openCanvas Users Forum

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

I just noticed that while visiting portalgraphics site, the info is splashed all over: http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/
On July 31, no more English (or Engrish) version of opencanvas, no more English website, no more English support.
Maybe I'll learn Japanese. Or search for another software.
What do you guys think?

KyoshiroRen · Just Arrived Joined: 25 Apr 2008 Posts: 14

I was just about to post this sad news...

http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/news.html

In the news it said that

"1 Due to the end of English Customer Services, we will accept any inquiries only by email after this date."

Is this mean that we can still contact them via email if we have any problem?

KainNero · Site Admin Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 199 Location: Canada

this is very sad news! I wonder why they are doing this? maybe they can't afford to pay for upkeep of English version?

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

KyoshiroRen - Actually English e-mail support will continue for a year - I guess they have to, in case of lingering problems with purchase and registration and such.

KainNero - I suppose they have too few customers outside the Japanese speaking community. With a slightly more active thrust outside they could have gained many more users.

I'm very disappointed, for I really like the nifty interface of openCanvas, and I was eagerly waiting for the next upgrades (and bug fixes).

onewaystair · Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:32 am Post subject:

How disappointing. Fortunately I can read a bit of Japanese, but I'll have to re-discover how to get this computer to display the menus in Japanese characters instead of computer moon runes...

I hope it's not anything to do with finances, because I'd like to see them continue to develop this software for a long time.

KainNero · Site Admin Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 199 Location: Canada

Apparently it is not just us. Using Google translator, they are ending sale of Japanese versions of their software too!
They have this new software they are working on now called Sketchbox.

Someone who can read Japanese please fill us in?

Minray · Newbie Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Croatia

Ugh...i can't believe they did that. First Albatross18 moved & i lost my old account & now this?! Sad

What will this Sketchbook do anyway?
I cannot download it so i can try it...i requests portalgraphics ID which i have form PGN community site but i can't login....unless it's some other ID needed??

Can anyone give us info about this new product & if it's possible put a link of the program so we can try it out?

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

All that looks like a petty business maneuver and a cold lack of respect for the customers Sad

I'm not going to use that Sketchbox however great it might turn out to be - I would always fear they terminated it overnight.

People, do keep backups of your oC installer and registration key or you might end up unable to open your archives in a few years from now. I wish there was a tool to automatically convert all my oci files into some more stable format.

I've explored many alternatives both commercial and free but they all feature cluttered and/or awkward interfaces. For many years I've been wanting to develop my own painting software but that's a huge task even if my needs are relatively modest - although quite specific: I'd want only a few of the functionalities of Manga Studio, openCanvas and ArtRage, but blended into one app Smile

Minray · Newbie Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Croatia

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

Hey, I wish I was actually developing my software but the only thing I coded was reading input from the tablet driver and basic RGBA layer operations and that was some two years ago. Plus, programing tends to make one mad Very Happy

I tried SAI a few months ago and I agree it's full of good things but the interface eats half of the screen and some tools end up cut at the lower border (and I have a 1440x900 screen). Maybe I missed some option tuning but I can't open it again now that the trial period is over.

I'll have to find back my dA password to check your latest works with SAI because they have that big grey sign over them Razz

About uninstalling the beta of SBox, I suppose you'll have to search the windows registry tree by hand to remove the bits: Type "regedit" in the execute box on XP or the search box on Vista to launch the registry editor and search for "portalgraphics" - but be sure you know what you delete because messing with the regbase can lead to a disaster for your computer.

About line width, how about working on a picture twice or four times the size you want, then reduce it for web publishing at 96dpi?

Minray · Newbie Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Croatia

onewaystair · Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:52 am Post subject:

Wow, this is extra crappy news... So no more oC at all then. At least the latest version seems fairly stable...

Minray, thanks for the link; I have an account at PGN but I'm too lazy to look for a program download there, haha. I'll give the program a spin but surely it's nothing like openCanvas P:

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

@Minray: Maybe the next versions of SAI will have a more compact interface, I'll check them up then if the trial time of the previous version doesn't impede me from opening the app.

I finally had a look at your SAI works, you're pretty good at coloring! Sure SAI has better blending and airbrush-like strokes. Maybe have a look at the Arena section of the Café Salé forum, sometimes they look for colorists for professional projects.

About the registry, well, maybe it's not worth worrying about it, whatever the beta stores there shouldn't harm the computer.

@All: Is Sketchbox a nice app? I admit I won't install anything from Portalgraphics anymore.

Is there any chance some company will buy OC to continue the development and fix those damn bugs - and implement network back?

onewaystair · Posted: Sat Aug 08, 2009 12:16 pm Post subject:

Well, I unzipped it, and I think it seems okay. Very very bare bones, but I rather like that in a program. There's a nice variety of brushes and the strokes look very smooth and respond well to tablet pressure. Eraser functionality with my tablet pen works well, too. Seems like it'll be nice for lineart, which I'll admit isn't a task I enjoy in openCanvas.

This test version saves only as bitmap, though, so if you want to preserve layers between programs you might have to do something tricky like saving each layer as a separate file.

I haven't used SAI so I don't know how it compares to a program like that.

As for it being in English, I could be wrong, but the menu items almost look like some kind of part of a line of code, like "document.history.back.once" for undo. It might be that they haven't bothered much with the interface but are only testing functionality. (The readme says this version is focusing on the brush stroke engine.)

Minray · Newbie Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Croatia

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

Onewaystair, thank you for the report. It really looks like Sketchbox 1.0 will be some sort of OC 5.0, meaning those who paid for OC won't have an upgrade discount on Sketchbox. That's very sad.

As for the menu texts, indeed they look like paths to language data not yet implemented. They might even have coded SB in Unicode so they can easily make Korean, Mandarin, etc versions. Sadly - again - they probably won't make versions in Western languages, otherwise they would have advertised it from the start.

Minray, I reinstalled SAI, and despite the expired trial time I could open the app. It's better, much better, than what I remembered. But will I put yet another 50 bucks in a software that's not giving signs of being still developed and bugfixed? The experience with OC has made me shy.

Water effects are always very tricky to render. Try doing studies from photo references first. Super wet watercolor brushes and a few hard brush dabs for the highlights on the foam might help. But considering your coloring style you might also try some very stylised water with less color blending? It also depends on the underlying line art, is it much stylised or rather realistic?

FireRaider · Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 2:10 pm Post subject:

Heh... wow. didn't see that coming.

So much for my promise to myself to one day buy a lic...*arghcoughcough* I mean, that's not nice. What if I need a keyg... err serial key reissue ^^;

Anyway, they seem to be pretty much starting from scratch with SketchBox. Seen a few screenshots. I don't like it. But I couldn't really try it out for myself. For "various" reasons. It asks for some stupid ID.

Here's a screenshot. Last image.
http://pub.ne.jp/PP765/?daily_id=20090701
backup:
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m146/fireraider/OTHER/1246474540.jpg
Wouldn't really call that oC's successor soft. The GUI is abysmal. Reminds me a bit of photoshop or SAI. The person mentions it having some "capture" function (event record?) but there seem to be some troubles with the layers. The person does not tell us more details about teh ScretchBokcs, though.

Baww. oC is gone.
Baww. They changed it, now it sucks.

And now to compensate with some useful information for the baww above, here is sum UI translashunz. Enjoy.

The current pulled down menu (brush):

主線(硬) [しゅせん?(コウ/かたい)] - main line (hard)
主線(軟) [しゅせん?(ナン/やわらか)] - main line (soft)
彩色(硬) [さいしき/さいしょく(コウ/かたい)] - coloring, painting (hard)
彩色(軟) [さいしき/さいしょく(ナン/やわらか)] - coloring, painting (soft)
鉛筆＊ [えんぴつ] - pencil
ペン＊ - pen :)
エアブラシ - airbrush
破線 [はせん] - dotted line
カリグラフィ - calligraphy
棘 [いばら] - thorny shrub

And the menubar has following items:

ファイル(F) - File
編集(E) - [へんしゅう] Edit
選択範囲(S) - [せんたくはんい] Range of Selection
表示(V) - [ひょうじ] Display
ウインドウ(W) - Window
ヘルプ(H) - Help

And that "artifact" menu (some error) seems like the feature I always wanted to see in oC. Paint directly over the layer, changing brush mode to multiply, lighten, and so on. But since it's incomplete, I'm not going to go much into it. It seems to have overlay, soft light, hard light, vivid light, linear light, pin light and some other crap in it.

And it is currently painting on layer 1.

The tool icons seem stolen off oC... OMG the color picker is like freaking MsPaint.

Well, that's that. Can't wait for an official release. And you know...

@Everyone:
If anyone has the file, can they please PM me or something if they want to share. I want to try it out for myself.
In return, I can halp with Japanese or something.

@Minray:
Always wanted to know from where your icon is. I like it very very much :3
Off topic, I know. But I just couldn't resist.

And, sorry for mentioning, but still... if the product support is discontinued, using a keygen or that sort of thing in the future sounds VERY legitimate to me. What do you people think?
(I don't think any other company is going to buy oc. Ever.)

Sorry for the TL;DR and the quite nonsensical post.

PS: hope you have unicode fonts, otherwise you'll see just blobs of questionmarks. Not that it makes any difference if you can't read Moonspeak anyway~
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Minray · Newbie Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Croatia

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

FireRaider, thanks for the translations. In her August 6 post Minray provided a direct link to the beta. I finally tried it, coudn't resist. In the FAQ provided in the zip it reads:

dryink · Just Arrived Joined: 04 Aug 2009 Posts: 5

Yeah this pretty much sucks a big one. Soon as I join this forum this happens. Oh well I guess, I was wondering about the sketchbox preview Minray put up for us. Does anyone else get a crash when trying to run it?

Well it seems it didnt want to run on my laptop, but on my desktop it did. The preview seems ok. Like already said more options for brushes.

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

Dryink, I had one crash during a zoom in.
I tested a huge variety of brushes (available through the cogwheel button) and the huge variety of parameters, and tried some painting. The brush engine is actually very different from that of opencanvas, it's more like photoshop, meaning that blending is done by airbrushing, not by dragging and watercoloring.
They take into account almost all input from the wacom tablets, for instance the tilt and orientation of the pen, something I planned to do when I started my own project. But they don't come close to the insane amount of parameters of mypaint http://mypaint.intilinux.com/
Well, OK, sketchbox is rather good anyway, I hate to admit that after all my anger venting about portagraphics' rude attitude...
Sigh...

dryink · Just Arrived Joined: 04 Aug 2009 Posts: 5

@ Leo Ki
The crash I experience on my laptop is right when I first start the program. I never even seen the program till I tried it on my desktop.
I have to agree and say that the program doesn't seem all that bad. Tho it is just a preview and what not. I never really knew a lot about the company portalgraphics or openCanvas to have a very strong opinion about the direction there going at the moment. I'm just glad that I didn't go and buy openCanvas. I was real close to doing so. And that really to bad because I've been having real fun using there product. But hey I gotta say I still see using the crap out of oC 1.1
Things of this sort always just suck hands down!

FireRaider · Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:23 am Post subject:

@Minray:
Thank you!!! :3 Omg, I love her gallery. I need to learn to shade my stuffs like THAT hehe.

@Leo Ki:
You're welcome :)

*palmface* How stupid of me. I didn't really read the whole thread, just the first two posts. The discussion sorta started getting a little bit boring so I scrolled quickly through the rest. (um, I know I just said something that actually makes it worse)

Uhuh, I'm curious to see where this whole thing is going...
I dunno manga studio, but I just know that oC's brushes kick Photoshop's ass. If they can pull that one out with their skethc contraption, then... fine.
It looks like they are struggling to make their soft very cross-platform (see the program's about). Otherwise I cannot explain their DevKit choice. But that's all there seems to be to it. They already HAD a very good product.

Either that, or oC's main programmers ran off

Ugh, bitmap file format. And every time I change tools the toolbars go all wonky. If you move them out of place you can't put them back together again as they were. And for whatever reason the Japanese doesn't work properly either. But they seem to have language files, and that's a good thing.

Another good thing is, I think you can avoid the time limit for now by just setting the clock back. I'll look further into it, and see exactly what registry entries it creates and what files it modifies. Even though, I guess this one can wait for the release...

I don't have internet access at home, so it might take a while until I get back here. I need to test it withmy graphire4. If I find anything useful, I'll post about it.
For now... PICCIE LINKY. I wonder how I can get it to crash... umm...
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Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

Dryink, sorry I misread. No, I never got a crash at start. You're lucky you haven't bought oc just a few months ago. If I had, instead of two years ago, I would storm the company's mailbox with hatemail Smile

FireRaider, I don't know why they used Qt, maybe they aim at the international market after all and Qt should take care of all the intricacies of right-to-left writings and such? Or they hope to have less interface bugs?

I had a look at the brand new japanese version of the website, and thanks to google translator I could see they just released preview 6 of sketchbox. And, some good news, I was doing some more testings on preview 5, and found that with the color mix brush settings it's possible to approximate the opencanvas brushes. But I won't buy sketchbox after the commercial hijack they did.

dryink · Just Arrived Joined: 04 Aug 2009 Posts: 5

I'm sure I may not fully understand this but, what about deleter and (or) cg illust?
Those look and feel the same to me. Maybe someone else knows more then me. (That I'm sure of. Razz

)

Deleter
CG Illust

KainNero · Site Admin Joined: 14 Jan 2007 Posts: 199 Location: Canada

CGIllust sold by Deleter is the same program as oC - it just saves as a different file extension

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

The same as oC 2 I guess? I've searched for the history of Portagraphics but everything is very foggy. Imagine Adobe sold to Corel the right to distribute Photoshop by the name Corel Phototricks or something... :\

I've resumed work on my old project, thinking about ways to have it manage cmyk comic books from sketching to prepress. Too much work, too little time. Manga Studio is nice for inking and toning but if you want to make painterly comics that's definitely not the right software.

FireRaider · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:57 am Post subject:

@Leo Ki: Can't see how it has anything to do with any of those, but... it's not like it really matters anyway :)
And you just answered above to what I wanted to ask more about. Thank you!
Yeah, Corel Phototricks LOL

Also related, found THIS:
http://www.manga-techno.com/comic/11-soft/11-top_cgrepo.shtml
I would buy that.

Still, I think I would actually move to SAI, if it would have event record. The brushes are quite good as well and I like the interface.

And now, my (final) two cents on Sketchbox's brushes, settings and overall behavior. I tried it out with my tablet. Wacom Graphire4 XL A5 Silver.

VERY BAD:
-when painting, colors just don't blend at all, it's like painting in Photoshop. Only worse.

Meh:
-responds well to pressure, similar to oC.
-fast, doesn't lag, similar to oC.
-either I missed it, or this version doesn't have a proper pencil (鉛筆,エンピツ). It does have a truckload of of good pens though.

Good:
-very very smooth strokes (interpolation, oC did not have it)
test a.) made very fast strokes. Couldn't see any corners. oC would have had very edgy strokes. Sketchbox is similar to Photoshop and SAI here
test b.) zoomed out to 2.1% and wrote my name. A bit tricky, but it came out very smooth (even more smooth than SAI) and quite readable. There is here something to it, trust me. In oC it would come out blocky, but readable. You need a tablet with lots of DPI to do this. And a very firm hand. Also, it's done by feel, not by eyes.
-has a lot more settings than oC
-brush "mode" function. I love it!

Wow. They actually... really improved something.
Verdict: Okay. But as many new features as it may have, if the colors under the brush can't blend, spread and blur like in oC and SAI's watercolor, then I don't like it.

Looking forward to their next update.
Sorry for taking up space in the thread :3
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Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

I mentioned Manga Studio only because I use Open Canvas to draw comics, and I'm looking for a replacement software for the same job.

CG Illust 4.5 Plus? Open Canvas 4.5 Plus it looks ^^

About the 2.1% zoom in Open Canvas, are you sure you selected Tablet Coordinates, not System Coordinates in the easy-to-miss control at the bottom of the image window? I can't understand why the default setting of OC is system coordinates, because when working on a high dpi picture one always start working at 25% zoom or less in order to see the whole picture on screen, and mouse coordinates (screen dpi) just ruin the quality of the pointer. EDIT: Just did the test. Well you're right, OC doesn't behave as well - curve smoothing makes a difference ^^

What kind of pencil brush do you look for in Sketch Box? If the same as in Open Canvas it's just a standard brush with thickness and opacity both controled by pen pressure. Or do you want a grainy look? There is a grainy brush in Sketch Box, with dispersion parameters and such, but I haven't tested it at small size yet.

EDIT: Event recording would be a nice feature. It's not that hard to implement in a software, it's just a list of vector commands with a little extra information to add (especially when randomness affects a stroke).

FireRaider · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:49 pm Post subject:

@Leo Ki:
Yep, it's 4.5.10 And by now it should be more.
http://www.cgillust.com/ja/index.html
Japanese version only for now. Maybe they will keep developing it. Looks like I was totally wrong.

>>are you sure you selected Tablet Coordinates

Odd, mine is always "Tablet".

I got so annoyed, I even calculated it at some point. oC gets 100 pen responses per second and doesn't interpolate them. Just puts a straight line between them. Usually you don't notice. But if your hand moves fast enough, you can. And it's not a new problem.

I do remember at some point playing with that switch, but didn't really notice much difference. I guess by system, it means the Window's tablet driver (provided by wacom) and by "Tablet" it means oC's internal driver.

I do remember having a lot of trouble because my tablet is 4:3 and my monitors are widescreen, so I limit the active screen area to the canvas and a few controls (usually folded). But sometimes oC would reject the config and remap the tablet to the whole screen no matter what until I delete my tablet preferences file.

Well, anyway, I tried everything and could not get rid of the blockiness. But since I normally don't even paint at less than 50%, I don't really care.

But I just wanted to point out that sketchbox has a very impressive stroke smoothing engine.

Blah :)

EDIT:
>>Just did the test. Well you're right, OC doesn't behave as well - curve smoothing makes a difference ^^
See, told ya! :)
>>Event recording
Definitely! But we must do some serious bitchin' to get their attention so that they will implement that feature.
_________________
~society without religion is like a maniac without a chainsaw~

Minray · Newbie Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Croatia

Firereader Thanks.I'm glad you like my CG coloring style.
Leo Ki conceptart.org didn't help at all...they gave me some advice but it was mainly for realistic water not anime style... Confused

Leo Ki · Newbie Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 34

FireRaider, you're probably right about the system/tablet setting, I'll do some more testing at low scale to see if OC is unable by design to handle positioning below screen resolution. It would be a bad blow. And that lack of documentation...

I don't know if they would put recording in sketchbox, considering how they dropped networking earlier in opencanvas... It looks like they are avoiding anything that is not in the big companies' software, total lack of audacity.

Minray, I saw your post in the Art discussion section. Maybe try again in the WIP section (Studies & Works in Progress) and title your thread "anime water ripples". In that section people tend to help much more if you keep posting the progress of your work in the thread, showing your motivation. I've seen threads going on for months there, ending in the posting of the finished painting.

FireRaider · Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 6:43 am Post subject:

@Minray: ^^ welcome

@Leo Ki: No, oC is fine. If it would be screen resolution, then painting at 25% would be totally impossible, think about it. I guess they will put event recording in Sketchbox. I was talking about SAI.
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~society without religion is like a maniac without a chainsaw~

Minray · Newbie Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 29 Location: Croatia

Foolix · Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 5:47 am Post subject:

regarding the end of oC.. would it be concidered okay to distribute it around "illegally" now that it's discontinued? Just a thought.

Cause it could maybe be distributed through here later on and keep it going seeing as, tho it's discontinued, it's still a very capable program.
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dryink · Just Arrived Joined: 04 Aug 2009 Posts: 5

I was just wondering if anyone has another newer sneak peak of sketchbox they can upload?

FireRaider · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 1:23 pm Post subject:

dryink · Just Arrived Joined: 04 Aug 2009 Posts: 5

Right from the page