Sorry to say, you did not add anything to this topic that wasn’t already said several times, your vote was enough to show you want this.
But for you and anyone only relying on the stroke pattern to select brushes:
Please go and open Krita’s brush editor via toolbar or F5 and then you can click your way through the brushes displayed on the left to see their stroke patterns shown above as you select them.
Add/Edit: I forgot to mention that this is only to see as a workaround for the time being, because I guess it will take some time and patience to see it in a future version of Krita.
Thank you for the suggestion, but the brush editor preview was also already mentioned several times above. No need to be rude. Since this is a UX feature request, I was just adding the angle that an easily accessible list of previews will—in addition to everything else—encourage users to try new brushes and painting techniques in Krita.
Of course, that doesn’t make it any better, but it is currently the only existing way to view the stroke image. So it is the workaround that exists.
The following is just a general hint:
And since many would like to have everything, but won’t give anything in return, the Krita management is not in a position to employ enough developers to fulfill your wishes in the near future, but only slowly, bit by bit. If the donations increased as rapidly as the feature requests, we would have had many things for a long time.
It is acceptable and also helpful to suggest workarounds that could be used until a Feature Request is implemented.
If a suggested workaround is not suitable for you then you can ignore it.
The current version in the brush editor is a representation of the current settings of the selected brush, that is always immediately updated.
And the stroke patterns shown should also represent the current settings of any brush shown there, so it has to be some kind of cache or a small database constantly fed with new pictures in case of adjustments to a brush I believe. It may be also a way to take the active picture when you leave the brush editor, but that must consider other brushes you manipulated in your brush editor session too, even if that may be a seldom case for many, for those making brushes it would be essential.
Or do you (all) think of doing it the way that is gone for our current icons, with that tiny pencil icon representing a brush with manipulated settings?
I dont have any problem with suggesting a workarround, but the way you did it was extremely rude to the other guy and read as if we were asking for aomething that has a very easy solution.
I already know how the Krita development works, I already know how much time things take, I don’t mind it, I’ll wait. I can’t donate, I live in a pretty poor country and the currency we use is basically worthless for the rest of the world, donating any ammount that I can feels almost like I’m insulting the team.
The problem wasn’t the workaround suggested, it was the attitude in which it was sugested
That would be problematic, as there will be a disconnection between icon and preview. You won’t know which brush responds to which preview.
Therefore icon | preview is the best choice to stay consistent.
@Michelist maybe there should be two previews. The saved one, and the current one. The current one should display any changes and the save one is displayed as long that there is no current one.
The current preview stays only active in the current session.
Please kindly ignore the tone you have interpreted his text to have. I would interpret it the same way, but it is not wrong either and there is no point in trying to derail the conversation when we are discussing a feature request.
You can still talk to him in private though, if you’re really that hurt.
I forgot to say that the database/cache would be connected with the preview part. The icon could stay the same, until the user changes it as they can now (and the database/cache could update as needed).
Since I don’t think there’s much question of whether people want this (yes) or how they want it to look (take the brush editor stroke preview and put it in the presets list), I’m just going to sum up the technical side of how it might be able to work, as I see it.
When we find or save a preset without a brushstroke preview, render the preview with KisPresetLivePreviewView (as in the Brush Editor) and save it as an image into the resource database somewhere. Unless is really is possible to get away with only generating them on-the-fly when they’re being looked at.
Whenever the brush changes, the new preview is temporarily cached, just like the temporary brush changes are.
Whenever Krita’s color theme changes, the previews must be regenerated. (Because non-color brushtips use the view text color as their color, and the stroke including the blending mode is composited onto the window background color.) Ideally we don’t update the previews of all presets every time the theme changes, because that would be not fun. It again would be better if we can only update them as they’re shown.
The brushstroke preview is added to the preset resource somehow so it can be shown in the presets list (since it is a generic KisResourceItemChooser, which only shows the data of resources). Logic and UI are made for showing the preview in the list (in KisPresetChooser).
But I’m not too familiar with how the resource system works, so this is all theoretical.
I find this necessary for krita. Right now it’s just trial and error with the brushes so it makes it very inaccessible to try out brushes you haven’t used. Or if not inaccessible, just makes it a process to check each brush from the thumbnail.
Having a preview lets you decide what hard or soft brushes to pick.
yeah I didn’t add it but having the names of the brushes can be useful. I don’t personally find it super useful but I didn’t add it from lack of time rather than deliberate exclusion
I found this thread because I assumed this must already be an option in Krita and I just didn’t know how to enable it
I’m pretty new to digital painting and I started with Krita a few months ago, so I didn’t have any basis for comparison. Now, after having played around with a few other programs and come back to Krita (which is still the best!), I have to say I sorely miss better brush previews. It makes such a huge difference in brush discoverability!
Just seeing another little picture of a paintbrush doesn’t really tell me enough.
Also, as a brand new user it actually kind of limited my thinking – it didn’t occur to me for a long time that I could use a “pencil” brush at a large size for texture, for example. (Silly, I know.)
This ^ exactly. I’ve started creating a big doc just filled with labeled brush swatches so I can actually find what I’m looking for.
I’ve actually toyed with the idea of forking Deevad’s brushes just to make new icons for all of them in this style … but it seems like it should be automate-able!
Meanwhile, until this feature exists – if you’re a brush author and come across this thread: please consider making your brush icons in the “Photoshop-ey” style!
Thanks for linking these brushes to this thread! The Concept & Illustration bundle’s photoshop-like icons are a great compromise for what I’ve been looking for in krita’s brush previews
