Version : MyPaint v2.0.0-alpha.13 (2019-11-08)
For those who don’t spend their days spamming git fetch in their local clone of the mypaint repo, eagerly waiting for the latest changes, it might seem like nothing much has happened recently. To allay such notions, there is now a new alpha release with the latest and greatest changes (as a matter of fact, all changes) as we make our steady crawl towards the beta phase.
Get yourself over to the release page for a list of changes and a list of files!
Unfortunately we don’t have the ppa or other deb builds up to date, so users on Debian/Ubuntu will have to make do with the AppImage builds for the time being.
Version : MyPaint v2.0.0-alpha (2019-01-25)
We have just released mypaint v2.0.0-alpha.0.
Spectral Paint/Pigment layer and brush mode
Linear blending for non-pigment layers and brush modes
Smudge enhancements
Layer “views”
Fullscreen improvements with autohide of toolbars
Python3 compatibility
A bunch of other stuff!
Please note, old files will composite layers in a linear “more correct” way. This might look different, better, or perhaps worse. We could add legacy modes but it is probably better to move on if possible, or render old files with an older version of MyPaint if necessary (or even Gimp/Krita).
The pigment/paint mode is default for all brushes and new layers. If for some reason you don’t like it, or it is too slow, you can slide the “Pigment” slider to off (from the tool options panel), and change the layer mode to Normal. This will go back to a linear RGB blend mode (not non-linear like the old MyPaint).
Highly recommend my brush pack (included in AppImage, soon for Windows) to see many new features in action:
special thanks to @aferrero2707 for the appimage build setup
Version : MyPaint 1.0.0 (2011-11-21)
Packages :
Packaging time already started but still not published yet , installer for various system ( Win, Mac , linux distribution ) based on the 1.0 code source should appear shortly ( encouragement for all the packager around who works hard on it ) . If you want to help ; check the packaging status here and talk with us via mailing list / forum / IRC channel . *-buntu users affraid to compile will probably enjoy to install the developpement ppa .
Changes:
A configurable toolbar has been added with dropdown widgets for colour, brush, and brush settings.
Floating tool windows can now be docked into a sidebar inside the main window.
A “Lock Alpha” mode has been added for brushstrokes, and there are now some basic layer compositing modes.
Mouse and stylus buttons can be bound to different actions via the preferences.
There’s a new scratchpad tool which can be used for thumbnails, notes, or recording brushstrokes and colour choices.
Finally, there have been numerous little improvements and bugfixes to MyPaint’s speed, user interface, and its brush collections.
Version : MyPaint 0.6.0 (2009-01-25)
Finally, MyPaint development has gone stable again.
After rewriting the surface code (tiled memory, 16bit precision, alpha channel) and changing the build system (automake to SCons) and getting rid of GObject C code (the new C++ extensions are a lot cleaner, STL-free, designed to be swig’able and don’t depend on GTK any more), everything is finally working again. The code is somewhat cleaner now, and there is even a self-contained brush library (LGPL) that translates tablet events into brush dab events.
So, we have layers now. You might be disappointed that there is not much GUI for them, but they are usable and stable. You can save layered paintings in the upcoming OpenRaster file format. Some of the other GUI improvements were a direct result of having layers: the eraser mode (something I’m quite happy with) and the possibility to change the background (color or pattern).
Other improvements include a new color wheel popup contributed by Clement Skau. I must admit that it works not quite as well as I would have expected (in terms of color picking speed), but it’s still an improvement over bringing up the GTK color dialog in many situations. You can invoke it by pressing the V-key twice.
The drawback is that things are somewhat slower now. Except for undo, which is lightning fast but limited to 20 steps. Things are in particular slow when you have zoomed, rotated or mirrored the viewport.
The reason is that the backend being used for transformations, Cairo, does not seem to offer a working speed/quality tradeoff. Still, Cairo is great for what it was designed for, and transformations are easy and fun to work with. Another (smaller) reason for the slowdown is the increased Python overhead. All tablet events are now manipulated and passed around a lot more before they finally make it into the C++ module where things happen faster. This is mainly an issue for the low-end PCs (<1GHz). And the final reason for the slowdown is simply that many default brushes use tighter spacing now, making the strokes much smoother.
All in all, I’d say the improvements clearly dominate.
