I wonder if this could also serve double-duty as a substitute for the Brush Editor ScratchPad? It would make even more sense if there was a brush editor docker as well, although I seem to recall hearing of problems with that concept in the past.

Hi Chris, I also think that would be a nice idea. But then, perhaps the whole layout of the brush editor would have to change as well in order to make this work?
When we press the "edit brush settings" button, the brush editor pops up under the button if the toolbar is at the top, over it if it is located at the bottom, etc.

So if we were to place that button somewhere on the mixpad, would it behave somewhat like in the image below?



I keep in mind that the docker could be anywhere on the screen. So the first question is, where would you put the button?
And then, what should we do with the scratchpad area of the editor? It wouldn't serve any purpose if the editor is called from the mixpad.
Finally we have the small matter of the brush icon which can be made in the rectangular area of the editor's scratchpad. That's a great and quick way to make icons, so there should be a way to do that as well.

These are just my crude thoughts, a developer would surely know better than me.
It would be a nice feature at any rate. Maybe it would really make sense if the brush editor layout is redesigned at some point in the future, to make these two fit together well. In that case, I could see the editor scratchpad merge with the mixpad, since in the end they serve the same purpose more or less.

I would rather see the mix pad in its own docker. Having tabs can already be done if you put dockers inside of each other. Having them separate dockers will also mean you can see the reference image and mix pad at the same time. That won't be possible if both areas are in the same docker. The UI is more customizable with them separate.

In terms of features that this might have, I remember the Painter's "Mixer" as well and liked it. I did like being able to select a palette knife or eraser to help modify what was on it. The "clear" button was also nice to start over. If we add paging, it would be nice to name them so it might be easier find them.

The brush editor design is a different beast that will surely have a very long thread at a later time. Adding this mix pad functionality could eventually help clean up the brush editor though. With this, we might not need a scratchpad. I wouldn't worry about that for now. Let's concentrate on making this awesome!

For selecting brushes with the mixpad, it would be more intuitive if by default it just uses what you already have selected. I am ok with configuring it to something different in the docker, but that needs to be a choice that is made later. Maybe there would be a few options that are like radio buttons: current brush, blending brush, custom brush, and eraser.

The name of this docker is 'mix pad', so we need to make sure it accomplishes this task easily with all of the default options.

agreed with scott, I think it would be better separate, and really doesn't need to be that complicated.

Good points
I forgot about the tabs feature when you stack multiple dockers together.

For selecting brushes with the mixpad, it would be more intuitive if by default it just uses what you already have selected. I am ok with configuring it to something different in the docker, but that needs to be a choice that is made later. Maybe there would be a few options that are like radio buttons: current brush, blending brush, custom brush, and eraser.

Well, as long as we have presets for painting, mixing and an eraser, it works for me either way.

sorry, double post

I've also had an idea like this in the past when working in Photoshop, and am very interested in it as well

I would like to see something that's a tad more minimalistic. Essentially just an additional canvas surface, like the testing area in the brush setup panel.
Previously I've seen artists utilize a kind of 'mixing layer' and do their colour mixing up in the corner of the painting. With that, though, comes the hassle of hiding/unhiding the layer if your painting reaches below the colour mixing area or having to crop the final image to rid the colour mixing area.

Personally, I agree that simplicity would be for the best. Instead of the Mixpad having it's own presets, opacity, and brushes, I think it would work just fine if it utilized the current brush and settings used on the main canvas. At least for an inital release, to be expanded upon if needed. Users would then have to select a 'mixing brush' from their brush presets when they want to mix colours. My thoughts are along the lines of "Krita already has a brush presets panel, so why not rely on that?". Plus, it saves up on setup time.

Sure, it would nice not having to switch to and from the mixing brush, but if it saves up on screen space as well as development- and setup time I think I'd much prefer the brush switching (which I already do quite a lot of anyway). It's also a way of solving the the issue about relative brush size. If you had 'default' dimensions for the Mixpad that you used between documents, you would have a mixing brush with a preset size that fit those dimensions. A zoom feature for the mixpad could prove handy, but personally I would be fine without it.

Saving the mixed colours? Yes please.
Pages? Also helpful, especially for the sake of reducing the size of the colour mixing panel.

Does it ("Mixing or scrathpad area") is to replace existing DIGITAL COLORS MIXER docker in Krita? Is it what you mean in this thread? Cool!

This existing docker is not so intuitive and doesn't give powerful random similar colors as it is in Corel Painter or Paintstorm Studio (nice scratchpad-color palette with ability to smear colors, etc.).

No, it isn't. It's about a new docker.

It's a pity then...

But I hope this kind of mixer-palette will be added to Krita one day.

Drayldan wrote:It's a pity then...

But I hope this kind of mixer-palette will be added to Krita one day.

I was saying it wasn't about replacing the digital color mixing docker. It will be a new docker.

I was saying it wasn't about replacing the digital color mixing docker. It will be a new docker.

Allright. So will the new docker be similar to the CorelPainter's mixer-pad pallette? ;o

No. In general, we don't care about copying application XYZ's frobdinger feature. There's been a good discussion here on the forum, and the next step is to make a task on phabricator, start doing the mock-ups, ux design and a good list of requirements. Then I can start coding, probably only when the Python scripting plugin is done. But I won't be referencing Corel's palette.

Read all comments, this is such a good idea. Would love to see this happen.