HSDA - New paint app with perspective support!

**Harry Storbacka** · December 15th, 2009, 11:08 AM

Hey,

I have released a new 2D painting application. The new thing is built in 3 point perspective support, with straight line and freehand drawing in perspective.

The perspective of the image is defined in the application by rotating a 3d scene:

Once the perspective is defined a 3D cursor is drawn on the image, indicating where the vanishing points are.

To draw a straight line in perspective you simply select one of the vanishing points with a key on the keyboard and draw as usual. By selecting two vanishing points you enter freehand mode and paint in the selected perspective plane.

You can download Harry Storbacka's Digital Artist from http://www.da-gfx.com/. HSDA is "pay what you want" for non-commercial use. For commercial use a licence has to be bought.

To see what else it can do, check out the features page.

Have fun with it! As this thing has just been released, I'm very interested in your opinions about it. All feedback is appreciated!

**Arshes Nei** · December 15th, 2009, 02:54 PM

If I get a chance, I'll be happy to take a look at your app. Sorry if you noticed your post not showing up, as it went into moderation and I approved it.

**Nettle_Mountain** · December 15th, 2009, 03:34 PM

Ha! You actually finally made it after all this time!

I have to definitely try it soon enough, kudos for doing this!

**artmessiah** · December 15th, 2009, 03:50 PM

Good idea. I played with it a bit, but it doesn't seem to like my Cintiq. I can't get it to paint when I move the app over to the cintiq screen to paint. When I keep the interface on my main monitor, the program allows me to paint but cursor and stroke aren't together - that is, I see the cursor at the bottom of the screen but the stroke is drawn at the top of the screen. And a minor bug I get on my computer which runs Vista 64 bit is the drop down menus are invisible until I wiggle my mouse around the area the menu is supposed to be at. I can then see it, but not until I move my mouse around. I had Corel Painter running in the background so that may have attributed to some of the bugs (wow, painter bugs are contagious, ha, ha). Still, a great idea and a good start - work out those bugs if you can friend. Take care

**Harry Storbacka** · December 15th, 2009, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by artmessiah

Good idea. I played with it a bit, but it doesn't seem to like my Cintiq. I can't get it to paint when I move the app over to the cintiq screen to paint. When I keep the interface on my main monitor, the program allows me to paint but cursor and stroke aren't together - that is, I see the cursor at the bottom of the screen but the stroke is drawn at the top of the screen. And a minor bug I get on my computer which runs Vista 64 bit is the drop down menus are invisible until I wiggle my mouse around the area the menu is supposed to be at. I can then see it, but not until I move my mouse around. I had Corel Painter running in the background so that may have attributed to some of the bugs (wow, painter bugs are contagious, ha, ha). Still, a great idea and a good start - work out those bugs if you can friend. Take care

Hey artmessiah, thanks for reporting those issues. Was painter running when you tried it on the Cintiq? I'm wondering if it's a problem with the tablet code in HSDA, or if painter is just refusing to let go of the tablet? Unfortunately I don't have a Cintiq to test it on myself.

Regarding the menus, I'd still need to know what graphics card you have (ati or nvidia) and also if you have aero enabled (those transparency effects). Upgrading your graphics card driver might help (it's a longshot, yes) - It's using OpenGL to render the menus, and apparently it fails on the initial render for some reason on your system.

**Harry Storbacka** · December 15th, 2009, 05:21 PM

Originally Posted by Nettle_Mountain

Ha! You actually finally made it after all this time!

I have to definitely try it soon enough, kudos for doing this!

Thanks Nettle_Mountain! I had a look at your sketch book - You've improved a lot since the last time I checked. Keep it up!

**HunterKiller_** · December 15th, 2009, 05:39 PM

Ah pooey. I don't have OpenGL 3.0 to run it.

**artmessiah** · December 15th, 2009, 06:14 PM

Originally Posted by Harry Storbacka

Hey artmessiah, thanks for reporting those issues. Was painter running when you tried it on the Cintiq? I'm wondering if it's a problem with the tablet code in HSDA, or if painter is just refusing to let go of the tablet? Unfortunately I don't have a Cintiq to test it on myself.

Regarding the menus, I'd still need to know what graphics card you have (ati or nvidia) and also if you have aero enabled (those transparency effects). Upgrading your graphics card driver might help (it's a longshot, yes) - It's using OpenGL to render the menus, and apparently it fails on the initial render for some reason on your system.

I tried it again, this time with painter not running and get the same results. I use a basic graphics card - ati 4800 series with openGL support. I definitely thinks it's a wacom cintiq issue/conflict. I don't see any marks when used on the cintiqs screen and still a disparity with cursor and mark on my main screen. Ah well, hope you continue in developing it, seems promising.

**Harry Storbacka** · December 15th, 2009, 06:41 PM

Originally Posted by HunterKiller_

Ah pooey. I don't have OpenGL 3.0 to run it.

The hardware requirements might be a little steep still in this day and age. If you have a nVidia GeForce8 series card (or better) or a ATI Radeon HD, then a driver update should fix this for you. Older cards and intel chipsets wont work.

**Harry Storbacka** · December 15th, 2009, 06:59 PM

Originally Posted by artmessiah

I tried it again, this time with painter not running and get the same results. I use a basic graphics card - ati 4800 series with openGL support. I definitely thinks it's a wacom cintiq issue/conflict. I don't see any marks when used on the cintiqs screen and still a disparity with cursor and mark on my main screen.

Yeah, then it does sound a lot like a problem specific to my app. I'll have to check the wacom docs again and see if there's something Cintiq specific in there that I'm missing. Thanks for letting me know

Originally Posted by artmessiah

Ah well, hope you continue in developing it, seems promising.

No worries, I've been working on this for five years soon, but I still have a lot of ideas I haven't had time to do yet. And fixing problems with input devices is actually fun compared to boring stuff like worrying about what happens when the user presses cancel in the export dialog.

**artmessiah** · December 15th, 2009, 07:59 PM

Originally Posted by Harry Storbacka

No worries, I've been working on this for five years soon, but I still have a lot of ideas I haven't had time to do yet. And fixing problems with input devices is actually fun compared to boring stuff like worrying about what happens when the user presses cancel in the export dialog.

Cool, I'll stay on the lookout

**Harry Storbacka** · December 16th, 2009, 07:37 AM

For those interested, I have started a sketchbook here on CA.org where you can follow my artistic progress and also stay up to date on what's going on with the software.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=176701