Krita and MyPaint: differences between their goals

[Boudewijn Rempt]

On Sunday 25 April 2010, Martin Renold wrote:

> To me, the main difference seems that Krita is targeting "masters".  Users
> who have time to explore the GUI and configure the program to match their
> workflow.  Users who start with the goal of finishing something.
> 
> I mainly care about amateur painters.  Users who want to explore their
> creativity for fun, as a hobby; only to relax or with some ambition.
> Users like myself...

I actually use both mypaint and krita. When I'm working, there's always a 
mypaint open on another desktop where I can do a bit of quick sketching when 
the code gets me down.

> If all they want is doodle with ink, then MyPaint will simply let them do
> that, without introduction.  If they want to try a new technique, they
> might find something by actively exploring the GUI.  MyPaint is supposed
> to stay in the background, not offer too many GUI elements to fiddle
> around with, and let the user work in flow.
> 
> Of course it is great to know that professional artists also like this :-)
> 
> There is no plan for explicit comics or textures support in MyPaint. 
> Appart from that, the goals are pretty similar, now that Krita has turned
> away from Photography.
> 
> > sketch to finished file, but rather one phase in the artistic process.
> 
> There are plans to cover a bit more more of the process, eg. there is an
> experimental branch already to choose the final image size/resolution.
> Brush modes to brighten or darken are eventually planned.  A simple global
> color correction slider would make sense, but that's about where it ends.
> In particular, we don't want to support selections.

For our target, selections are really important -- if only to transform the 
head into something that fits with the body. It seems artists do that a lot 
:-). 

> 
> > Krita doesn't mind showing the user complexity
> 
> That's a key difference.

Yes -- and it means we don't really compete. Some people will probably have 
both (and gimp, too, I guess) apps in their toolchest, some will make a choice 
-- and that's fine.

> > MyPaint doesn't care about the traditional painter's workflow, nor about
> > brushes that reproduce traditional media effects -- Krita does that
> > explicitly (though we're reproducing the effect, not the physics!)
> 
> True, but my impression is that users don't notice this difference much.

That's one of the reasons we've given up on physics :-)


> Someone just has to name their brushes "Charcoal" or "Pencil" or "wet", and
> there you go...
> 
> > Maxy? I know you're on this mailing list -- feel free to chip in with
> > more, or with corrections :-).
> 
> I am, but real life was kicking in during the last couple of weeks. I'm
> mostly up to speed with mailing lists again now :-)
> 
> > [...], and I'm still working on integrating MyPaint's brush engine in
> > Krita, as well.
> 
> I would have liked to support you a bit more with that, and make brushlib a
> bit less of a "tear-out" library.  Currently I'm swamped with MyPaint
> related stuff that I should/want to do...  maybe we can discuss this at
> LGM.

Sure! My main problem right now is actually at the krita side of things. I 
think I've got the integration done at the canvas level. And then the 2.2 
release process started interupting my work.
-- 
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.valdyas.org