V0.99v.03

I wonder if I have selected something wrong, or perhaps my hardware is too old, but I'm having an issue with V0.99v03 that I did not have with the previous version I had (V0.99u.34). I'm running a Radeon FirePro V5700 (OpenGL 6.14.10.11296), which didn't have a problem with the older versions of Verve. With this new version, though, I can only get it to paint in black. Opacity seems to work. Fluidity works. It's just entirely black! No matter what the color picker shows, what comes off the brush is black. It's the same drawing with the mouse or tablet. Kind of reminds me of the Model T—You can have any color you want, as long as you want black. Painting in B&W would be a possibility, but white is black, too. I'd attach a screenshot, but I don't think that would add much information. Fortunately I did not save over the old version, so I can still make comparisons, at least.

HW: Dell T3500 quad core Xeon, Radeon FirePro 5700, 6GB RAM (32bit Windows 7 Pro, though, so only 3GB available), Wacom Intuos2.

[Taron]

Ah, the joy...
...I'll have a look, see if I can find the problem.

Thanks for letting me know!

[Taron]

Danged, that's so annoying. Even my Intel HD4000 on the Cintiq has no troubles. I wished it had, so I could understand what might go wrong, but it's perfectly fine. Funnier even, the speed isn't half bad. Feels like it used to be slower.

Anyway, that puts me in a bad spot, you know. I can't guess what might be off on your system.
Maybe you should post a screenshot. Sometimes it shows clues to me that you might not be aware of!?

However, it's indeed spooky, if even the Intel card has less troubles than ATi.

Try setting the little "SMUDGE CHROMA" dial to 0%. I wonder, if that could be ATi's issue?

I've uploaded a video of using it on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gzoww1g4G4

I tried to make sure this is a private video. If anybody else sees it showing up on a search for Verve Painter, let me know, because it does NOT represent the software! Thanks for your attention to this, even though it's a platform you don't have access to test, and it sounds like nobody else is having this problem. Are there any other tests I might be able to run? Could I try a slightly older version to see where the issue might have cropped up?

[Taron]

Yes, indeed, your video is private!
I cannot view it!
...I think, a screenshot will already be a good start for me!
Thanks for doing this and I hope we'll figure this out together. I also hope somebody else can confirm it, because I don't want to chase after phantoms, you know. It's tough enough to do this blindly.

D'oh! Okay, so now I know the difference between "private" and "unlisted." I've changed it to "unlisted" so you should be able to see it, now. The interesting thing is that there is a flash of color while I'm drawing. Sometimes a snatch of the correct color gets left behind, so it's almost as though it's coming off the brush the correct color, then instantly being turned black when the calculations are done to apply it to the canvas.

In case the video is still problematic, here's a screenshot, showing the snatch of color at the end of the stroke. If I start another stroke somewhere else on the canvas, that snatch of color will turn black. This shot is very rare, because there are two snatches visible at once. I've only been able to make it leave a bit of color with smaller brush sizes, usually brush 9, and zero liquidity.

[Taron]

Well, just look at the dial shading, that's already telling a lot. It's broken! BUT it's broken in a very unique way! I've never seen that!
Also, you haven't tried pulling down SMUDGE CHROMA to 0% as I have requested, but at this point I doubt it would make a difference.
The other thing you could try is to put the BUMP in the layer panel to 0%.

I can't exactly tell you what's going on there, but I can tell you that I've never seen anything like it! It's bizarre to me.

Without having someone give me your system, I almost doubt I could ever figure that one out?! ...I'll give it some more thought, of course, but don't hold your breath. It's really strange! Again, even the sensitive Intel HD 4000 works now perfectly (how ever perfect it gets, that is). Maybe it's a miracle that it works at all on your system?!?
It's almost like it can't deal with any negative values, even if they are only for computation and not display, like Z coordinates of the bump map or something like that.

I should make an announcement and ask for other owners of Radeons to give me some feedback.

[Taron]

OH, two other possible reasons or solutions:
- download and install the latest drivers for your card!
- check graphics settings on it, because this really looks like the card should work and there's a funky setting of sorts?!

...and you can take the youtube video down again, too, hehe... no need to keep this for the records, you know, hahaha!

Yeah, I thought it would be something weird, especially since V99u.34 is working under the same hardware (though the dial shading is still nasty-looking—I just never noticed, because I haven't spent as long staring at it as you have!). I finally found Smudge Chroma, and as you predicted, no change. It's a rather old card (2008) so it was probably an act of sheerest optimism that it would have kept working with newer software. One possible fix I have for it is a used GTX560 that is on its way, which is, at the very least, from this decade.

Okay, I got my GeForce GTX560 Ti, and Verve is happy once again. The interface looks normal, the colors are in color, the sun is shining and the birds are hopping around on the roof. (The fan is quieter, too) So that pretty much confirms that older ATI (I'm betting pre-AMD) cards have issues and will probably never work right, even if they claim they support OpenGL 2.1+, even with the very latest drivers. Or maybe mine was just broken. Flip a coin.