wouldn't need to be exposed
to the users, they'd just be used internally.


> Any way of getting a script or plugin for Adobe that will in
> Photoshop, Gimp, or Paint Shop convert a Tux image or MS Paint image
> into a simple stamp just by running it and saving it as a PNG?

I don't have the skills or resources to do this, but I'd love to see it.

(Also, if you hadn't noticed, I finally made it possible to simply
create a black-and-white line drawing as a Starter, and Tux Paint will
notice that the image lacks any kind of transparency, and so then decide
to use white for transparent.  So you can just draw something in Tux Paint
or MS Paint or whatever, save it as a PNG, and then use it like a coloring
book inside Tux Paint...  no more loading it into Photoshop, Paintshop Pro,
GIMP or Infranview and mucking with it first.)


> I've made stamps using Paint Shop but the transparency is
> unreliable... I do not always need all the data features... or extra
> files. I've occasionally got useful stamps with Paint Shop..just not
> sure why not reliably or frequently.  Been a year or more since I
> played with the attempt tho. Don't remember what I was doing.

It'd be useful to see the PNGs you got from PaintShop Pro to figure out
what you (or we) are doing wrong.  If you have difficulty again in the
future, pass them along to me.


> Thanks, and keep up the good work!

Thanks for all your feedback!  Good to know we have at least one
art teacher on this list! :)  (Anyone else out here?)


[*] 0.9.20 would've been the "Caroline Ford" release, if I recall my
    thoughts from a year ago.  The first version that included the Smudge
    tool would've been the "Albert Cahalan" one.  And one of the earlier
    releases that supported localization properly would've been the
    "Karl Ove Hufthammer" release. :^) )

-- 
-bill!
Sent from my computer