colors

[voxelfog]

I downloaded Alchemy last week, and have been addicted ever since! Fantastic program and concept.

I think it's great, but the one thing I found myself wanting more than anything was an eyedropper tool. it would be very helpful in maintaining a consistent color palette while experimenting.

Another idea is to download a randomized color palette, and have that be a module that sets the color for each stroke. Could download the palette off the web from someplace like this: http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes

One last minor gripe; I don't really like the default color picker (the square one.) I don't think it represents colors in an artist-friendly way. You can't pick a desaturated dark color, for example. I know you can go to the second color picker to do this, but it seems a little weird.

[Karl DD]

Hey voxelfog,

Thanks for the feedback.

The 'Colour Switcher' module lets you randomly change colours with each stroke.
Although at the moment you can't load in a set of colours. It would actually be quite easy to load in a certain image file, and pick the colours from that randomly.

Colour Picker! Funny you mention this because I just finished up implementing one
Check this out:

NewColourPicker.png (19.34 KB) Viewed 1381 times

We are planning on a new release some time next week, so if you have any ideas how we could better the colour picker. Lets us know.
Something like a white > black gradient? Maybe just point me towards something you think works well.

The secondary palette has been changed a bit too:

NewColourChooser.png (52.31 KB) Viewed 1381 times

Karl

[voxelfog]

cool, I like the eyedropper on there. That will be very handy

Just as a personal preference, what tends to work well for me as far as color pickers go when creating digital art is something like what you used for the secondary color palette for the linux version (which is what I've been running Alchemy on, btw):



I think this works really well, because everything within the triangle is the same hue, and only varies by saturation and value. It also provides a full range of saturation levels and values for that particular hue, within the triangle. If there was a way to miniaturize that somehow and make it be the primary drop-down picker, that would be awesome.
I think this kind of color picker makes the most sense to anyone coming from a painting / fine art background, since it's based on the color wheel.

But that's just my two cents. I'm sure other people have differing opinions about color pickers.

[kollatt]

have you thought about an affect module that adds a gradient style to the shapes you draw? i can imagine this causing a slowdown, but if it could be managed in a well implemented way then it would be a great to add some dimension to the shapes. i find transparency changes only affect depth but not roundness. anyway i do agree with everyone here that we need a solid eyedropper and a more streamlined color picker. when i'm listening to music or in a particular mental space where i don't want to be pulled away from my drawings, i get sucked out when switching colors. anyway, blah.. glad to hear about a new update. i recently did an artshow where i did live paintings using alchemy. i'm hoping to have some video of it up soon.

[Zafio]

Some ideas on integrating the little color picker on the toolbar as an option:


For the secondary color picker, could be interesting to take as a reference the color picker from Open Canvas, it's resizeable and has different modes for all tastes:

By the way, some people like it to have it on screen while drawing! right now you have to close it to keep drawing!

And at last, a shortcut for quick eyedroping (like Alt) is a must! :)

[Karl DD]

Thanks for that.
Yes it might be nice to have the option to detach the colour picker.
Also the eyedropper shortcut is a must I realise now!

[Zafio]

About the detachable color picker possibility, think also about the "invokable" panels option, it can help to keep the clutter at minimun if for example you press and hold "C" key and the color picker shows up near the cursor, then you choose your color and release the "C" key... but just as an option, most people might prefer the usual way I guess...

[Karl DD]

Yes actually that could be a good way of doing it.
Certainly for the main buttons in the tool bar.

[kollatt]

i definitely think it would be wise to make this a goal for the next release, and also i think both a non-invokable and invokable setup should be worked out and streamlined. before blender became more click friendly, it was primarily controlled by hotkeys. this is absolutely great for experienced users, but having that easy-to-use and practical layout is essential to get more users. i'll brainstorm on this.. there was recently this great article on blender.org about an essay written on the future of blender's layout and how it could be redone to utilize space in a way that makes sense from an artist's perspective.. it might be good to check it out for ideas. i'll try to find the link.

[Karl DD]

I agree with your comments kollatt, I think things like this can turn users off pretty quickly.
Having interface consistency with other applications I think is very important.
As I don't use much of this software day to day so it would definitely be useful if the community could direct this side of things.
For example what key is typically used to bring up an invokable panel?
I am familiar with the Maya hotbox, but is that pretty well liked? It does seem a bit dated...