whither krita -- summary

[Cyrille Berger]

On Thursday 24 September 2009, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
> Looks like the discussion has run its course, so I want to make a shortish
> summary, juxtaposing the things mentioned. There were a couple of
>  interesting things noted! But that doesn't mean we've found our direction.
> 
> There are quite a number of contradictions:
I wouldn't think most of these are contradictions...

> flexible, comprehensive app  <---------> polish and usability
Not sure why there is a contradiction here.

> platform for experimentation <---------> stable application for users
Hum not a contradiction. Depend of what you are experimenting, if it's 
experimenting on core, then yes, but if it's a platform to allow new plugins, 
then you can have both stable plugins ship to the user and experimentation in 
your personal tree.

> creating images              <---------> manipulating images
I have never understood the difference :) Or by "creating images" you mean 
create from scratch ? And manipulating images taking a picture with a camera 
then do funky thing with it ?

For instance, if I open a picture taken with my camera in Krita, I start to 
deform it (colors filters, pixel displacement) then I start to mix it with 
other thing. Did I manipulate an image or create one ?

If by manipulation of images, you mean improving the quality of pictures taken 
by a camera, then ok, but I would argue that neither the gimp or krita are the 
best tool for just that.

> integrated in koffice        <---------> attractive to artists
I keep expressing doubts about that one. If you could find someone who has such 
a problem and make it discuss with us, and see if it's just troll, ignorence, 
"the weird idea that artists aren't just like any office worker" or if there is 
a real issue. I also think that the katelier concept has not been pushed to 
its full potential, because it requires someone to do it.

> corel painter                <---------> photoshop
I am sure an inbetween can be invented, without being a bastard, I see a lot 
of features that are common, after all, most of the artwork you see out there 
was made using photoshop, I don't see why a photoshop with natural media can't 
exist. It might need a lot of work to design a good UI.

> competing with gimp          <---------> competing with mypaint
gimp/krita and mypaint/showfoto aren't in the same league, it's like comparing 
"dolphin" to "ls", mypaint can do one thing and do it very well. Krita and the 
gimp are swiss knife, they can do a lot of things.

> go all node                  <---------> continue with the current core
I don't see a contradiction here. For me we continue with the current core, 
until there is a better replacement, as far as I am concern, I would like to 
encourage Dmitry or anyone else to experiment with a "all node" core, and when 
it's ready, we can migrate to the new core. But that development should happen 
in a branch, not in trunk. We need innovation.

> Use cases I've seen in the thread:
> 
>  * photo manipulation
>  * HDR workflow (for film or for pictures?
Not sure what the question is about ? I think the flipbookdocker we have in the 
kross plugin could be extented to allow frame by frame editing of a movie 
(which was kind of the design goal of the flipbook).

>  * illustrations and comics
>  * sketching
>  * integration with movie workflow, blender
>  * web development (what is that, actually?)
I see it as CSS design.

> Can all these things work in one application?
Yes.

> Reasons to work on Krita:
> 
>  * can do experimentation
>  * want to create an app I can use
>  * it's fun to work on
>  * prefer qt, c++ over gtk, c (I find this a bit disappointing, this can
> hardly become a compelling reason for people to use the application)
You said reason to work on krita :) not with krita ;)

> So, what's the vision?
> 
> The only way I can resolve the above in a mission statement is something
>  like this: "krita is an platform for experimentation for developers and
>  application that surprises its users." I'm not sure whether this is going
>  to be a banner to conquer the world with!
No. But I like our previous idea of "Krita, have fun with your image and be 
creative !"

-- 
Cyrille Berger