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Hi TV Paint devs and all,

I'm hope I'm not too late during the development of the next build of TV Paint, but I have a couple of suggestions ask for you to consider, with explination for them of course. It's a follow up to the requests I made last year in May that I failed to mention at the time, but here goes...

TOOLS:
Free Transform Tool with spline distortion
Currently as it stands, when using the free transform tool, the entire layer is gridded with micro nodes to pull and distort the work. However, coming from Photoshop, Clip studio paint, Procreate, Affinity, etc, this is the only application I know of that pins the transformation in a geometric pull, which causes the selection to not distort very cleanly (very pointy) and actually drag the entire layer in a slippery way. I'm sure that in its current state that there is niche cases for its use, but would it be possible to either incorporate a spline control feature like almost every other art application, or if an entirely new tool could be invented to coexist with the current tool. This makes correcting posing a much easier task rather than having to switch to another app to do the job or redrawing/restarting the drawings again.

Magic Color Erasers modification
These tools are so darn game changing, which I why I only draw on TV Paint, although there's a bit of a hiccup with the opacity settings. I want to aim for creating an action in my custom panel where I am essentially changing the size and the opacity, except when changing the opacity, this turns the tool into a default brush, not an eraser with specific color erasing. This may be a bug, or perhaps I'm missing something here. I merely ask this because I cross my contours over each other with the RBG colors rather than make lots of layers, and then erase 90% of said colour to have a micro xray vision through forms without entirely erasing them.

A hotkey for changing opacity levels
Having to manually change the opacity each time I'm drawing and switching tools is a bit of a nascence. Could you introduce some new shortcuts to immediately alter the opacity to a certain level. Kind of like how Photoshop and Affinity can go from 10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90/100% with a single click of the number keys.

Guideline: Symmetry
This is an incredible feature within Procreate, Affinity and most established in Clip Studio Paint. All the applications listed however have one thing against them. They are dirt-slow in contrast to the engine of TV Paint, and have clumsy guideline management. TV Paint's guideline system is the cleanest I've ever used, and it would be truly appreciated if a flexible symmetry guideline feature could be implemented, with a meter to adjust how many symmetry star lines are present. Being able to select an area with its mirrored reflection(s) also being selected at the same time destined to go on the same reflected coordinates as the original area selected, as well having the option to disable the mirrored selection feature if need be (for cases such as edits).

Liquify Tool
Being able to morph an entire layer with brush stroke input, pushing and pulling the pixels into something custom warped. A nice quality of life improvement for correcting poses, bending gesture and background reshaping.


TIMELINE:
Keyframe nodes within the camera layer
If the layer is at all modified when extending or reducing its length, the camera motion goes off time which can mess up the planned positioning. So sort of like how After Effects manages its nodes, could there perhaps be a similar system to better keep the camera under control, considering that the camera is the only tool to my understanding that has this much flexibility with real-time non-destructive modifications where as every other FX or modification requires a baked render.

Gradient Mapping
In terms of coloring in background and illustrations, I personally work from values then turning them into colors, except each and every time, I have to abandon TV Paint to an application that supports gradient mapping, which is where essentially you can assign a color to modify itself to with an invented gradient to alter the values underneath it, leaving the image destructive-less and having the greatest control with color management and customization. I know that the tool Line Color and Line Color Enhanced is essentially this, except this isn't working with gradients, only single spot colors - and it is a destructive FX rather than a layer mode. If this couldn't be possible for a layer feature, could it be possible as an FX in the color section? Turning selected flat colors to become unique gradient to be assigned to B/W gradients.

Assigning Guidelines to layers
Having the option to assign a guideline to a layer, so that when the layer is moving via the panning or transform tool, the guideline follows it, preventing the guideline becoming offset.

Folders!
Being able to cascade layers into a single folder within the timeline Ui would be a blessing! Especially when working with multiple character in animation or background elements. Nothing special really... Just to be able to tidy them up into one place, sort of like a normal layer with all of its accessibilities, but all parented into one layer.


BONUS REQUEST:
Vector Capability - I'm not expecting this to come true, and I know this is a ridiculous request... but if it ever did... Goodbye Toonboom... Or at least consider making a separate app to keep the fat off the coding with something like "TV Ink Animation" as the sister of TV Paint Animation. You devs are good at what you do!

I hope you can consider this list, and a massive thank you for implementing the locking floating panels. It's a great addition! Looking forward to the next update / version of TV Paint!

Title In Large wrote: ↑25 Feb 2023, 14:25

TOOLS:
Free Transform Tool with spline distortion
Currently as it stands, when using the free transform tool, the entire layer is gridded with micro nodes to pull and distort the work. However, coming from Photoshop, Clip studio paint, Procreate, Affinity, etc, this is the only application I know of that pins the transformation in a geometric pull, which causes the selection to not distort very cleanly (very pointy) and actually drag the entire layer in a slippery way. I'm sure that in its current state that there is niche cases for its use, but would it be possible to either incorporate a spline control feature like almost every other art application, or if an entirely new tool could be invented to coexist with the current tool. This makes correcting posing a much easier task rather than having to switch to another app to do the job or redrawing/restarting the drawings again.

When you say "Free Transform Tool", do you mean the Warp Tool ?

https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... sform-warp

which causes the selection to not distort very cleanly (very pointy) and actually drag the entire layer in a slippery way.

Yes, those are problems with the current Warp Tool. The "pointy" hard angle distortions , rather than maintaining curved shapes is difficult to work around. I agree with you that it would be more useful if it behaves more like Warp in Photoshop and also is keyframeable. To me, the current Warp Tool feels like a feature with much potential, but has not been fully implemented and has not been improved since it was introduced. When we first see it , I think most of us say: "Wow, this is very cool, look at that!" , but then when we try to actually animate something with it , we quickly learn that it is quite difficult to control with any precision. My understanding is that the development team is intending to add improvements to the Warp Tool, but it would certainly be valuable to have users contribute their ideas and requests for improving it. (so keep posting your requests!) I hope someone from the TVPaint Development Team will be able to speak to your request for the Warp Tool (and your other requests).

D.T. Nethery wrote: ↑28 Feb 2023, 20:12
When you say "Free Transform Tool", do you mean the Warp Tool ?

Yes, those are problems with the current Warp Tool. The "pointy" hard angle distortions , rather than maintaining curved shapes is difficult to work around. I agree with you that it would be more useful if it behaves more like Warp in Photoshop and also is keyframeable. To me, the current Warp Tool feels like a feature with much potential, but has not been fully implemented and has not been improved since it was introduced. When we first see it , I think most of us say: "Wow, this is very cool, look at that!" , but then when we try to actually animate something with it , we quickly learn that it is quite difficult to control with any precision. My understanding is that the development team is intending to add improvements to the Warp Tool, but it would certainly be valuable to have users contribute their ideas and requests for improving it. (so keep posting your requests!) I hope someone from the TVPaint Development Team will be able to speak to your request for the Warp Tool (and your other requests).

Oops... Yes, I'm referring to the warp tool

I also forgot to mention a few bugs that need fixing which I'll quickly add.

BUGS:
Exporting a custom panel as a TVPX crashes the software!
The file is luckily created where you save it to, but the application seems to suddenly die. I've tested this extensively and it 100% happens to me each time. I'm unsure if this was the case on versions below 11.7 as well. [EDIT: The file is corrupted. Upon opening it, it says "Bad file".]

The remote panel sometimes repositions and closes itself off the drawers
This is very common when turning on TV Paint, and seems to be the only panel that does this. It doesn't happen when using the software, but when shutting it off and loading TVP again, it'll likely hide away the remote. I use the Inlay view for screen space, so the remote is my tiny little friend. It's irritating when it plays hide and seek.

Could you please mention which TVP version and OS system/version you use?

TVPX export works here, which TVP 10 on Mac OS 10.6.

slowtiger wrote: ↑04 Mar 2023, 11:48 Could you please mention which TVP version and OS system/version you use?

TVPX export works here, which TVP 10 on Mac OS 10.6.

I'm using 11.7 on Windows. I believe I may have found the issue with the TVPX exports crashing the app. Some of the actions I had for a long time, pencil brushes, upon reinstalling TV Paint to the upgrade 11.7, fresh on a new computer a few months ago, had gone strange with a message saying it cannot be used, followed by a very long code. I've just deleted these brushes/actions effected by this and retried the export, and it now works absolutely fine. Sadly now I cannot replicate the crashing as my older Panels have now fully corrupted unable to be imported. It may have something to do with paper texture, but that's purely my theory on it...

Title In Large wrote: ↑04 Mar 2023, 09:50
BUGS:
Exporting a custom panel as a TVPX crashes the software!
The file is luckily created where you save it to, but the application seems to suddenly die. I've tested this extensively and it 100% happens to me each time. I'm unsure if this was the case on versions below 11.7 as well. [EDIT: The file is corrupted. Upon opening it, it says "Bad file".]

I don't get a crash , but definitely something buggy going on with exporting a Custom Panel as TVPX with version 11.7.1

When I export a Custom Panel as TVPX I get an error message saying: "Error while creating TVPX. Export Failed"


However, when I click OK , and then look for the file in the place I exported it, the .TVPX file is there and it will open correctly in TVPaint.

NOTE: this doesn't always happen for me . Sometimes it saves the file without the error message popping up. This behavior comes and goes. It's hard to pin down what triggers it, why it happens sometimes , but not always.

--------

Another bug I notice when exporting a Custom Panel as TVPX is that the name of the Custom Panel is displayed incorrectly. Instead of the name of the Custom Panel it shows the name of the previously exported file, so I have to manually correct it by re-typing the name of the file before saving it. (I think I've reported this bug before.)

I just checked and I get the same behavior in version 11.7 . This behavior with the error message "Error while creating TVPX. Export Failed" does not happen in 11.5 . (but the problem with the name of the file is there in 11.5. )


These screenshots show what happens when saving the Custom Panel as TVPX:

Let's say I create a new Custom Panel and I give it the name Custom Panel 25. Then I click on Export as TVPX .


Then click Save To ... to set the location where the TVPX file will be saved.


But when the Save As window opens there is a problem. The name of the file is the name of whatever file I had previously saved , instead of being assigned the name of the current file I'm saving.


So now I must stop and manually type in the correct name before saving it. The expected behavior is that TVPaint will automatically assign the name of the Custom Panel being saved , instead of the name of the previously saved file. (this bug exists going back to at least version 11.5 and has been reported before).



EDIT: because this is a long-standing bug I'm going to cross-post this to the Technical Support forum .


.
.

D.T. Nethery wrote: ↑28 Feb 2023, 20:12

which causes the selection to not distort very cleanly (very pointy) and actually drag the entire layer in a slippery way.

Yes, those are problems with the current Warp Tool. The "pointy" hard angle distortions , rather than maintaining curved shapes is difficult to work around. I agree with you that it would be more useful if it behaves more like Warp in Photoshop and also is keyframeable.

To me, the current Warp Tool feels like a feature with much potential, but has not been fully implemented and has not been improved since it was introduced. When we first see it , I think most of us say: "Wow, this is very cool, look at that!" , but then when we try to actually animate something with it , we quickly learn that it is quite difficult to control with any precision. My understanding is that the development team is intending to add improvements to the Warp Tool, but it would certainly be valuable to have users contribute their ideas and requests for improving it. (so keep posting your requests!) I hope someone from the TVPaint Development Team will be able to speak to your request for the Warp Tool (and your other requests).

Something else I wanted to add about the Warp Tool is that the person who has done the most work on "taming the beast" to make it usable for animating is Svengali. Sven has a set of custom scripts that help make it more usable. Check out Svengali's custom Warp Tool panel and instructions here: viewtopic.php?p=81202#p81202 .

Title In Large wrote: ↑04 Mar 2023, 09:50BUGS:
Exporting a custom panel as a TVPX crashes the software!
The file is luckily created where you save it to, but the application seems to suddenly die. I've tested this extensively and it 100% happens to me each time. I'm unsure if this was the case on versions below 11.7 as well. [EDIT: The file is corrupted. Upon opening it, it says "Bad file".

Hello,

Can you give me more details about the way you are exporting the Custom Panel? How is the tvpx file named, does it have special character in the filename?
If you could post a screenshot of the Custom Panel's export window, that would be great.

I have seen this bug in the past, and I have tried to replicate it, but I was never able to find the trigger condition.

Thierry wrote: ↑08 Mar 2023, 10:05 Hello,

Can you give me more details about the way you are exporting the Custom Panel? How is the tvpx file named, does it have special character in the filename?
If you could post a screenshot of the Custom Panel's export window, that would be great.

I have seen this bug in the past, and I have tried to replicate it, but I was never able to find the trigger condition.

I have found on an older computer the exact same custom panel running on TVP Version 11.5 with the originally effected brushes, and have imported them again into my current PC using TVP 11.7, yet this time, every single brush works absolutely fine... I'm lost for words in all honesty. The brushes originally effected had no special characters for names, nor anything special in paper texture - using the cement texture. I have attached the TVPX for you to experiment with as this only occurred when I used version 11.7 - perhaps going duff once TVP updated. Mind you I hadn't used the effected brushes for an extremely long time until I came across the issues recently. I have since taken them off my workflow, but regardless, I hope something can be found here.

As for the Export setting, it was its default. No special characters.