Hi there! Given the recent drama with Clip Studio Paint’s monetization scheme, I figured now would be a good time to send out a general inquiry into what features people find useful or core to their workflow that makes transitioning to Krita difficult or simply not as streamlined as it could be.
I should mention up front that this thread is simply for gathering information and not for providing direct feedback to the devs. It’s also probably not a great place to vent generalized frustration with Krita, unless we can point out specific improvable aspects of how things work.
Further, it’s possible that non-coders can make custom configurations and toolsets to “scratch our own itches” without requiring Krita dev time, too! Users of the forum can post their own brushsets, configs, scripts, palettes, etc, or even entire config bundles, to make Krita more “CSP-user friendly”. Ultimately some of these configuration presets could even be rolled into something more official if they wind up hitting the quality bar. In my head I see there being some vague parallel between the “blender default” and “industry compatible” keymap presets that you’re prompted for when opening Blender for the first time.
In brief, we can discuss:
Describing useful CSP features that are not present in Krita
Describing handy UI nuances of CSP that are either not set up in Krita by default or absent
Describing things people found conceptually confusing when transitioning
Posting information on how to set up your own configs and ui tweaks, or even uploading entire keymaps / configs
Posting brush bundles, palettes, document presets, symbols, etc for anyone used to CSP
Things I haven’t thought of!
To kick things off, I have a list of useful CSP items from @LunarKreatures
Better vector layer support (be able to change the line width at points of the line, be able to change the line style to ANY brush, vector intersection eraser makes easier to make clean lineart)
Ribbon brushes (think of animated brushes but you set one image as the beginning and another as the end, and the stroke uses the intermediate images)
3D models to be used as references
A text tool thats a bit more practical to use ( krita is working on that)
Reference layers ( krita can emulate this to an extent using color labels but its more trouble to set up)
Draft layers (the ability to mark a layer to not be processed by filters and not be exported)
Quick way to change the color of a layer (possible in krita but you need to go through 2 menus instead of a button)
Stabilization per brush basis
Be able to persist temporary changes to brushes between sessions
Mainly just the vector layer that supports raster brushes is all I’m itching for as an animator.
I don’t understand how the color labels are harder to set up. I used reference labels for years with CSP, and when I moved to Krita I was the original requester for that feature since Krita lacked it at the time. I’ve used color labels since then and haven’t found any downsides vs CSP’s much more limited reference layer method.
@Ralek Secondhand info but I believe the feedback is mostly that Krita is more powerful but requires more clicks to do the same thing due to the additional complexity introduced in color assignment. From what I understand CSP is less powerful but it’s a one-click tool, which might suit some workflows.
Sorry, you’re right, and I should have read the whole chapter instead of just skimming it. That’s what happens when you don’t use this tool yourself. Then only the plugin remains for the time being, it is fortunately a very moderate price.
Some of these are talked, feature requested, already planned, and are being considered
Ill link later (ihave meeting this morning so - it kinda need to wait) - to which and which so you all can vote and participate on those thread.
The selection launcher, and the ability to automatically change back to the drawing brush you were using before doing an operation. The 4-button way Krita does it I find very cumbersome.
The only things I really miss switching from Clip to Krita is the lack of an official temporary tool switch option. Clip and Sai both have it and its super useful, basically its a feature you can turn on that sets a ‘hold and release’ option for all shortkeys. If you tap on a key quickly it’ll permanently switch to that tool, but if you press and hold (however many miliseconds you set it to in the keyboard options) the program will switch you back to your original tool when you release the key. This is crazy helpful, instead of having to click the erase or pan tool and manually click back to whatever you were using, you can just hold the shortkey, erase or move real quick, and go back to your original tool without having to stop and hit multiple keys every single time.
The only other thing is the little temporary options bar that pops up on screen whenever you use one of the selection tools that allows you to quickly choose an action to effect your selected area (like invert, increase/decrease area, tranform, ect.). I’m not sure if there is a already a way to set this up in the program that Im not aware of, so sorry in advance if there is.
Actual features I already described in details here:
WebComic compostition check tool that @Robin mentioned
Fitting all canvas into screen while minimal zooming
Some of dream things:
Importing abr brushes with drag&drop like CSP has, with adaptation to Krita’s brush engines and preferences
Basic 3D things – the ability to place and move obj in 3D space/grid
The Clip Studio asset base is also good things – fast findings material or brush is actually convenient. If some day Krita will do similar it would be amazing.
There is no such thing in Krita but I remember it was mentioned when someone asked if it could be done as a plugin, and the answer was yes, so it would be up to someone who can create the plugin.
Could you explain this better? I feel like I don’t really understand what you mean, so I wouldn’t know how to help, with a demonstration maybe we could understand better.
It is a little bar that pops up below a selection you make. It has a variety of transform tools and a quick way to add toning. It is configurable, so you can add any tools/operations you frequently use on it. When you’re done, you click the dismiss button, and you are right back at the drawing tool you were using before invoking the Selection Launcher.
In Krita, I need to do press Shift+Q for lasso select, Ctrl+T to transform (or any tool in the right-click menu), press Enter to confirm the operation, Shift+alt+A to deselect, then B again to continue drawing.
Although I can map these actions on my EKRemote, it’s still four button presses, while in CSP, I need not press anything beside the select tool, which I have mapped to one of the side buttons on my stylus. I do whatever I need to do from the Selection Launcher, which means my stylus never leaves the canvas, and I don’t have to press buttons.
One thing that’s keeping me tied to CSP, even while experimenting with Krita, is the color mixing palette and the way you can mix the colors with the brushes on a canvas. I wouldn’t really know how to explain this, so please bear with me:
This is how the color mixing work in CSP with a brush with mixing on (smear option), you pick a primary color, and then, on top of it, with your brush, you mix it like you would in traditional art; i think that this way of mixing colors is very interesting and very useful when you have a restricted palette or you want to stay between a certain color range.
A little advice that I can give you is to change the keyboard shortcuts for faster ones, for example for the selection tool I use the “|” key, as for confirming after transforming it is not necessary to use enter, as you can see in the video after transforming just go back to the brush tool and the change was confirmed without problems, something that doesn’t work in Clip.
I understand the floating Dock, I use it a lot when I use clip, something similar could be done in Krita but it would be in the form of a plugin, unfortunately I don’t know much about python so it would be nice if someone from the community could.
Better transform tool(ability to chain multiple transform modes in one session, before pressing enter to commit the operations, example : scale, to perspective, to wrap, and pressing enter once done to apply all transformations; with the normale scale mode, moving individual corners would also be possible using modifier keys)
easier access to optimized screentones feature, and screentones with support of opacity reflection to value(toggable screentone display)
3 point perspective tool featuring togglable grid plane display(xy plane, yz plane, xz plane, all planes will support vanishing distance depending on the angle view defined by the perspective handles)
Materials support just like in CSP would be great for comic and webtoon artists
black/white brush shape cursor so that the cursor remains always visible no matter what color is painted on the canvas
monochrome layer support just like in CSP(threshold layer, supports only pure black vs white colors)
Optional csp’s brush texture system(apply texture per tip) and blending modes that aren’t available in Krita(mainly watercolor)
Hello,
Krita has really good blending brushes and blending modes for days.
While Krita don’t have a ‘realistic’ color mixing like MixBox (like Rebelle), and porting MyPaint’s realistic color mixing is currently facing some hicups ( I realized the spectral mixing of mypaint in krita ). I’m sure you wouldn’t really find Krita lacking when mixing colors.
So I think you are talking about a specific ‘CSP Docker’ destined to mixing colors?
If so I can recommend experimenting the Scratchpad Docker. I usually use this docker when trying to mimic the mixing color on a separate palette, like in real live.
This Docker has some quirks/limitations: It can’t use Krita shortcut tools inside of it, like invoking the Popup Palette, Middle click to pan, Ctrl to pick color. So instead you have to use the buttons at the bottom of the window.
Here a video demonstrating it:
I use this docker since it first conception, and Krita 5.0 (Alpha), and now I’m not sure it comes bundle up with Krita. If not you can download it using this link: Scott Petrovic / Krita Scratchpad Docker · GitLab
