FeedBack Verve v0.99v.15

[Taron]

Sweet! It's kind of your fault, too, of course!
By the way, with "density" and "bias" you can really turn this texture into all sorts of crazy stuff. "size" helps to see what it looks like up close, of course.
Also, strength now scales with the size to stay consistent.
I pondered a bit more about the whole system and may eventually improve the fluids interaction with the canvas as well as the brushes, of course.

Anyway, this was really fun to write and quite challenging for me. I studied a picture of some real canvas to mimic the weaving acceptably and then spent quite some times coming up with a proper formula. It's by no means perfect, but a fun start.

I guess fluid resolution (density) is here crucial, in order for fluid to interact believably with those tiny canvas structures, i.e. when canvas scale is lower than fluid density? Maybe a switch to go further from now default fluid high density, for ppl with really good computers?

[Taron]

OH, I don't offer parametric fluid density. It's something I thought about putting into an expert mode for the fluids later on. I almost forgot about that. Also, currently the fluid density automatically adjusts to the resolution to assure performance stability. It's only a rough relationship right now that could use some fine tuning, but it's better than not having it, believe me!
HOWEVER, the canvas interaction for the vectors is at pixel level, so that's the good news! ...even if the divergence is adaptive, the vectors always are on pixel level!

Next version will have proper saving and loading of canvas texture settings, by the way. I hadn't gotten to it, but it's in the works right now!

Have you in project to stay in 2D or can we imagine 2.5 D or 3D ?
(Displacement image "fixed" then verving)
islands are "fixed", ocean is verving!
I can make a mask from imported image, but will be cool is the "displacement" (real or simulated) of something can be made inside Verve

[Taron]

Awww, Pilou, don't spoil what I have planned for much later!
I had this dream a long time ago to make this perfect painting tool that combines easy control over depth, allowing to create a 3d depth image upon which you can paint with all the bells and whistles of atmosphere and even lighting. It's been my plan to realize this within Verve, turning it into a real 2.5d painter with no aspirations to go full 3d, though! It's just to realize your ideas naturally, easily and quickly, but use the power it demands to simply add a new kind of medium for image creation!

Anyhow, a new version is up with more than just proper canvas saving, but also improved custom canvas snapshot logic.

HOWEVER, the canvas interaction for the vectors is at pixel level, so that's the good news! ...even if the divergence is adaptive, the vectors always are on pixel level!

Yeah but, if the canvas is recreated from texture to represent mesh (x, y and z as height) at arbitrary resolution, then calculations with fluid vectors could be done more accurate at subpixel level, and finally trasformed in pixel space. But yes, this may require whole refactoring of verve's fluid simulator and it's questionable would it be fast enough even to simulate what you achieved already.

[Taron]

It would not be!
At least not for another 5 to 10 years, I'm afraid...
...but given the opportunity, I'd most certainly jump on that (or rather activate that part of the routine! )

Besides subpixel level is such a big word, but that is actually happening already, too, since values blended between pixels are necessary to make any of this work properly. It's really just the divergence buffer that makes it coarser. Unless you're talking about making a 3d geometry of a canvas at microscopic levels and then go all super-computer over it to take in account molecular structures and weather conditions, including topographical elevation and corresponding air pressure... well... now we're talking!

But, yeah, I hear ya'. As I kept saying from the earliest beginning, I'm not out to create a perfect physics simulation, but to create a tool to make art fluently and happily. This requires a number of compromises and fantasy formulas, but provides the unique performance we know from Verve!

Can you make an ui control to manipulate the resolution/precision of divergence buffer? Can that be usefull? Or the code for automatic adaption which maps current performance to the precision of that buffer works best?

[Taron]

Uhm, I could, but I hold off on that until the interface evolves to handle the madness, you know, haha. It's already insane and I have to clean house quickly! It's actually part of why I haven't done a video, yet, because of the current messiness. Once I go at it, I'll have a look at adding more expert features for the fluids, I promise!

There are a few tips and tricks I'd love to share, though, because I think there's a lot left unexplored by most, which shows more of Verve's power than they are aware of. It often is really just how one uses it that will make all the difference. Consider Verve like just another art medium. You kinda have to figure out what to do to achieve what behavior.

For example, Masking Techniques:
- you can grab a layer's material component as mask!
- add a new layer, paint "a mask" onto it just with your normal paint features!
- hit [Shift]+[q] to generate a mask from the layer's material buildup!
- hit [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[q] to invert the mask, allowing you to paint only where you had material!
- go to your actual picture layers and paint using the mask!
- toggle the mask on and off with [q] or invert, if you need to!

With the new brush bias, brush#9 with a -100% bias is a fantastic tool to create hard shapes, similar to what people do in photoshop with lasso "painting".

Another technical tip:
- go slow and gentle with your brush to develop a feeling for it!
- use [w] and [e] to switch pressure sensitivity on size and opacity wisely as well as control [b] (buildup):
...I personally mostly create my shapes with pressure on size on and opacity off (default settings), but when I blend and reverse that, turning off size and on opacity!

The material buildup parameter is a tricky one, because if you switch paint modes to (=) absolute, a low buildup value could confuse you as it paints with that amount of material absolutely, potentially even acting like an eraser, if it was set to 0. However, if your on (>) accumulative, a buildup of 0 can be perfect, if you paint on existing paint. For that I really love doing the following:
- fill the canvas with the desired background color
- set buildup to 0% or very low percentage
- gently paint away...
- control fluidity to get the desired smoothness of your strokes!
- control fluid smudge [Shift]+[f] to vary softness of blending!

I often paint with no fluidity at all or only very low for softer strokes.

I will most certainly cover all of that in some clips in the near future as soon as I have a presentable GUI again...

- hit [Shift]+[q] to generate a mask from the layer's material buildup!
- hit [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[q] to invert the mask, allowing you to paint only where you had material!

For that I wrote a very very small AHK script, watch for this in my AHK Scripts topic