sp!log

Hello all...

 

As the question has been posed both here and on other forums "When is the next version of Painter coming?" 

 

And as you may have seen elsewhere, Painter 11 is in the works, and we are now ready to open up the call for Beta Testers for this new version.

 

So if you would like to get in on testing the new version of Painter before it hits the streets, this is your chance to apply to the beta program and have your chance to have a kick at the tires and help us make the best version of Painter yet.

 

 

Who are we looking for?

 

Really we are looking for all types of users of Painter, everyone from casual users that use it for fun to full-on pros that are in there all day, from sketchers and painters, to designers and illustrators, to photo manipulators and everything in between. We are looking for folks that would be comfortable installing pre-release software on their system, being able to spend some time playing with it, and if they find issues with it, reporting those issues to us through a web portal, reviewing issues logged by other users to verify the issues.

 

 

So if you think this sounds like you, you can apply to be a beta tester of Painter 11.

 

The on-line application is located here: http://tinyurl.com/5fkhg2. 

 

Here are some quick instructions to guide you through it, if needed.

     1 - Read the “Pre-Release Evaluation Testing Agreement”, located on the “Licensing Agreement” tab.

     2 - Select the “I accept..” radio button, located at the bottom of this page in order to continue with the application process.

     3 - Answer questions contained on the remaining three tabs:

                  Part 1: About You

                  Part 2: Computer Information

                  Part 3: Contact Information

Note that mandatory questions contain red text.

     4 - Save your application by clicking on the “Save” button located on the upper left hand side.  If you receive an “Error” when saving, please return to your application to ensure all mandatory fields have been completed.

 

The Beta application will be live until December 5th 2008, and only successful candidates will be notified shortly thereafter.

 

 

Cheers

 

steve

Corel Art Expo at //ADAPT2008


Once again our friends at //ADAPT invited us to host an Art Expo at their annual conference in Montreal. How could we refuse?!

With a call out to a number of artists in the Painter Community we gathered a number of amazing pieces to display in the Art Expo and we presented artwork from 25 artists, exhibiting some amazing artwork for Concept Design, Character Design, Environments, Storyboards, Comic Books, Creatures or Fantasy Concepts, and Vehicles.

If you would like more info on the ADAPT Conference [adaptconference.com ], to see better shots of all of the artwork in the Art Expo [adapt2008_art_expo ] and for a play by play of the event, chech out Renee's blog on CG Society [ cgsociety.org/adapt08 ].

It was great to meet folks from both industry as well as folks from the Painter Communities, and we look forward to next year, and hope to see y'all there.

Views of the Art Expo from around the venue:
   
(OK so they are out of focus and crappy, but with limited light and point and shoot camera it was a tough place to shoot)

 

The Art Expo Panels:
                                                 

 

Some of the Corel Painter team with friends and a Special Guest....

Left to right: Melanie Becker, Stephen Allen, Caroline Sauve, Adrian Garcia, Pascal Becheiraz, Steve Szoczei, Robert MacDonald, Andrew (Android) Jones, Dan Jette, Heather Anderson, Kelly Manuel, Rina Fougere, Vladimir Makarov, Tina Barton, Wendy Cook, David Toeg, Chris Trembley, Sandra Inglis, Tanya Lux

So after we introduced the Quick Look plugin for viewing Painter files in the Finder in Mac OS, many folks asked why we can't do the same for Windows.

So the development team here is always up for a challenge, and between projects they built a little utility that will display the preview of the image as the Icon for RIF files.

Simply download the utility from here [4.1 mB file].

Install it and you should be ready to go.

Once installed all of your Painter RIF files should now have an image preview with a small application icon badge.


Enjoy!

For all the Mac folks out there, we have created a Quick Look plugin for viewing Painter files in the finder.

Simply download the plugin from here [450kB file]. (Link updated Feb 14.08)

Install it and you should be ready to go.

To use it - navigate to a Painter '.rif' file and press the spacebar and you should see a nice preview of your Painter file. This will also allow you to see your Painter files with a nicer preview in Cover Flow mode in Finder Windows.

For more info on Quick Look visit the Quick Look page at Apple.com.

Enjoy!

steve

So getting to know this system, this is gonna be a test entry to try and get things working....

So here is an image...

To insert the image I used the standard HTML img tag formated like this:
<img src="link to image wherever it may live" width="size in pixels" height="size in pixels" />

Overall the formatting can be done using standard HTML tags...
i.e.: <b> for bold </b> , <i> for italic </i> etc...

If there are other formatting controls you are looking for, drop me a line, or respond here and I can update this to help y'all out...

This posting initially appeared in the February 2007 Painter Canvas and reappears here as my initial posting to give y'all a little background on who I am, what I do, and processes used to come up with the design for Painter

It all started with a conversation - many in fact - on the phone, in person, via email, and in online forums.

These conversations happened with Artists, Designers, Photographers, Concept Artists, Game Designers, Illustrators and many other types of creative folks.

Over about the past couple of years we've had countless conversations with hundreds of Painter users, just like you (maybe it was you). We asked you questions and went out and watched many of you so we could understand - what you love, what you hate, what you miss, what you need and so much more.

We heard things that helped us focus on what is important to folks that use Painter, as well as understand many of the various workflows that folks have within Painter.

Once we had a bunch of conversations we compiled all of the comments and observations together to identify which issues are being experienced by more users, and looked to see which could be grouped together within different workflows. We combined these issues and observations with the many enhancements that folks would like to see within Painter that would make working with Painter easier.

All of these things were prioritized as to your needs, impact, marketability and overall desirability. These items were combined into a rather complex matrix of features and functionality that if fully realized would make for one heck of a new product. So, with factoring in time and budget constraints we had to be selective in what items from the list we included in the product.

How did we determine what stays and what waits?

We selected a number of people to act as advisors, representing the different types of folks that use Painter, and we consulted with them once we had a list of proposed features and ideas that we were looking at for Painter X. Once we had the list compiled from our research with our users, we worked with the groups within Corel to determine the ideal list that we all agreed would meet your needs, be manageable to develop, and make a marketable product for both existing and new users.

Working with a cross-functional group here at Corel we brainstormed on the issues that were confounding you folks to come up with solutions that would not only meet your expectations of Painter, but go beyond all your expectations.

We continued to work with the advisors throughout the design and development process, evaluating the initial design, reviewing the functionality as we built the features, and listening to their feedback, redirecting and refining the design 'til both these folks and us were happy with the design and interaction of the features.

Once the development got to a certain point we opened up our Beta program. By selecting a larger group of folks to test the product prior to release we ensure that we are catching as many issues and correcting them before the product goes out for wider distribution. This Beta period allows us to get wider feedback on Painter, from folks doing many different things, allowing us to hear as many issues as possible.

Finally, we get to the magic moment, when we get the product to a point where we feel that it is ready for release.

And that's where we are now. We give you Corel Painter X.

We are always open for a conversation, so if you have issues that you would like to bring to our attention please feel free to contact us at painterteam@corel.com, or me directly at steve.szoczei@corel.com.