Welcome to the forum, Arkhangels! That's a wonderful post with fantastic close-ups, thank you!
Yes, I have planned canvas texture and interaction, but didn't get to it, yet. There are still a number of things I'm developing, which could be vital to knowing how best to implement that, you know. One of my ideas is to allow the linking of layers such that the bump (structure) of the underlying linked layer influences the behavior of paint properly in the one above. I'd then do the same thing against a canvas surface of your choosing.
I'm a little worried about the speed impact this will have, but that's also why I want to keep this an option instead.
As for natural watercolor behavior, that's another thing I've been thinking about early on already and this, too, may very well become a feature. Once I have that figured out, a whole world of wild things may open up to what you could do with the fluids, of course. But it's still some time away for sure.
Again, I love your example pictures, they're awesome! They inspire me a lot to play a bit with it right now, I think.
I have no idea what's been going on on facebook, I'm not on it, but I know that many people can't run the app on their systems, which is naturally a let down. My focus with Verve was on Verve itself, you know, but it's currently shifting to the people a lot more than before. That's a good and a bad thing, because there's only so much I can do and Verve only exists because it is hardware based. Take that away and you got "just another painter", I'm afraid. Sooner or later most people will have to have a current system, while I may well have a look at some pad coding, whether it's ipad, android or win8. I think they have very powerful graphics in them and this could be great fun. I just don't like gadgets in general and therefore never had any of those things. I don't even have cellphone, haha.
That would be a reason to make an exception.
But, yeah, I'm sure that's why. And people are quite hard to move, too, especially with "art supplies".
Oooohh, almost forgot: The drying princple allows a little bit of what you were describing with thick vs. diluted paint, but it's all very simplified, of course. The speed of the drying is hard to control for me, as weird as this sounds, I'm still working on it and will hook up a parameter for the time for sure!
However, I don't think it will happen anytime soon that I have two independent fluid systems work on top of each other, haha, that seems a bit excessive in terms of what hardware can accomplish. Not sure, yet, who knows, but from where I stand that would be ambitious.
I did say at some point that I really don't mean to do a simulation of real paints, but rather a digital paint medium inspired by reality. Verve is it's own kind of material, you know, as though you'd pick up a new kind of tool to create. It's not just a lame excuse of mine, really, it's a reality-check. It is in my ability to create unique ways for painting with the computer, but it's most likely over my head to do a physics implementation that would get me a PHD at Stanford, haha. Even then they would merely be an approximation, if they should act responsively.
I don't want Verve to feel like a compromise or be looked at as such. If you pick up a graphite pencil, you don't want it to act like a fine-liner. If you use watercolor, you know you're not painting with oil. I want the same dignity for Verve, but at the same time I want it to feel somewhat familiar, workable and exciting, of course.
I do understand, though, why something that feels like coming so close to the "real thing" inspires desires to have it act perfectly so. Ah well...I'm doing my best to make it as versatile as I can, that's for sure, too. And your inspiration helps me focus very much and motivates me a great deal!
Thank you, again, very much! I'm looking forward to seeing some paintings of yours in the Gallery!?! Would be sweet!