Taronites

So...I played around with the Cintiq companion again, which always puts me in a bad mood, and I noticed one silly difference between Verve and- say- PS: Photoshop shows the windows mouse cursor and Verve shows the actual cursor on the canvas, making it appear as though Verve was slower, while it really isn't. But it's really uncomfortable. So I turned off the cursor for a test and sure enough...same feeling of "speed" or rather delay as in PS.
The worst part, though, is that after playing around with it for a few minutes, switching back to a decent computer still has that feeling of delay linger...it's horrible!
Ah well...
...anyway, still got a few things to iron out, but a new version should come any day now!

Oh, how I would love to share with you already what I'm working on right now, but it ain't done, yet... it'll be rather fancy, though, I think.
A few hours ago I had an idea on how to do a Lasso tool and it totally works! Except I still need to come up with a cool solution for the boolean operations, because it's quite different from Photoshop. It does make photoshop look yet a decade older, though, hehehehe...
Then there's the other stuff I want to surprise you with, but it's still a whole lot of work. I think, it'll be quite, hmmm.... nice.

Dev Diary time again...
...soooo, I've found a method to make the graphics card fan fly off the handle, but also to show off just how powerful and fast it can really go:
I turned off the vblank, having it refresh as fast as it can, not waiting for the 60Hz refresh rate of the monitor. It keeps the cursor super tight on the mouse, BUT it speeds up the fluids so much, that it almost looks silly (Benny Hill music in the background!). The other side effect, as mentioned above, is that the card goes into hyperdrive, making rather scary squeals, hahahaha.... so.... I don't think I will make that even an option, because it sure is scary.

In the meantime I shall ponder some more about involving the regular OS cursor instead. It's not as easy as it may sound. The standard cursor goes up to 256x256. Beyond that one has to probably draw multiple cursors, alternating around until 512x512 and beyond that...well...then it gets really silly. I thought about simply switching to my ordinary cursor beyond 256x256, which shouldn't be too shocking.
However, I still have to figure out how to even let windows get my custom cursor images without an extra resource file, which is a pain in the booty to me. This stuff always wrecks my patience to solve.

Anyhow, I would love to show you the insanity of super high speed Verve, hahaha, but then... I think you'd hate me for it, too!

UH, how I have found a great solution by the looks of it! The next version should feel incredibly much tighter with the cursor actions!
I hope it will run like that on all systems, of course, but I see no real reason for why not.

So, yeah, a whole new feel for Verve! Drawing feels fantastic now to me!

Happy Dev Diary time again!
Yes, yes, there are happy days, too, haha, and actually more than I log here!
What makes me happy today is the fact that I finally cleaned up and fixed the GUI glass effect, which now is much simpler in coding, but perfect in looks, finally!

SO, yeah, things are looking up!
Ironically I want to eventually allow custom skinning, which would enable you to switch shading methods entirely. Some may be afraid that the glass would take up too much processing time, some may just not like it, who knows. But, yeah, my future plan is to offer anything from clean plastic, ceramic looks over procedural textures such as wood or metals to glass again. It's in line with my desire to let the GUI act as a so-called "mood board", complimenting the subject matter you desire to paint, or simply keeping you in the right vibe.

Anyhow, for now: Gui starts to look respectable again!

Ok, if you download now, you get an "inofficial" release, but I still recommend it, because it has THE AWESOME BRUSH#6!
I had a breakthrough after my cute little javascript experiment and it was the magic push I needed. I'm hesitant to say this, but I can't help wanting to say that it is perfect (for fast strokes that is). Slow strokes still have a bit of a wobble that I need to work out.
Now I just have to pull myself together and apply that gorgeous perfection to all the other brushes that would benefit from this.

But still....here's a brief little victory dance:

More and more improvements to brush #6, which by now gets really close to perfection for what it is.
BRISTLES now controls how many stipples it makes in the stroke. I made it as a tester for myself, but realized that it could get useful eventually.
I'm still not entirely thrilled about the vector output of it, which should be "correct", but I don't know, if I really like "correct", haha.

Anyway...it's getting more and more exciting to me, as if it wasn't like that already, but the trajectory of excitement is really on yet another rise!

I'm still not willing to call this an official release, but I keep updating Verve with minor changes. I don't know, if this is a tolerable or bad habit, but I don't want to keep you waiting, when I find small issues or come up with great improvements.
These past few days have all been about brush#6, but really also fundamental brush matters. It's such a great relief to get on top of these things now.
There's still a massive improvement waiting for the remaining brushes, but those really require some intense focus and work. I know what to do, though.