Draw Smoothing - how it is applied and when?

[Svengali]

Draw Smoothing, the "lazy mouse" effect added to smooth out brush strokes, SEEMS like it should be SAVED and RELOADED along with all of the other parameters of any tool or brush...

But in practice, it seems to be applied to every brush or tool at the SAME settings no matter the brush size or what other parameters are assigned to each and every tool.

Does it make sense to change this? To include the unique setting for Draw Smoothing as a distinct parameter for each tool?

Then there is another issue... when a tool has Draw Smoothing active and the RMB erase is invoked, should Draw Smoothing be disabled? When Draw Smoothing for a tool has a medium or high setting, RMB ERASING when using that tool can be awkward to control with any notion of precision. On the other hand, I know there are times when RMB erase is used to draw with, with the same gestural intentions as the tool from which the parameters are borrowed.

Also. At random times I seem to lose the Draw Smoothing setting when changing draw tools (reset to zero or turned off) and all the tools from then on won't have Draw Smoothing. And I'm not sure why. I do know that I haven't changed the Draw Smoothing state or setting in the Shape Settings Panel. Are there certain tools that turn off Draw Smoothing when selected? I also know that the tv_DrawSmoothing scripting command in George lets you change the settings in a script so I might have that included in one of my scripts. I need to check for that.

So, if Draw Smoothing is changed so as to be stored uniquely with each tool, then it might make sense to include the Draw Smoothing settings in the Tool Panel so it would be easy to find and set them.

Sven

[Sewie]

Does it make sense to change this? To include the unique setting for Draw Smoothing as a distinct parameter for each tool?...
...So, if Draw Smoothing is changed so as to be stored uniquely with each tool, then it might make sense to include the Draw Smoothing settings in the Tool Panel so it would be easy to find and set them....

I would agree with this but I think the brush panel needs a much bigger overhaul than that, for instance; an integrated paper settings. So that when you choose a (custommade) brush you can quickly find and change the paper settings and all other settings concerning the brush and your drawing. Especially when you're a new user you really don't want to go digging around for settings in other panels, most of which, as a new user, you aren't even aware exist.

So I think Sven's suggestions make a lot of sense but I'd like to see them go much further. Integrate every setting that can be applied when making a drawing into the brush panel, including smooth settings and paper settings.

[neonnoodle]

Integrate every setting that can be applied when making a drawing into the brush panel, including smooth settings and paper settings.

Yes please! +1

[Soom]

Then there is another issue... when a tool has Draw Smoothing active and the RMB erase is invoked, should Draw Smoothing be disabled? When Draw Smoothing for a tool has a medium or high setting, RMB ERASING when using that tool can be awkward to control with any notion of precision. On the other hand, I know there are times when RMB erase is used to draw with, with the same gestural intentions as the tool from which the parameters are borrowed.

Totally agree with this one, and I think this setting should be implemented into the Shape settings panel, next to the smooth setting, so we can choose whether to keep smoothing on RMB erase, or not. RMB erase with smoothing is totally awkward and unnecessary.
But what do you mean by "RMB erase is used to draw with..."?

But as for putting it into each brush settings, I don't think it's a good idea, simply because it will force us to create an enormous amount of custom brushes with all those different settings. Still I am not very happy with how it works now - keeping the whole Shape settings panel open in order to see the smoothng status and percentage is not the best solution. I would prefer to see it next to the brush settings too, so I can quickly access it. It's quite logical to have it next to brush settings, since it's part of it.

[Sewie]

But as for putting it into each brush settings, I don't think it's a good idea, simply because it will force us to create an enormous amount of custom brushes with all those different settings.

But how is that really different from now? You could just uncheck it like you have to now, couldn't you?

[Soom]

But as for putting it into each brush settings, I don't think it's a good idea, simply because it will force us to create an enormous amount of custom brushes with all those different settings.

But how is that really different from now? You could just uncheck it like you have to now, couldn't you?

right now I switch it off or on once and keep drawing with whatever brushes I need. but if this is implemented into a brush, i would need to switch it on or off each time I pick a brush.

[Sewie]

Perhaps an individual and a global setting can be worked out. Like with the lighttable switch for the project/all layers and individual layers.
In a pulldown in the (custom) brush panel, for example.

[Soom]

Perhaps an individual and a global setting can be worked out. Like with the lighttable switch for the project/all layers and individual layers.
In a pulldown in the (custom) brush panel, for example.

Usually, when I draw, I continuously use only one smoothing level, or don't use at all, therefore I don't see an advantage of individual smoothing settings in addition to the global one. But I understand some people might work differently. Pulldown menus usually slow work down, so anything that can be done without pulldown, is usually preferred. Frankly, I think it would have been faster workflow, if there were keyboard shortcuts for increasing or decreasing the smoothing, instead of creating bunches and bunches of the same brush with different smoothing settings...

[Sewie]

You don't have to create 'bunches and bunches' of brushes when you could just use the global settings and keep those in the individual brushes off.
I can imagine that one might want to have certain brushes for inking that can have different smooth settings. Might be handy if you do a lot of inking.

Anyhow, it was just a suggestion.

[Svengali]

Yes, we all work differently and the Draw Smoothing parameter is probably not that important for many people willing to set it and forget it. But for those of us who repeatedly change tools as we work, from pens and airbrushes, tiny to large brushes for drawing and texturing, along with a variety of erase modes, it is a real pain to have to change the Draw Smoothing range over and over again for each of the dozens of tools we might choose during the drawing process and we have to do it every time we draw. If we simply had the option to store a Draw Smoothing parameter with each tool it would save so much time.

So, I propose there be a new DrawSmoothing parameter value added to the Tool parameters list for those users who are willing/anxious to set individual Draw Smoothing for each stored tool.

And a second, GlobalDrawSmoothing parameter (ON/OFF) which would let ONE GLOBAL SMOOTHING SETTING apply to all tools which have GlobalDrawSmoothing set to ON. This would let a user set their Draw Smoothing to one universal value which would be assigned to every tool they load.

Then everybody would be happy.

Sven

Note: I posted a three button ToolHelp tvpx which includes the LazyBrush button I now use to streamline the setting of Draw Smoothing when I change tools.

[Soom]

Well, as I said - I agree to the idea, if it will not override the global setting.

Furthermore - there has to be a separate Smoothing On/Off option for right click erase function on both global and local level.

I'm just a bit afraid all this would increase confusion. It has to be done elegantly. It's not quite intuitive to have shape settings, which basically refer to brushes, in a separate panel...

Thanks for this panel SVEN!