Dragable Mixer Picture

[Animark]

Hello,

I have an idea for a little but very helpful feature for the color-palette mixer. The problem with using big pictures as a mixer-picture was also mentioned here (http://forum.tvpaint.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=7160) and I think it should be an own topic.

Problem
When using a picture in the mixer as a "color palette" there are no possibilities to move (or scale) the picture inside the border of the palette. You can resize the palette, but not the picture in it. It would be very comfortable if you could "grab" the picture (maybe while pressing ALT) and move it around to navigate to the part of the picture where the colors are laying you whish to use. Think it like using it as a normal project window.

Here are some picture to demonstrate.

1) The mixer holds a big picture. If you would like to find the color of the guys jacket you have to make the palette bigger.
2) If the palette is at an comfortable size (I only have two monitors ), you will just reach a very little part of the big picture.
3) and 4) This shows a normal project window, where you can navigate very easy. Hold the ALT-key, hold LeftMouseButton and drag the picture to where you want to have it. Everybody knows it.
5) I think it would be a very good improvement to the color palette, if you could move a picture in the mixer as easy as a project in a project window.

And by-the-way I am also a proud owner of dhomas trenns picture palette. I love it and it has a nice zoom function (and much more!), but it is also not possible to drag a picture.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Does dhomas' PP work withTVP-64?

[Animark]

Yes, it works. After I ordered it, he needed some weeks to get it to run and, when I remember right, there was some installation trouble. But I am happy with it. Yesterday I was afraid, if it will work with 10.5., but it works even after just updating the TVP.

[Paul Fierlinger]

Good to hear. I've had it working for years now and even for 64, which took him a long time to get right as well. I am bewildered why his plugins haven't sold better over the years, particularly this one.

[Svengali]

I like Picture Palette very much and have used it often in the past.

Two months ago I swapped my old Mirage dongle for a new one from TVPaint that works with the 10.5 upgrade. Naturally the lock/unlock codes changed. I've sent dhomas several requests for an update to my previously paid for, 32bit Picture Palette plugin that I could re-install, which would recognize the new lock code - after my third request for a32bit Picture Palette Plugin update was ignored I've given up getting any kind of response from him. Too bad.

Now I'd think twice before recommending anyone buy into any of his products which seem to come bundled with a hostile attitude and begrudgingly little or no support.

Sven

[Paul Fierlinger]

I concur; it is very disappointing behavior and shows how plugins can become tentative and this kind of attitude shows not just disrespect of us, paying subscribers, but also towards other current and future plugin designers because dhomas has created an atmosphere of mistrust towards all new plugins for sale. LazyBrush comes to mind immediately; an exceptionally advanced plugin that has quickly overcome its initial glitches but doesn't seem to have generated a deserved general interest. I fault some of this directly to dhomas trenn, aka youngmonkey. The irony of this situation is that youngmonkey has been all along so concerned of piracy, and went to unusual lengths to protect his products, yet he seems to have no trouble hijacking his customers of their money and trust.

[Fabrice]

LazyBrush comes to mind immediately; an exceptionally advanced plugin that has quickly overcome its initial glitches but doesn't seem to have generated a deserved general interest.

a couple of studios purchased it though
but they don't participate to the forums discussions unfortunately.

[Animark]

I had comparable trouble with ordering my picture palette update. First I asked for a new installation-file of PP, because of TVPs serial-number change from 9 to 10. Than I got the info from youngmonkey, it is 64bit now and I have to order an update from his shop. 20$ for a 64 bit-version is OK - I thought and ordered it. But nothing happened and I wrote some friendly mails, but only got some very taciturn answers about time problems. However - in the end I thought, youngmonkey must be a special computer-nerd (in a friendly way) and it is better to stop thinking about lost money. At the end after 1,5 month and a last mail from me I got my update, but had to test the installation-process and had to make some internet recherche to find the correct .dlls to get it to run. Now, PP works like a charm in 32 and 64 bit but I am not sure to order again some stuff from youngmonkey. I can imagine that he don't earns enough money with TVP-plugins and don't like to spend too much time with them - but in that case I think he should remove them from his shop. On the other hand, tvp has a growing user-group (hope I am right here) and maybe he should think about uptodate his marketing and communication strategies.

@Svengali
I like PP very much and if I were in your spot, i would order the update for 20$ even when there is a risk, that it needs time to get it

And BTW - I also ordered LazyBrush some weeks ago - but didn't found the time to use it very much. I just made some fast tests and didn't liked the naming of the functions - because I had everytime to think about its meaning and had to have a look at the tutorial vids. But in the end I keep a good feeling with that plugin and just waiting for time and a project where it is worth to use it.

[Paul Fierlinger]

That's good to hear, Fabrice. The tool is worth every penny for anyone who has to pay salaries for opaquers -- and even for animators who simply dread the thought of coloring their own characters by themselves.

[Paul Fierlinger]

20$ for a 64 bit-version is OK - I thought and ordered it.

I paid him $300 to update ours to 64 (long before you had) and update his excellent Backup plugin while he was at it and I got my PP update after a long wait, but Sandra either never got hers or has misplaced it and dhomas hasn't found the decency to just send her another link (no work involved there). Worth mentioning that he hasn't bothered to do anything about "Backup" and I have by now given up all hope of ever receiving the prepaid update. In my case I don't think there is any excuse for his TVP business dropping. It would be nice if dhomas joined this conversation.

[CartoonMonkey]

I just purchased picture palette from his site, and received an error.. and I got nothing in return!
Scratch that. Sorry Dhomas. But please fix your automated system for receiving sales..

[Animark]

Hey CartoonMonkey,

something happened with Picture Palette during the last month? It seems to be a tragedy . (Or maybe I understood wrong and you got your Picture Palette?)

[CartoonMonkey]

I paid for and got my x64 picture palette. I love it!
He may just be slow at communication..(?) Give him another try.

[Animark]

Ah, that's a good message. So, let's say it is possible to get picture palette, but maybe it is a little bit complicated. This could be a usefull information for other users.

[dhomas]

For the record...

As far as I know, everyone that has purchased our TVPaint plugins has received them and has them functioning. If not, then either we never received the emails from the customer or they never received our download emails. Spam filtering is often the culprit.

We sell more product for Aura and Mirage than TVPaint - so all our "old" plugins are still valid products for those. I think in the big picture, there are still more users of the predecessors compared to the current software. We were the premiere and pretty much only plugin developer for more than a decade... a lot of what we created however was copied by Bauhaus and also TVPaint. Regardless of that, once TVPaint took over its own marketing/sales of their software, the market for us dried up substantially. Practically non existent sales hardly reaches anywhere near the priority list for us in the new development department. Even with practically no sales for some time, we did make the effort to rework a couple of our plugins for 64-bit. It was a lot more effort than it should of been. In the case of Backup, the 64-bit system doesn't support some of the OS functions we used for that and there's been no justification for us to make the effort to figure out a work around.

As for Paul's inappropriate and misleading blabber on this topic... software piracy is a realty... and there's nothing unusual about our efforts to protect our software. No different than TVPaint itself being protected. That is common of most all software. Further, there's no realm of reality that sees us as responsible for other people's plugins not selling... that's simply, unfortunately, the (lack of) market that is TVPaint third party development. The vast majority of TVPaint users are using pirated copies of TVPaint. These people aren't interested in buying our plugins either. And contrary to Paul's comments here, he never paid anything for an upgrade to Backup... Let me quote his email to me on the topic.... "It doesn’t look like the TVP team is going to make their own Picture Palette in the visible future. I’ll pay you $300 for translating yours to the 64bit system; would you be interested". Paul paid for PP development. And he got what he paid for. And in fact I sent at least 4 different licenses for it to him/Sandra. That $300 and the 2 or 3 additional minimal upgrade fees we received for it, wouldn't even cover minimum wage for the time spent to get 64 bit plugins working for TVPaint at all. Anyway, as per his own offer to me quoted above... Paul never paid anything for Backup 64-bit development.. But he is correct... he never received anything for the money he didn't pay for it.

Our customers/clients include some of the largest companies in the world. Our products are relied upon every day, every hour, and even every second or less for things that most people don't even realize our products are behind the scenes making happen... In particular, if you've watched any sports or news in the past decade, you've likely seen our systems in action.

I should add that contrary to what I've read in other places, we have a good working relationship with TVPaint... and there's no ill will felt towards them. The major wrongs that were done to us in the past were not the fault of anyone at TVPaint.