Eraser size

[Paul Fierlinger]

Ah, thank you, Elodie. Now I get it and yes, this is clever, except I need more latitude to add pressure into my thin drawing line and vary the thickness of my line as I draw -- very similar to an old fashioned dippy ink pen (or crow's feather ).

This very useful debate just shows how much we all differ in our drawing ways but I still maintain my agreement with Peter's position that TVP needs a standard erase tool with a standard eraser icon. Otherwise, why even have an airbrush or oil brush or mechanical pencil, when they all are basically just the airbrush to begin with. Then when someone starts using TVP and asks for a pencil and eraser we give the standard answer: Use the airbrush, which will open another debate of how we each turn the airbrush into our favorite drawing and eraser tools.

My son is the chief designer of a large New Zealand software company, and he just recently told me that his endless motto for good design is, Make Everything Obvious which makes the issue of this thread quite obvious.

[Peter Wassink]

An other option is to use the "Swap stylus tips" shortcut available in version 10.5.
So you can use your pencil on one of your stylus tips and your eraser (with a different size if you want) on the other one and switch from on to the other with a single shortcut.

With that solution and most others is that you still need to click again to get your initial drawing tool back after an erase.
With the rocker switch this is different, it erases as long as you keep it pressed and then when you release, you are back to drawing.

This special push-button action (= the erase mode is active for as long as the button is being pushed) is only provided by the pen rocker switch, and the mousebuttons
other keys act like toggles ( press once - the state changes, press again - the state changes back ) and always need to be pressed again to return to start state.

it may seem like nitpicking but in the drawing workflow its a big difference.

[Elodie]

With that solution and most others is that you still need to click again to get your initial drawing tool back after an erase.

Not anymore with 10.5. The both stylus' tips are considered like 2 different tools, so you don't have to configure again your drawing brush when you switch the tips.

[Paul Fierlinger]

It turns out I've been using this all along while thinking I was using a plugin

Here's how you use it:
Assign Swap Stylus Tips to any keyboard key.
Select a drawing tool with size and color and draw.
Press your keyboard key again and do the same with an eraser -- I actually selected the eraser to have a hot pink color assigned to it.

Now test what you have:
With your drawing tool make a a large glob of black.
Press your bottom rocker to use the eraser. First, the hot pink will confirm that you are indeed in eraser mode, and then erase.

But Elodie, as nicely as this works as a home grown Swap tool, it still does not do what Pater and I are asking for, which is that applying pressure on the bottom rocker swaps you to your fat pink eraser. It does what it always does, erases in the same size of your drawing tool. If I am missing something here, I am eager to learn what that is. I have my Wacom pen set to "Application defined. Should it be set to my erase keystroke..... ? ....... I'll be right back.....

[Paul Fierlinger]

Yay! It works the way we want it, Peter. Do what I described in the previous post and in addition to that, set your Wacom pen's bottom rocker to Wacom's menu "Eraser" and there I have it; my hot pink eraser (BTW in defference to Elodie )

[Elodie]

my hot pink eraser (BTW in defference of Elodie )

Ow you

[Paul Fierlinger]

Gee
But now there's one more step TVP should go to, which is turn the oil brush tool in the Tool Panel into an eraser by default, adorned with an icon of an eraser. I now have that oil brush set to something between my pencil thin line and fat eraser, which turns out to be just right for me for most drawing situations. This is the part that most TVP users should end up doing within their ERASER tool. Such a small and easy to program change, isn't it?

[Peter Wassink]

Yay! It works the way we want it, Peter. Do what I described in the previous post and in addition to that, set your Wacom pen's bottom rocker to Wacom's menu "Eraser" and there I have it; my hot pink eraser (BTW in defference to Elodie )

Yeehaaa!
Paul i love your terrier like attitude! you cracked it
X Thank you!

i will spread the word
this was a request from many people!

[Paul Fierlinger]

Mindless courage, that's the definition of a Jack Russell terrier. One caveat: After you close TVP and come back again, it is possible that you will have to reset your pen tip. It's simple though:
Punch your swap tool and pick your favorite pen; punch your swap key again and select your favorite eraser. THEN Punch back to PEN, so that you are back in your swap mode and work away. Each time you press your bottom rocker switch you will have your eraser.

This soon becomes second nature and there's nothing to it -- but it helps to be a terrier.

EDIT: If you want to switch to a different pen, do it only in your pen mode and the same goes to switching to a different size eraser -- always do these switches in the proper mode, otherwise you'll create confusion.

[Elodie]

Actually, when you are using the "Eraser" function from Wacom, you are using the "Swap Stylus Tip" function in TVPaint (like if you were using the other tip on your stylus).

We noticed a bug when you use Swap Stylus Tip : it does not remind the configuration of your second tip each time you restart TVPaint. By default, it's a pen brush with size = 5. So even if you configure it as an Oil brush with size = 50, when you restart TVPaint, the Pen brush is back again.

It's in our "to fix list"

[Paul Fierlinger]

Each new day brings TVP closer to absolute perfection.

[Elodie]

[Lukas]

Still no eraser tool TVPaint?

Then when someone starts using TVP and asks for a pencil and eraser we give the standard answer: Use the airbrush, which will open another debate of how we each turn the airbrush into our favorite drawing and eraser tools.

!!!!!!
Thanks so much Paul, I never thought of using the airbrush tool (which I never ever need) as an erase tool!
Now finally my pen size and eraser size aren't bound together anymore.

Great!

[Paul Fierlinger]

And now do you know of the second best secret in TVP, the auto tracker that automatically colors or creates the changes you make on the original frame? In other words, if you make copies of a certain frame, all instances of that copy are automatically adjusted to those changes?

[masterchief]

swap stylus tips is GREAT addition to tvpaint!!!
the upper rocker on the stylus toggles between paint and erase.. works great. the press and holding the lower rocker erases, release the lower rocker and it paints. NOTE: toggling the upper rocker also toggles action of lower rocker, basically determines what happens when you keep lower rocker pressed. I never really liked using the rocker buttons much and akways kept them disabled. The swap stylus features has now changed my feelings about using them.

EDIT: wacom stylus settings - upper rocker switch is set to tvpaint keybd shortcut for swap stylus tips, whereas lower rocker switch is disabled