Tattoo 0.8 Demo available for download

Hi all,

I've been hard at work on Tattoo. This version adds more brushes, multi level undo, shader brush and tiled texture guides.

Let me know how you get on!

Screen Shot:

(Note: Tank Model shown created by Mustang)

Download 1.2 Meg

Looking good Lee!!

Anyone given this version a go yet?

So far it works ok.

Yeah - i've tried it :)

Seemed pretty good however...

There was a lot of lag (abnout 2 seconds) between first starting to paint and the paint flowing smoothly. Once the paint starts moving it works nice and quick but I tend to paint with lots of small brush strokes so this was rather frustrating.

Also are things limited in this demo (there's nothing in the readme)? I couldn't change the alpha or the shape of the current brush.

I'm not keen on the camera controls either. Reading the readme a and z appear to be the wrong way around (a zooms out). It wqould be nice if there were different views as well. Orthographic cameras (left, top, front etc) would be nice as would multiple camera views (so you can check texture stretching and joins from different angles whilst painting. The other thing I would like is to be able to see a 2d version of the texture that i can paint/ zoom in and out.

It would be cool if we could choose a resolution for the screen as well. I have my desktop set to (insert hi resolution here) so the app is fairly small in comparison. GetSystemMetrics (userlib) would let you automatically set the app to the users current resolution. The larger screen size would help with accuracy when painting as well.

Tried it - works very nice.

Im not too keen on camera controls either, at least a cursor pad on screen would make somethings a lot quicker, and maybe saved views would be good too. How about right mouse button down = free rotate mode with the mouse ??


Didnt get any lag on paint, seemd ok here

Terabit, how about making the camera controls like lightwave3d?

Thanks for all the feedback. There are a number of interesting ideas here.

The lag is probably caused by the undo system making a copy of the current texture when you begin painting. This can be a little slow depending on your system specs I suppose. I've never had a problem with is personally.

a) The controls are a bit flakey I must admit. It's been the aspect of the application I've disliked the most.

b) At the moment, you can only change the shape and attributes of the Airbrush tool. I only intended the Solid brush for places where you need Hard lines and so is very basic.

Screen res control is coming too.

Thanks again,

My Card don't supports Copyrect to Textures in Bit 256 Mode - at least not without a "modern Art Effect". A very old card, i know.

"This can be a little slow depending on your system specs I suppose"

-- I've got an 1900 Athlon XP with 512 Mb RAM and a geforce 4. I wouldn't have thought it would be that slow, maybe an option to turn off the ability to undo things would be good (just to see if that is the problem).

I hadn't noticed that the alpha options became available when I selected the airbruh. My bad :)

OK, few comments after a very brief session...

I would prefer Photoshop like color selector, and the ability to input RGB values directly. Maybe even few slots for custom colors for quick color selecting?



I'd like to also see the actual texture (even downscaled to fit in the workspace) below the color picker together with the numeral UV position info... and info about the textures "true physical size".

"Stippled brush" sounded odd to me, "Spray brush" would be more immediately understod?

Would be nice to see the actual brush (pixel) size instead of a slider only, and I'd like to see also numeral airbrush alpha value too (like 50%) and not just the slider.

Would be nice to be able to save clone brushes, and use "pattern fill" type of things...

Also the model control needs "bank" control too, now it has zoom (a,z) and heading (cursor left, cursor right) and pitch (cursor up, cursor down).

Mirrored painting (assuming that the model is in the origo) would be nice too?

And maybe selecting and locking/hiding tri-selections would be useful so that you don't accidentally paint over border and destroy already "finished work"...

Need more ideas and comments? :)

That isn't much different to my setup. I can't see why this would occur. Undo will be configurable on/off and level.

@Mustang - Lots of useful stuff there!

I'll plugging away at it for a day or so, then we'll see what 0.8x has to offer :>



Keep 'em coming!

sorry lee cant use it
1.0 fps!

dave

The dredded Nvidia driver bug strikes again!

I have at home PIII@733Mhz, 640MB ram and GeForce3ti200 - and NO slowdown! But I use "old" Dets because new ones are worse... new drivers don't necessarily boost old hardware (like GF3-4) at all so IMO theres little point to upgrade drivers from those "old & working" ones.

Problem is when you have a GeforceFX and NEED the newer drivers (i.e the ones that support your hardware), then you get stuffed for using them!

I've e-mailed Nvidia, but I'm not holding my breath!

Layers would be nice... as would multiple undo levels, as would text rendering and copy/paste of imported images....

a) Layers are coming.
b) Multi Level undo is already in (ctrl-z or Menu Edit->Undo) with an arbitrary number of undo levels.
c) Text rendering?
d) copy/paste of imported images - This is catered for by the use of a Texture Guide (File->Load Texture Guide). You can then switch to the guide view and select a starting point by right clicking. You can then 'draw' with the image you loaded.

Text Rendering : i think he means being able to enter text onto a object ( eg logo text on cars etc.)

Matt

Lee,

I still have the square alphablend problem with airbrush.

Ah I see. I suppose that makes a lot of sense really. Although in reality you'd probably get better results from making up nice bitmap text in a 2D paint package and Texturing it in.

@Ian Thompson - Could you post a screen shot showing the problem. Also if you could let me know what GFX card you have etc. I had the problem crop up in earlier versions, but managed to eliminate it in this one, at least on the few machines I have to test with :/

On the lighter side of the news! The new color picker is in, along with a few other bits...

YEah bang on on text rendering - might be easier to put a redered bitmap in, but could also be useful to do inside as another feature (im guessing it wouldnt be hard)

And the ability to use layers (and more improtantly move them around (preferably pixel by pixel) would be very powerful - as the primary purpose of this tool is for 'retouching' already made textures with nice detailing and that could use some fine level controlling (the mouse drawing is fun if a little scattergun)

I haven't updated my drivers since... ever. Maybe thats the problem. As I said though. Once you start painting its fine. Its just the initial pause that slows things down.

Lee - the new colour picker looks nice. Layers would be loverly... and I sitll want to be able to see the texture in a 2d view next to the 3d view. I have used a number of programs like deep paint and have always gone back to photoshop becuase of the extra control you get.

Lee - I recommend dropping use of blitzsys for your file requesters in favour of darklordz userlib (if you can find it). It allows you to specify the starting directory and has better wildcarding etc.

The Userlib is nowhere to be found I'm afraid. I've looked up the old Userlib posts, but the Links are Dead.

Hi Lee,

Just had a little time from work to play with you great little util.

The alphablended box only appears in 16 bit mode, if I set my desktop to 32bit and then run Tattoo(.8) the additive alphablended area around the airbrush vanishes. Back to 16bit and it re-appears. My GFX card is a 128meg GForce 4 MX.

P.S. If you require a custom Userlib, for example the dialog as described above, then throw me an email with your requirements and I will bang something together.