Yet another brush interface proposal

[Boudewijn Rempt]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Valerie wrote:

> 
> > What I think David was looking for is painting with any paintop 
> > but have the resulting stroke being the mask for the filter --
> > so, once Lukas Sumi-E paintop is done, you'd be able to paint 
> > noise using a Chinese brush simulation.
> 
> Oooh! Masks! I get it now. Does that actually work? 

Not in the way David proposed it: you can already paint using anything
on a filter mask layer, and that will show the filter effect on the layer
the mask is associated with.

> It sounds fine
> for generic brushes, but aren't natural media supposed to interact
> in more complex manners than just a masked form, or is that behavior
> included?

That's the problem and why I think that it doesn't make sense to add another
layer of indirection and instead abstract the generic brush-based paintop code
(with all current and possible future options) and put it in something the pencil,
the brush, the airbrush, the smudge and the filter paintops can all use. I discussed
this yesterday with Emanuele and I think I've got a good design for that, albeit one
that will not be advanced initially as your proposals, ui-wise.

The big thing here is that it actually does make sense for a clone feature to
be able to use any paintop -- if I have a photo I would rather like being able
to clone it using a real-bristle type oil paint paintop :-).

Boudewijn