KritaSprint 2011 in Amsterdam
Updates 2019: This article used to be illustrated by a long video of the Krita sprint. The video was hosted by a member, Bugsbane on a website named blip.tv. Unfortunately, this website shutdown in 2015 and the data disapeared. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blip(website), original link was: http://blip.tv/play/AYK_%2BHgC._
Several weeks ago I was invited to fly to Amsterdam to the Blender Institute by the Krita team ( a 2D digital painting Free/Libre Open Source Software ; FLOSS ) . I met in this place developpers and Artist around this great Krita community.
This big week-end event was named 'KritaSprint 2011' and happen each year. The goal of my presence ?
- First , meet most poeple around the team 'in real' after a year of IRC and email discution, and have real discution.
- On a second time ,do a demo session on the saturday with a video projector to talk about my experience painting with Krita (other artist invited did the same ).
You can now watch this 40min video online on Krita.org page or here under with the video player. In this 40min, I focused on showcasing my difficulties with Krita around the vital and overall ergonomie.
So, Just a simple speedpainting of my 'default' face, with a 'grey to color' simple workflow. Very hard to have a interresting end result in 40min , recorded live. Btw, for poeple not used to hear my voice on my silent labelled DVDs , you can have a good idea after hearing this of why it's better to not hear me speaking on my DVDs :)
The result here was called 'RGB girl', because of her unrealistic flashy hair color.
As you can hear, the ambiance is good, and we like to joke and laught while working. So, this week-end was sweet, and it was also good to be back at the Blender Institute and meet old mates from Sintel crew.
Most of the bugs and fix I asked in this video were fixed by the incredibly talentuous team of developpers few hours after the recording. Now in the last Git, you can crop and hit hunter, preset refresh well in the preset editor, shortcuts to grow/shrink brush size work better and faster, you can have a dark/light shortcut , etc...etc... And soon, Krita will come on Windows operating system and have easier installer for last version on Linux distribution.
You can also check other artist demo on the Krita blog, and don't miss to help Animtim create Krita's first training DVD or help Krita team with your bug report, artworks, donations.
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If you already use Krita and do arts with, please share it with us on the Krita gallery forum.
During this week-end I also did this another one speedpainting , nothing fancy but a good way to continue to bug report and test more and more. It's important to makes Krita the best as possible as I really plan to switch to it for my full workflow in a near future.
technical detail : the sound was took from a video camera and the video from the very good py script Recordscreen. PS : Special thanks to Bugsbane for took care of the video editing, and the KDE project for sponsoring the KritaSprint
27 comments
Great watch! I think you are too conscience of your accent David! I can understand your English perfectly.
So, no more MyPaint in a near future?
(ou quand des Français s'écrivent en anglais... ;)
@swims : :) No, I think I will keep Mypaint for detailing, and sketching. To get rid of Mypaint, Krita team would have to stabilize and to extremly enhance performances. And Mypaint will still be my little favorite , voilà :P
@Sean : Thanks a lot. Yes, about my accent ; it's really hard to listen me back when I compare my accent to the many good movies I watch in original US/UK soundtrack, or all the good tutorial I listen online from native English and American speaker. Thanks again for your comment, it's help me to accept it better. Doing voice over is 10x faster than doing text bubble as I did for my 2 DVDs, and if I could find a way to do it with being satisfied of myself , I would post more video tutorial for sure. I will give it another try soon for sure ;)
Whoa - thats a good news man - Krita on Windows :D So it is really happening! Please be sure to post when this will happen ;) As for the video - is always good to see some other artist workflow - doesnt matter what software he is using, so THANK YOU!
Greetings from Mexico.
David, your english becomes more...english :) (it is appreciable even for not english-speaking person like me). In this video the french accent is much less then in begining of Lezard vid.
As for Krita, it has some good features, but still needs development. Hope to see soon a good and finished product like MyPaint & Gimp (can't wait it in Debian repository). Wish good luck to all Krita staff and you as Krita designer :)
PS: Is Krita a separate software or it is part of KDE desktop environment?
David,
1st off, I agree with Sean, you are to critical about your voice. You should hear me speak French ...but I can't. I could understand you fine and follow what you were doing.
2nd, I am using Ubuntu 11.04 but have been unable to get the newer version of Krita to load (2.4?). How do you install Krita? I would like to see what I can do with it. You pointed out in another post about it's Mirror tool.
Thanks,
Steve
Really interesting demonstration here!
And yes, don't blame yourself like that because of your english, I understood everything flawlessly, that's what counts :).
What place would you like to offer krita in your workflow ultimately? I know you do sketches and detailing with MyPaint but for the rest, will it replace gimp (for your needs)?
Soon soon, je suis vraiment impatient qu'il arrive sous windows.
hmmm... c'est la premiere foi que j'entends parler de Krita..ca parait intrigant,,,
I'l give it a try when it comes under windows,,because Linux HATES me!@.@
T.q. again david = ]
@nezumi : Thanks , cool to know my blog have Mexico's reader :) it's sound sunny to me :)
@kot-barbos and @Steven Powers (SMP) : Thanks, good to know my accent improved, maybe time to dive into recording more tutorial with my voice ( time-saving in a way compare to text balloon ) and produce more e-learning material. For your question ; Krita is a separate software and I compile it on my Gnome LinuxMint 10 system ( a distrib with similar technical reference than Ubuntu maverick meerkat ). To compile it you must download the script here : http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=139&t=92880">http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=139&t=92880 . I know 11.04 Ubuntu release get a lot of problems ; with broken pressure in Qt apps, or with Unity slowing down Gimp strokes... Good luck if you try it ; here I also compiled it on my laptop ( Linux Mint 9 ; similar to Ubuntu Lucid Lynx LTS ). I regret for my actual system to not had sticked to LTS :) newer version are not really polished and a lot of stuff are broken. Too bad.
@Michael : Thanks ! for Krita in my workflow, I like it for speedpainting at the moment ; as the brush engine is faster on my computer than Gimp-painter , I can use large brush on a large workspace. I still prefer to detail with Mypaint, and because Krita offer internal *.ora file compatibility , it's easy to open and save and work with Mypaint ( oh, and if you work on the same file, the 2 software have a precious 'reload' button ) . I think I will still keep Gimp in my workflow ( precious image manipulation features there ) , this just add another software to my toolbox. The good point is I will surely accept better to forgot about Gimp-painter , and stick in the future to the main Gimp trunk ; Kirta already have a mixbrush tool like who paint and smudge ; only the inner texture in the brush and general production-ready stability is missing :)
@Godzillu : Soon soon = before christmass for almost sure ( end of autumn from what I understood in the Krita Sprint 2011 )
@Ludovic A. : Linux hates you ? ça arrive :) mais une fois adopté , un pingouin devient très affectif ;-) Ici aussi j'attends la version Windows ; c'est elle qui va popularisé Krita un max sur les communauté de graphiste amateur et semi-pro , et arriver à entrer dans l'arsenal des pros à long terme. Donc plus d'attention au bug fix , et donc plus de qualité et certainement plus de développeurs. Je leur souhaite la même 'success story' que la Blender Foundation !
David,
Which version have you been using 2.4 and is that the version the script is installing? Ubuntu's repository is version 2.3.
Thanks,
Steve
@Steven Powers (SMP) : Hey, I use the script to compile it 2 or 3 time by week. It's not really '2.4' it's 2.4 in alpha developpement. 2.4 wil be the next snapshot of Krita developpement ; surely after the Google Summer of Code , in autumn. Good to know 2.3 replaced the really outdated 2.2 in Ubuntu repositeries. Of course Krita team did hundreds of changes since 2.3, and here I can't imagine doing something else than sticking to compiling the last stuff for the moment ; only since 10 days , 'flow' appear on all painting mode and also the new "Get hot new stuff" buttons in preset to share and download live brushes etc...
So really good things :D
Thanks David. I'll give it a shot compiling. I really want to give it a good road test.
David,
Not to bother you but it looks like I was able to compile Krita using the script you linked to but now how do I install it? It might seem obvious to you, but I am not good at installing Linux apps if they are not in the repository.
Thanks again,
Steve
@Steven Powers (SMP) : Cool if you get it compiled , unfortunately I'm still a user, and it's almost impossible for me to explain it right-now ( one of the reason I don't do blog post about ) . Only developpers know , on the http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=139&t=92880">subject here of the script Kubuntiac explain how to do it , he even updated the script later on the post with a menu installer, and auto dependencies , etc... ; As far as I understand ; there is a .profile file to edit with path to make our system recognize the compiled folders of Krita as an apps who can run when typing 'krita' in the terminal or in a launcher. The best is to ask in this thread about your problem, or join the IRC channel #krita on Freenodes to chat with developpers and advanced users.
I really hope a simple way to get it will be in the future. Do not discourage yourself ; when it's setup, it's easy to update and run after. Just the setup process is hard.
David,
Thank you very much for your help. I am with you ...I just want to do the art but unfortunately it involves computers. Thanks for the links. I will see what I can figure out and post with a fix. Eventually there will be one.
Steve
Hi David,
I've got Mint 11. Everytime I start the script from your link it says: install the right dependencies...which is?^^ Please help me. :-)
@Steven Powers (SMP) : Yep, using FLOSS for art includes a lot of painfull computing time to got cutting-edge new stuff from developpers. I remember the time before Sintel where I had to switch branch to use Iportnov Mypaint git branch and compile, when I add to apply the diff files to the Gimp source code to compile with Gimp-painter, and when I had to trick again , again , again the Wacom driver etc...
But after 2 years, most of tablets works on plug&play, a ppa exist for Gimp-painter and Mypaint is easy to compile from trunk. Things evolve well. For the moment Krita is still hard to install for artist from sources.
@Andre´ : I don't know yet Mint 11 and how build dependencies of Qt and KDE stuff are ported into ; in the thread I linked (if you read it fully ) , Kubuntiac writted another scripts to makes install easier ; and I talk into about how I get my dependencies to work. Good luck with it ! ( here I'm still Linux Mint 10 and 9 for Laptop , I think I will stick to LTS release now in general ... Linux Mint 9 based on Ubuntu 10.04.2 is surprinsigly still better than Linux Mint 10 from what I observed )
@Steven Powers (SMP) Hi, I know this is kind of late, but why dont you install Krita from synaptic? It way easier than compiling.
@Thrischan : This is because Krita changed a lot between 2.2 version and 2.4 version. This two additions of +0.1 make really a huge difference. ( more difference than between Gimp2.6 and Gimp 2.7Git ). Version in repositories are largely outdated.
@David REVOY: Oh I see! Well I tried to install 2.4 from the Neon repositories like this : http://www.calligra-suite.org/news/announcements/calligra-announces-third-snapshot-release/
However in Oneiric the tablet is not recognized by Krita 2.4 , seems I will have to wait until this get fixed :-(
@Thrischan : Well, the problem isn't in Krita. Oneiric is a real nightmare for tablet ( xorg / compiz / mesa driver ), and Ubuntu's developpers just get marked the bug fix as a low priority. Ubuntu is not tablet user friendly anymore, Gimp 2-6 can't run on it without tablet glitch , and most of brush engine are 30% slower.
So, Oneiric is not really adviced for digital painting ...
My proposition after testing last Xubuntu/Lubuntu/Ubuntu/Ubuntu Studio/Fedora 15/LMDE is this one :
http://www.davidrevoy.com/index.php?article95/linux-mint-11-install-notes
Based on Natty, with a downgrade of Xorg and Compiz , so for the display server, in-between Maverick and Natty.
Only way to find a config with still enought updated stuff to compile last goodies, and fast things inside...
@David REVOY : Thanks David, Unfortunately changing to Linux Mint is not an option for me at work. It seems that downgrading the system using xorg edgers does the trick (krita works, and gimp2.6), Its performance might be affected but at least it works. Please let me know if you hear any any news regarding this problem.
For now I will patiently wait :-)
@David REVOY forgot to ask you, do you have experience manipulating 32-bit flotaing point images? I work a lot with this kind of images from my 3d renderer and to paint my textures for a linear pipeline and it seems there are not tools out there in linux for this kind of job. For now I use cinepaint ( it doens't detect tablet pressure )but I asked the guy who is still developing it and he says his future plan is to switch to krita. I have been using Krita and it is good, It "supports" 32 bit flotaing point images, but in practice this does not work since for some reason images get darkened a lot when opened in Krita. It is difficult to think there are not tools out there to do this kind of job and the only one out there is about to get abandoned.
Any thouths?
@Thrischan : I unfortunately don't know a lot about 32-bit floating images ( surely not enough to be a valuable tester for it ) and I don't know no one around Krita who test it ; maybe you should report for making this fixed for 2.4 ? It sound like you are the only one that know "how it should works right" with your Cinepaint experience. If you fill the bugtracker , with good exemple, good explanation , I'm sure that will be helpfull. ( and I think also for the project Mango of the Blender Foundation ).
@David REVOY : Hi David, I will get in touch with the Krita team. I'm kind of new to open source, but what's the best way to report this? Send them an e-mail for info? you mention a bugtracker? How do I get there?
@Thrischan : Cool. For reporting your bug ; use this link :
https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=krita&format=guided">https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=krita&format=guided
( I have it on my bookmarks , frequently use it normally ) , you will also probably need an account on the KDE bugtracker before have the possibility to commit, takes a little time and this is a good investment as long as you can report there all bugs to all KdeApps.
Krita project also have many communication access, and developpers and project maintainers Boudewijn Rempt are open to discution and reactive.
Mailing list:
kimageshop@kde.org ( https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kimageshop">https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kimageshop ) but this one is more oriented on discussing general target , collaboration infos between developers, news around Krita.
IRC chat channel:
A good place for instant talks with users and devs : irc.freenode.net, #krita
Forum :
http://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=136&sid=ed64458ef1dafc8978b119700cea07ce"> http://forum.kde.org/viewforum.php?f=136&sid=ed64458ef1dafc8978b119700cea07ce ; post on the forum parts of Krita are also notified on IRC.
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