Feature preview: Pen color picker

[Goblin-King]

First a disclaimer, there is no set time when this stuff will be complete :P

We've been picking our brains (pun intended) trying to figure out a Fantasy Grounds style user interface component suitable for selecting the active ink color for the pen tool for when it starts painting stuff other than black.

Nothing to do sitting on the plane, however, gave us the idea for this:

When you got into drawing mode, a little helper tool would be displayed in the image area.

https://forums.fantasygrounds.com/images/attachments/colorpicker1.jpg

How it would work is, the selected color is shown in the center (darkish purple in this case). You can tap on the little circles of color around the edge to add in a drop of that ink. So, if you wanted to turn the purple a bit towards blue, you'd hit the blue blob a couple of times. The black and white colors are there to create darker and lighter shades of the color.

In this sketch you see a red, blue and green color pool, but that's just because I'm a programmer so I tend to think about this in computer color space parameters (i.e. yellow = red + green). In the final version they might be yellow, red and blue (the natural primary colors from which you get the others if you're using water color or colored pencils for example - with this, green = yellow + blue), or we might try and squeeze in some intermediates as well for quicker access to the various colors.

[Snikle]

I prefer the option of the primary colors, at first I thought the clicking to move the color more towards another colors would be annoying, but I think that will work well. A few clicks though, not 30 or something, maybe have the 3 primary colors then 3 or 4 shades between them, giving you either 9 or 12 colors, plus maybe 2 or 3 lighter and darker shades. This would give you a good amount of colors without getting to taxing to get a shade you wanted.
One thing maybe you could add, not sure if this would make the ball too crowded or not, one or two more of the small balls that we could drag the color from the large ball to one of the smaller ones, a sort of preset color selector.
Good work though, I like the look of it, not too big or anooying on the images.

[richvalle]

Are you guys thinking of changing the pen/brush size as well?

I find for trying to add lines on a map already there the thin line is just too small.


rv

[Dupre]

(Duh, I accidently edited your post Richvalle)


Are you guys thinking of changing the pen/brush size as well?

Yep.


I find for trying to add lines on a map already there the thin line is just too small.

Yep.

[richvalle]

Trying to put words in my mouth?

:)

np.

rv

[gurney9999]

cool stuff... I like the RGB color scheme best.

[Merciless Ming]

I hate mixing paint in the real world. It's so tedious. This method seems like a lot of unncessary clicking when I could just point to the color I want (ala photoshop, etc) but I'm sure it's fine for something simple like a pen tool.

Looks pretty, btw :)

[Asuril]

Could you please supply an option to save the color for that map? That way you can switch between made colors easier. It'd suck to have a river that's multiple shades of blue because you couldn't get the same color when you decided to alter it.


Uhm... hope that made sense. ;)

[Snikle]

Ah, I didnt think of that as I will use an outside program for map making, I am only planning on using the draw tool to make notes during play, show directions, or AoE and things like that. Not sure how hard this would be, but maybe a color picker 'eye-dropper' thing like they have in Fireworks and Photoshop to select a color absed on an existing one?

[richvalle]

Ah, I didnt think of that as I will use an outside program for map making, I am only planning on using the draw tool to make notes during play, show directions, or AoE and things like that.

There are other tools in the game that do this better then drawing lines on the map. To date the lines you draw are pretty perminant... not sure if you are going to be able to just erase the lines you are drawing.

If you click both left and right mouse buttons and drag you get an arrow. Players can do this as well. Right now you can only get one arrow but there was a request made a while back to allow the DM to have more then one.

There is also a way to get cones, circles, ect on the map as overlays... but I don't remember how for that one.

Someone has also made aoe tokens that you can drop on the map.

rv

[kalmarjan]

Yep, that would be me. (The area of effect and fireeffects and so on.)
If that is what you are looking for, then do a search for "area of effect"
I also have versions that are in the 25 px format, if you are interested.

cheers,

[Snikle]

I was curious, is there a set grid size or default that has been decided? I think it would be great if the DM had the ability to set a default grid scale (50px = 5 feet or something) and then when you were to draw a cone or circle it would pop up and give you the distance as you draw from the center point. It would be very easy to get accurate AoE diagrams on the fly that way.

I have those AoE tokens installed on mine, very nice, though some are so large they are cumbersome to use. I highly recommend them for everyone!

"To date the lines you draw are pretty perminant" I thought they were on a layer? Could be wrong though, just started using this.

[Goblin-King]

There will probably be an eye dropper available that will let you sample colors on the existing drawing or map.


There are other tools in the game that do this better then drawing lines on the map. To date the lines you draw are pretty perminant... not sure if you are going to be able to just erase the lines you are drawing.

The eraser will be in 1.05.


There is also a way to get cones, circles, ect on the map as overlays... but I don't remember how for that one.

Either select them from the pointers submenu or use ctrl (circle), alt (cone) or shift (rectangle) while you drag with both buttons down.


I was curious, is there a set grid size or default that has been decided? I think it would be great if the DM had the ability to set a default grid scale (50px = 5 feet or something) and then when you were to draw a cone or circle it would pop up and give you the distance as you draw from the center point. It would be very easy to get accurate AoE diagrams on the fly that way.

This is in already. If you have the grid enabled, any pointers you draw will have the length or radius displayed in grid squares. The reason it's in squares is that the scale will vary, so you'd have to multiply the number you see with the scale, in your example, 5 ft.


"To date the lines you draw are pretty perminant" I thought they were on a layer? Could be wrong though, just started using this.

Yes they are on their own layer, but until 1.05, you can only delete the entire layer if you want to move something on the drawing layer.