Features suggestions...

Share your suggestions & ideas for BlackInk
fuzz1
 
Posts: 3
Joined: 10 Sep 2013, 19:33

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby fuzz1 » 10 Sep 2013, 19:55

hello, there I'd just purchased on steam.

i would like to suggest a new features that would increase greatly the possibilities of this software.


Animation Layout :

Image
click to enlarge

the animation node controller.


You must to set a global animation node into the BRUSH PARAMETERS, so a section named "Animation" would be added here. (1)

ANIMATION FRAMER (2)

here you set the number of frame


GLOBAL ANIMATION MODIFIER (3)

some animation modifiers should added here like
i think about a sort of graph editor with bezier curve linked to the frame time line and parented to some various effects (flicker, oscillator).


Animation Layer (4)

conditions : one stroke by layer
animation layers are floating layers and for performance purpose, the layer are not the full resolution of the document but just a box that contain the stroke and you can use the transformation tool on it.

The brush Stroke must to be editable, like into the brush preview.


Preview Animation (5)
this is just a button that play the animation on the canvas.

Mutable animation layer : (6)
to prevent playing the animation into the preview.


an example of animation node controller : ( 7)

now a short video of what can be done on the stroke as animation.




Thousand of effects could be produced by that, like fluid animation, particle effect like animated smoke, beams lightning and the list is so long.

Imagine I have a background image which you want to animate just few component, of your illustration,
and maybe adding animated lightning to apply on your static background like thunder effect that increase the power of a static illustration.

it would be really good to create sort of animated sprite that could be use in game production.
it would be also good to create such of animated comic for tablet, where you can interact with the drawing, and watch some animated stuff.

well I 'd really hope to see that in black ink.

Annoying stuff with the zooming:
1. "Z" hotkey for zoom doesn't works for me. i am using an french keyboard (azerty)

2. The zoom tool on the top left corner is difficult to use.
With my wacom intuos 4 i reach the border of my tablet when I am zooming out , and I have to repeat the action like 5 times to be at 10%.

Nicolas
:desperate:

danielharmsen
 
Posts: 4
Joined: 11 Sep 2013, 15:20

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby danielharmsen » 12 Sep 2013, 11:49

I already posted this in another thread as a thought that it was a bug, its about opening the .bkd file : viewtopic.php?f=7&t=242

I noticed that when you press the minimize/maximize screen option and you try to go to the maximized version, blackink does not go to fullscreen (the windows task bar remains visable).

To try and make clever use of the options for the controllers I missed something/found some odd things:

signals:
value - generates a constant signal at a selected value.

operators:
step - ? how does this work, from what I know of it is that a step is a switch that increases from 0 to 1 at time=0(or perhaps at a user defined time). This would put it under signals, not operators.
gate - If you want to stop a signal until another parameter x reaches a certain value.

stroke parameters:
time - it is very frustrating that you cannot set a value where the parameter you use it for reaches it's maximum (assuming you start at the lowest value of the parameter).

general:
I find myself using a LOT of exp and power relations just to get in the correct signal size range where the signal affects the parameter in a noticable way. As with time I would like to be able to set the minimum and maximum range value, so I can more accurately see the effect on the brush instead of just obtaining the maximum or minimum value with no clue as to what transformation or the signal itself is causing it. A min/max line may also help in the small graphs.

Edit: Is the rotation parameter broken? No mater how I try to change it, no effect with the default pencil/brush.

User avatar
ben-o
 
Posts: 121
Joined: 11 Jun 2012, 10:41

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby ben-o » 12 Sep 2013, 18:26

danielharmsen:
Some thoughts about some of your points:

Opening a file via windows does not work, this is a missing feature we'll work on it.

The step operator is actually a comparison operator. It returns 1 when A is above B and 0 when it's under.

Gate: Interesting, would have to look into this kind of result. I usually manage to get the other value to 0 so it cancels the first one with a simple multiply.

Time: This is a raw value, the parameter will hit its max value after one second (I believe, it's fixed anyway). You just have to multiply to slow it down. Time*0.5 will take twice as much time to reach the max value of the parameter.

Tip: It can be hard to see what the operator does that's true. We have UI improvements planned for the editor but in the meantime, drawing a clean and progressive preview in the panel on the right can help because the curves on the blocks are generated from this single stroke.

Rotation: First, be sure to have a non-round brush with a square shape or by modifying the scales parameters. Then it should work without controllers when tweaking the parameter and if you are plugging controllers be sure to set some range because the default value is 0 to 0 in some brushes and that won't do anything.

hope that answers some of your questions !

danielharmsen
 
Posts: 4
Joined: 11 Sep 2013, 15:20

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby danielharmsen » 13 Sep 2013, 12:40

ben-o wrote:danielharmsen:
Some thoughts about some of your points:

The step operator is actually a comparison operator. It returns 1 when A is above B and 0 when it's under.

Gate: Interesting, would have to look into this kind of result. I usually manage to get the other value to 0 so it cancels the first one with a simple multiply.

Time: This is a raw value, the parameter will hit its max value after one second (I believe, it's fixed anyway). You just have to multiply to slow it down. Time*0.5 will take twice as much time to reach the max value of the parameter.

Rotation: First, be sure to have a non-round brush with a square shape or by modifying the scales parameters. Then it should work without controllers when tweaking the parameter and if you are plugging controllers be sure to set some range because the default value is 0 to 0 in some brushes and that won't do anything.


Thanks for clearing up how a few controllers work, I'm used to different more math oriented programs (new to drawing artwork) and the definitions used here are quite different. This is the main reason that I missed a constant value signal, and logic operators for that matter.

Might I suggest that more of these details are clarified in tooltips or the help functionality, because I could write quite a long list with questions about the controllers.

I also noticed something odd about the direction parameter, it's not in a unit indicating angle. Is this by choice? I was initially under the impression that the direction parameter was in radians (or degrees) starting at 0/360 degrees for motion to the right, 90 for above, 180 for left etc.

Are there plans to implement a tool which allows you to make a shape, or part of it(i.e. you make 1/4th, or 1/n th of a shape and it is automatically mirrored/rotated to make the whole shape if you choose so)?

If you want I could name a couple other controller related parameters/functions I don't see in the list.

Daniël Harmsen

pfc
 
Posts: 1
Joined: 14 Sep 2013, 13:01

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby pfc » 14 Sep 2013, 20:46

A few suggestions from my side (interaction designer / generative artist / programmer):

The kind-of-node-based system for creating brushes is a great idea. However, I immediately wished for some things:
  • seeing number parameters in the graph - e.g. there should be a "number" or "float" box which just shows a value and can be connected to Inputs
  • exposing such number parameters to the brush settings, means that the essential parameters of a brush could be changed without changing the graph, but from the outside (parameter would be saveable with the brush file like that)
  • it should be possible to directly connect stuff to the brush parameters. Right now, to change from "this graph controls opacity" to "this graph controls thickness" requires to save and reload the settings, it would be much easier to just connect the graph to the other parameter. (This implies one big graph with many outputs instead of a single graph for every output like now)
  • it should be possible to connect an output to more than one input. This could happen automatically if a second output is connected to an input (some graphic way to reflect that). As the software evolves and more parameters get added and graphs get more complex, this will be essential.

Multi-stroke brushes and the possibility to change the brush positioning from a graph are in R&D as I saw, otherwise they would be added here as well :).

Also, there is quite a lack of documentation... I had to figure out for myself that all graph outputs are between 0 and 1 and all calculations are based on that. It felt quite strange that "Color" is a 0 to 1 output until I figured out that this does a lookup into the gradient (which is a nice idea).

ale
 
Posts: 33
Joined: 11 Sep 2013, 17:51

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby ale » 15 Sep 2013, 00:01

Am i the only one who doesn't like the windows icon? The program has a such good loading, nice interface, nice fonts colour... but the icon very poor >:)
It's only imho anyway, i can easily make my own icon so there is no problem but i was just curios :)

uktapes
 
Posts: 1
Joined: 16 Sep 2013, 03:46

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby uktapes » 16 Sep 2013, 05:11

hey guys, newbie to forum, supported on steam's greenlight.

Just wondering, are you planning on improving the colour selection process somewhere down the line?
i find it extremely fiddly and slower than it needs to be to select a new colour or to get the colour i want from your current menu system. I imagine like most people using a stylus, i find it difficult to get the precision i need, especially as i've only a small wacom bamboo pad. i've seen "Artrage 4"'s colour selection and i know there's a lot of different directions you guys want to go, with gradient and image based colour, but i find the current process could be improved a little. here's two suggestions to help just speed up the process a little.

Advanced Colour Picker Suggestion:

As it stands, Ctrl + Left-Click = Colour picker.

suggestion 1, Ctrl + Left-Click (held for 1second) = new colour context menu relating to selected colour.

by keeping your mouse held down and, moving the cursor in a certain direction would alter the colour.
up/down = lighter/darker, left/right decrease/increase saturation.
release to confirm selection.

Alternatively, Ctrl + Shift + Left-Click = bring up a colour picker with a 4 way commo-rose around it. for brightness/hue/saturation/save-to-palette options

i believe this would significantly speed up my workflow, and i'm sure other would agree.

2, Custom palette. (would love a floating one)

First thing i do when i paint is get my palette sorted, what ever colours i will be using this session in order to create a consistent image.
this is not easy to do in the current build of BlackInk because A, there is currently no feathered brush, (current build) B, you cannot move a layer out of your way (current build), only toggle it off and on, so once i get my palette, it can be in the wrong part of the image i'm working on, and i'll have to zoom out to find it, or toggle off the layer to work beneath it.

but what instead would be a really nice feature, is if black ink mixed my palette for me. Perhaps a menu similar to brush window which used my swatches and mixed them into each other for me. Up to, say, five/six at a time, but also allowed me to quickly disable/enable them individually and automatically blended them, then i could use my colour picker to blitz through my colour selection.

concept sketch:
Image

each of the circles represents a swatch, left clicking on one brings up the colour picker menu allowing me to hotswap a colour for blending. right clicking would disable the swatch and instead make an X formation and blend the colours of the remaining four swatches, likewise, right clicking again, would make a triangle of blended swatches.

and personally, i would love it to be a floating toolbar so i can have this right next to the area i'm working on.


Well, that's my suggestions guys, if you're still reading this, thanks for reading this far.
Regards Matthew.

p.s. you guys rock!

cydt
 
Posts: 8
Joined: 14 Sep 2013, 14:20

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby cydt » 16 Sep 2013, 12:26

I'd like to see a custom brush parameter option. Because the brush controllers rely heavily on calculations, it'll often be the case that some number is treated as a constant over multiple controller nodes.

For example, if I want to make a nice star shaped brush with X corners, the number X is probably going to be used in multiple nodes. Currently the only way is to manually enter X in a couple of nodes, and if someone wants to make a star with Y corners, they need to manually replace X with Y in all nodes.

It would be much easier if I could specify "number of corners" as a custom parameter for this brush, and then use this single value as input to my nodes, so then one only has to change the value in one place. It would be even nicer if this would create a slider in the brush shape to change it on the fly :)

abalone
 
Posts: 17
Joined: 16 Sep 2013, 07:24

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby abalone » 16 Sep 2013, 16:23

There needs to be a fail-safe for accidental brush and layer deletion. Misclicking on the devious omnipresent bin icon neither spawns a confirmation dialog nor is susceptible to ctrl+z, which is rather bumming.

User avatar
ben-o
 
Posts: 121
Joined: 11 Jun 2012, 10:41

Re: Features suggestions...

Postby ben-o » 16 Sep 2013, 21:17

I'm going for some big chained answers so please bear with me!

Daniel:

The trick is to understand the flow we have going there. We're not building a brush from the ground up, we're only controlling (hence the name) values that are already set in the right hand panel. So we first define their min and max and then we're telling them how to behave between them with 0 to 1 values, which we get from the user inputs. So nothing's constant, it's just how we can modify what the user do to control the parameter.

Better tooltips and explanations are needed, totally agree on that. And for your long list of questions, please post it in the 'brush making' section of the forum! I'll be happy to answer and this will really help us identify what is not clear enough and needs to be more user friendly so please go ahead.

The direction input is indeed tricky. We do know this is a lot of unnecessary hassle but here's how it works: the direction comes as degrees. Now an output in the controllers only take a 0 to 1 value so you need to set your parameter to 0 to 360 and divide the input direction by 360 so that 1 equals 360 in the parameter. That really is a strange back and forth calculation, we already take a note to make the input from 0 to 1 so that becomes much more straightforward.

I don't get your next question about shapes.. can you reformulate maybe?

Next question, missing functions you expect and don't find, yes, please list them.

Pfc:

On constants: for the time being you can input values manually withing the parameters of the blocks like multiply for example. When you don't plug anything into the input you can type the number. Now yes constant blocks will eventually be needed as the system evolves.

Exposed parameters: Yes, totally yes. I personally insist on that :)

Next, It's really not likely we'll make that kind of changes in the editor but if it's only for copy purposes, what we are planning first is a simple copy-paste for selections of blocks. That should really help moving things around between parameters outputs.

On multiple outputs for block branches. Very interesting but much changes to our editor.. maybe just as said before exposed parameters could help? but very good point indeed.

And finally documentation well yeah. Tried to explain in the tutorials but maybe not precisely enough. working on that!

uktapes:

Okay first, moving a layer content around is coming, that's some basic missing feature don't worry.

You're also not the first one who'd like a permanent floating color palette so we'll definitely thinking about that.

Now about those color variation, this is a very interesting tool to think about. This would be like a quick shift toward basic variations right? like from this color I pick, a quick access for more or less saturation, more or less value and such? very nice idea, I was in fact wondering how we could improve color selection myself and this could be a very good start, thanks!

cydt:

Just like discussed with pfc above, I confirm this is a very natural and obvious evolution of the controller graphs as brushes become more and more complex, definitely coming.

abalone:

Layer deletion is cancelable but brush deletion is not, that's right. The problem is that it actually erases a file from your hard drive so that's not the same. I'm making a note right now and we'll see if we can do something (but for actual file deletion as it is, I really can't promise anything)

PreviousNext

Return to Suggestions