Dynamic Draw roadmap and beta tests

[null54]

16 hours ago, Joshua Lamusga said:

1. When settings were moved, my .xml file ended with "settings>ings>" which caused it to crash, We should try...catch and regenerate the file if it fails to de/serialize.

 

Fixed: Use FileMode.Create when writing the settings

 

16 hours ago, Joshua Lamusga said:

2. Default brushes only load on subsequent runs.

3. On subsequent runs, custom brushes are appended to the first run's brushes, so it's custom brushes, default, custom brushes. No change observed with further runs.

4. The brush I had selected in a previous run is selected, but as brushes load in, the selected brush changes to the last one.

 

Another pull request: Fix the default brush loading

 

16 hours ago, Joshua Lamusga said:

- Your changes to the inherited RenderArgs code and undo/redo fixed the long-standing transparency bug for the most part; drawing is still a problem. If you can find the fix for that, I'll be pretty happy. 

 

After reading the linked thread I am wondering if GDI+ may be converting the 32bppARGB images to 32bppPARGB as part of its internal processing.

This would make sense if it is calling any GDI functions because 32bppPARGB is the only 32-bit alpha channel format that GDI supports.

 

It also appears to be fairly well documented that GDI+ performs best when it is using 32bppPARGB, a few links below as examples.

This could indicate some kind of format conversion is being skipped.

 

https://richorama.github.io/2016/08/10/image-interpolation-benchmarks/

https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/467752-maximizing-gdi-speed/

https://microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.drawing.narkive.com/Pb9bQRzv/great-speed-improvement-trick-format32bpppargb

[SodiumEnglish]

On 11/8/2018 at 10:55 PM, null54 said:

 

As mentioned above I am using the serialization that is built-in to the .NET Framework, and XML is what the DataContractSerializer uses.

 

There also appears to be the DataContractJsonSerializer also built into the .NET Framework.

[NinthDesertDude]

Thanks for fixing those bugs, Null54. There are a couple more since I git pulled:

 

1. In subsequent runs, if I have moved or deleted a folder from the custom brush locations that had successfully loaded on the first run, it will crash with DirectoryNotFoundException.

 

2. It seems that it no longer loads .abr files.

Edited November 11, 2018 by Joshua Lamusga

[null54]

1 hour ago, Joshua Lamusga said:

1. In subsequent runs, if I have moved or deleted a folder from the custom brush locations that had successfully loaded on the first run, it will crash with DirectoryNotFoundException. 

 

Fixed:

Handle missing directories when loading brushes

55 minutes ago, Joshua Lamusga said:

2. It seems that it no longer loads .abr files. 

 

I am not able to reproduce that.

[NinthDesertDude]

Can you upload the .abr files you're using?

[null54]

1 hour ago, Joshua Lamusga said:

Can you upload the .abr files you're using?

 

No, but I can link to a few.

 

https://resources.psdbox.com/photoshop/flying-birds-photoshop-brushes

https://resources.psdbox.com/photoshop/sun-rays-free-photoshop-brushes

https://www.brusheezy.com/brushes/2187-24-clouds

[NinthDesertDude]

All scenarios I could think of passed. I think my .abr file was unsupported. Lets hold conversations in PM or elsewhere so we're not bumping this thread all the time

[NinthDesertDude]

@Ego Eram Reputo Hey, I've got a really really early version of this change done enough that it will hopefully not break on your side of things.
Try it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P3lz5c63fmKgz-h_6U1_8tVNCb4OWgSC/view?usp=sharing

I switched from tabs to expandable sections in the UI since I would've had to add another tab and there'd be two lines of tabs, which is horrible. Plus it's much easier to just move things around. Let me know any thoughts you have about tablet functionality, the UI, etc.

 

Things to know:
- The WinTabDN dll file is what makes tablet recognition possible. Place in Effects folder with the other
- All tablet pressure controls go from no effect at 0% pressure exerted to full effect at 100% pressure exerted (the range isn't stated anywhere though)

Known issues since I only spent 2 days on this so far:
 - tabbing through buttons is messed up right now
 - new buttons don't have tooltips at the bottom bar yet. Sometimes I wonder if anyone sees that bar anyway
 - panning with tablet or using any of the tablet buttons isn't done yet. Trying to close the BrushFactory window via tablet click will fail
 - the rapid change in pressure when setting or removing the stylus from the draw surface plays ugly with pronounced pressure-sensitive effects a user may set

Let me know what you think Ego and everyone else, and if you have problems. I want to rule out any major tablet issues before starting to polish things.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Downloaded.

 

First impression: Looks good! I'll spend some time with it this weekend 👍

[Ego Eram Reputo]

I'm getting some odd tracking of the cursor using my tablet. I'm talking about the vertical strokes here.

 

I turned off Native Pointer Input (PDN Settings) but it didn't change the behaviour. From what I'm seeing, there appear to be two cursors. One on the canvas and another at the top of the screen. The 'trails' appear to be drawn between these two points.

 

If I persist in attempting to draw with the tablet I often end up with the Brush Factory dialog repositioned halfway down the screen.

[NinthDesertDude]

25 minutes ago, Ego Eram Reputo said:

I'm getting some odd tracking of the cursor using my tablet. I'm talking about the vertical strokes here.

 

I turned off Native Pointer Input (PDN Settings) but it didn't change the behaviour. From what I'm seeing, there appear to be two cursors. One on the canvas and another at the top of the screen. The 'trails' appear to be drawn between these two points.

 

If I persist in attempting to draw with the tablet I often end up with the Brush Factory dialog repositioned halfway down the screen.

Never heard of the native point input setting. When I turn it off, I can actually use the tablet with paint.net. That's new on me. But even with that off, I still get my plugin behaving normally. I'm not sure if it's an issue of your driver working better than mine, or your driver not conforming to whatever the tablet reading code in Brush Factory expects. If you were using Huion or Wacom, I'd guess it's my plugin that's in error, but you're using one I've never heard of before, so it's a real possibility your tablet isn't detected right. How about pressure sensitivity, can you make brush size change based on pressure sensitivity or something and see if it works? That would tell me a lot actually.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

1 hour ago, NinthDesertDude said:

How about pressure sensitivity, can you make brush size change based on pressure sensitivity or something and see if it works? That would tell me a lot actually.

 

No, pressure sensitivty doesn't seem to be working. I had a couple of animated circles encircling the cursor when I was altering the pressure - but it didn't change the brush.

[NinthDesertDude]

I'm leaning towards it doesn't like your tablet, then.

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Yeah. You could say that

[NinthDesertDude]

Dynamic Draw v3 (aka Brush Factory) is released now

Here's a summary

I WANT YOUR FEEDBACK (please )
Anything that comes to mind. Dumb, redundant, and infeasible requests welcome. I want to know what's working, what isn't, what you need and all your idle thoughts.

*Selections and layers are the two really important pain points left. Not much I can do about them unfortunately... Selections would be a huge hassle to recreate, and until paint.net lets me read layer contents, the best I could do is create my own...but then there's no sane way to save layer information.
 

Edited December 25, 2021 by NinthDesertDude

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Downloaded & testing.....

[Ego Eram Reputo]

Installed fine. Working nicely with mouse. Ugee M1000L is still showing the odd behaviours I detailed above (21 August).

 

On 8/21/2021 at 3:46 PM, Ego Eram Reputo said:

From what I'm seeing, there appear to be two cursors. One on the canvas and another at the top of the screen. The 'trails' appear to be drawn between these two points.

 

[NinthDesertDude]

8 minutes ago, Ego Eram Reputo said:

Ugee M1000L is still showing the odd behaviours I detailed above (21 August).

Yeah, no attempted resolution for that particular case yet. I need a whole separate API for it probably, given WinTabDN.dll can't recognize pressure sensitivity as you said earlier. If it was just position jitter I could chalk it up to the manual mouse position emulation, or on a long shot it could be an input bounds issue between the mapping of the tablet space to screen space. But the pressure sensitivity means it's a bigger issue.

[NinthDesertDude]

Redacted the original comment for irrelevancy. Finally figured out what Windows Ink is all about. It's a Windows tablet+pen API surrounding their own tablet, but confusingly, all the third party vendors started bootlegging onto it like a raft. So we went from third-party solutions (predominantly WinTab) to Windows Ink because at least that one is a solid Windows supported API.

And another offputting thing is 90% of the tutorials all focus on the InkCanvas WPF components, but those components still have an underlying layer for just reading out the pressure sensitivity and pen position, which is what I need. Ideally I should support both WinTab and Windows Ink anyway, so it's good that I've got what might actually be the out-of-the-way one already. Hopefully with Windows Ink, the Ugee tablet and others will be able to function.

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by NinthDesertDude

[AndrewDavid]

I keep getting this error mesage;

 

File: C:\Users\Andrew\Documents\paint.net App Files\Effects\DynamicDraw version 3.0 Alpha\DynamicDraw.dll  
Full error message: System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'Wintab32.dll' or one of its dependencies: The specified module could not be found. (0x8007007E)

 

where is Wintab32.dll?

[NinthDesertDude]

20 minutes ago, AndrewDavid said:

where is Wintab32.dll?

It should be in C:\Windows\System32, but I thought it came with Windows and it doesn't, so now I need to safeguard against it possibly not existing

Edited December 15, 2021 by NinthDesertDude

[otuncelli]

2 minutes ago, NinthDesertDude said:

This is a default-installed file located in C:\Windows\System32. I have no idea why it would be missing for you, but it just comes with Windows. Check to see if it's there. It should be directly in the System32 folder

 

I'm getting the same error. I don't have this file in Windows/System32 directory. Maybe there is a Windows component I need to install ?

[otuncelli]

A workaround here:

 

I managed to fix this error by downloading the Surface Pro 4 drivers from the link below (it contains wintab32.dll for both x64 and x32):

 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49498

 

I put wintab32.dll and DHid.dll in the same directory as other plugin's files and it worked.

[NinthDesertDude]

Thanks. I had no idea wintabdn didn't embed its own copy or anything. I had it installed already because I use a tablet that used it. The download link has been replaced as of about a minute ago to just ignore the error so you can continue testing.

[AndrewDavid]

Another workaround here:

 

I managed to fix this error by downloading the Wacom driver from their website.

https://www.wacom.com/en-ca/support/product-support/drivers#latest

 

Rebooted and everything works fine. Wacom recognizes I have no tablet connected. Maybe one day......