The Idea is simple implementation not so sure, create a new layer type ‘assistant layer’ this acts as the ‘container’ for assistant tool objects as opposed to having them living in their own magical space.
Allowing us to group assistants turn them off or on and organizing them near relevant artwork layers and groups.
I originally went down the path of thinking if the assistant tool could have its own version of the ‘layer docker’, so we can manage assistants there but that’s another docker fighting for screen space…
Advantages & Reasons
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Especially when you get into a ‘HEAVY’ perspective piece, not every object in the scene has the exact same vanishing points, in fact you want veriety. The quickest example I can give is drawing a car mid turn parking at the curb. Yes you can reuse the same perspective for the buildings for the road and signposts. But not the car (its currently on an angle), it requires its own vanishing points on the horizon depending on how over the top you want to think about it even the front wheels would require unique vanishing points. The list goes on… (we’re only talking about one car here) the more technical you go the more and more time is spent managing the assistants than actually using them…
(think about moving back and forward between detailing the car and the street needing to turn on or off several assistants each time. vs the effort of toggling a visibility of a layer.) -
The uses in comics panels, every frame in a comic is its own camera lets say you have 4-5 panels that’s 4-5 different perspective grids totally ignoring unique vanishing points within them. Being able to turn a whole group of assistants on or off would be very powerful. Not to mention any guides made just for framing panels and pages.
Thoughts
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Probably the first question as is backwards compatibility, I’m not familiar on the data structures but my guess is yes an old version of Krita may have hiccups loading newer files. Where new versions loading of old files with could dump the assistants into a created assistant layer.
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I don’t think the layer hierarchy is something that needs to be considered on the layers they affect, while I can think of cases that an assistant layer that’s ‘assigned’ to group or inside a paint layer would have its uses. I think it would be more intuitive that if the assistant layer being considered visible, means that the guides are active for any layer in the document.
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We could still have the old style and new style of assistants, user freedom and backwards compatibility…
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We’d also need methods of moving an assistant from ‘assistant layer’ to another and operations of that ilk.
Hopefully my ramblings have been met with some resonance, I find the assistant tools very powerful but held back by the lack management options around them. I know I’ve resorted to the traditional method of drawing perspective paint layers over using the tools in order to reduce complexity and time which sounds counter intuitive if you ask me.
