Hi all, I have been working on a new painting assistant in Krita to do easy 2 point perspective drawing with the Freehand Tool.
It is mostly complete and you can try it now tomorrow in the Krita Next nightly builds (unstable!!). I’m looking for feedback on the control scheme and appearance to make it ready for mainstream use and also suggestions for future enhancements to make, so please take a look
If you come from other digital drawing programs or have used perspective grids tools before then this one will seem familiar, indeed, Krita already has a Vanishing Point assistant that is already very handy on it’s own, this one is similar.
For those unfamiliar with Krita’s painting assistants feature, here’s how to use it:
- in a new document, switch to the Assistant Tool
- make sure “2 Point Perspective” is selected in the drop-down menu in the Tool Options.
- click somewhere to the far-left of the canvas to place the first vanishing point, then click somewhere to the far-right to place the second vanishing point
- click somewhere in the middle of your page to finalize the assistant with a third control point
- switch back to the Freehand Tool then mark the “Snap to assistant” checkbox in the Tool Options
- draw a box
Counter-intuitively, the Two Point Assistant is made of 3 control points! The noteworthy value proposition that this set up offers is the following:
- It draws a grid that accurately visualizes the effect of perspective distortion
- It is capable of moving both vanishing points at once in such a way that preserves the effect of perspective distortion
Here’s the current control scheme:
- When creating a new assistant,
Shift
-click to snap a VP to a vertical or horizontal axis -
Ctrl
-drag a VP to preserve perspective distortion. This will cause both VPs to move along the horizon line in the same direction which rotates the grid. Distortion is “preserved” in the sense that when you let go of the VP, every place on the canvas appears is as distorted by perspective as before, the grid is just at a different angle.
-
Ctrl-Shift
-drag a VP to preserve “yaw”, this is the left-right direction of the VPs, and will cause both to move closer or farther from the center point. Moving VPs this way is pretty much like zooming in/out or increasing/decreasing FoV
-
Alt
-drag a VP to move it freely along the horizon.
Let me know your thoughts!