Hello I suggest introducing a feature that other software doesn't have, but it could improve Krita ease of use and enable non-destructive workflow for very complex or detailed scenes.

Currently a document in Krita may have only one set of assistant tools (vanishing points and so on) which allows the user to draw one set of parallel objects, such as parallel city blocks, rows of boxes, and obgects generally oriented in one direction.


I suggest introducing sets(layers) of assistant tools allowing the user to switch between them without deleting the existing assistant tools.
That would help the users to conveniently construct more complex scenes with misaligned objects objects that still adhere to the same perspective space such as non-parallel city blocks, misalligned boxes that sit on the same floor, or for example multiple complex objects that have entirely different orientation like spaceships.
The user could also employ a group of assistant tools to draw accurate shadows (vanishing points at light sources)



Currently doing that in Krita would require the user to delete his old Assistants and create new every time. That is a destructive and cumbersome workflow which is always a bad thing, especially the the user would like to go back and fix some previous step.

Hi, i think you don't have to delete your assistant. Add many assistant (vanishing point for example) as you want and just temporarily activate or desactivate them with the "eye" icon, so it'll be non destructive...

Tools assistants doesn't use a 3d coordinates system, when you paint on the canvas with snap on, your cursor is only constrained to the shape of the assistant, so we are not ready to have a shadow projection system.

What could be great is to have some assistants allowing you to deform perspective, modify field of view, doing translation/rotation/scaling,etc ... by implementing a 3d coordinates system.

I think too that the workflow ask to much clicks/actions to the users, and it's a pain to deal with, plus some of those tools seems just useless, since more complex assistants can do better than some of basics assistants.

Saru wrote:Tools assistants doesn't use a 3d coordinates system, when you paint on the canvas with snap on, your cursor is only constrained to the shape of the assistant, so we are not ready to have a shadow projection system.

You can project shadows in 2D space knowing some geometry techniques .
Scott Robertson's books is a real gem it explains a lot of very advanced stuff and you basically aren't going to need any 3d for accurate shadows, reflections or curve-linear objects or anything, just 2d and straight lines.

Cpt-Ktw wrote:

Saru wrote:Tools assistants doesn't use a 3d coordinates system, when you paint on the canvas with snap on, your cursor is only constrained to the shape of the assistant, so we are not ready to have a shadow projection system.

You can project shadows in 2D space knowing some geometry techniques .
Scott Robertson's books is a real gem it explains a lot of very advanced stuff and you basically aren't going to need any 3d for accurate shadows, reflections or curve-linear objects or anything, just 2d and straight lines.

I thought you asked for a shadow perspective tool ... my bad misreading.

I think the assistant tool is quite unique to krita. While I don't use it real often in my art I see many potential ways to improve use of them.



It appears that while the assistant tool is active you can make any number of assistants, move them around, click eye for visible, or destroy an assistant.
Most of the show all on/off options are in the view menu. so many will probably prefer a hotkey tied to those for quick toggle.

I probably don't use them much cause usually the type of work I would associate that with is more 3Dmesh related.
Let's take the TES4 Construction Set Splash for an example.


Essentially what was done here was a few screenshots was taken in the engine. One with normal, the next with meshes rendered in wireframe mode, and the third one is sorta a guess if it is a duplicate normal shot or not(maybe they use some shaders before processing with photoshop...)
Ok. When these 3ish screenies are loaded into the paint program, we will assume the normal layer is on bottom, the paint filtered whatever bashed layer is in the middle, and the wireframe render is on top. Obviously the wireframe doesnt show on everything, so it is safe to assume that part of this layer was erased and blended in on top of the others, with a bit of a layer style glow applied to the wireframe to make it stand out.

I think krita would definitely benefit from having a "Assistant Layer" in the normal layer docker. By doing so you could adjust a single assistant, add layer styles to the lining, and above/below layers would draw in the right order. Context option for this type of layer would be to copy to raster or flatten as raster, at which point erasing could be done.

I also think an extra icon should be added to the assistant tool hover also when active. The extra option would be to convert active assistant to a "Assistant Layer" in the Layers docker.

I may be wrong on this, but it seems the only way to get a raster of an assistant at the moment is to take a screenie of the assistant on white/alpha background, paste that into your work doc as a layer and remove the background color leaving just the lining.

Some of this would be a bit of work to do I'm sure, and it would be something the core devs would probably have to sit down at the round table and discuss what would be the best way to implement such types of things. Anywho... Just my thoughts on assistants and things that would be improvements.