WildTools Developments
Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 12:53 pm
Lots of new stuff going on in WildTools, which changes every day on my machine. Little things, but a lot of them add up.
Matt asked for a multi-click mode on the Clip tool, much like we already have on the Combine tool.
So if you have a polygon shape with a lot of other polygons surrounding and overlapping it, you first click on the main shape, then click, click, click... on each overlapping shape which trims to the main shape. It’s a huge time saver when you have a lot of overlapping shapes.
(I’ve never actually cared about these tools, and I don’t think I’ve used them even once in an actual drawing, but Matt uses these things all the time. On the leaves for the trees, he will create a basic leaf shape, then duplicate and scatter them around using Jiggle, then make them all into a single polygon with the Combine tool. So there are often only a few polygons for all those leaves.)
Matt came up with new people shapes for the People tool.
And there are new Shrub Elevation and Tree Elevation tools in the Trees & Shrubs palette. These include a wide assortment of shapes, from basic generic trees to small bushes and trees with leaves, Ginko, Cedar, Pine, Palm, Fir, Bradford Pears, etc. While these are intended to empower you to draw and increase your productivity, in fact they will destroy your productivity. This is the most insane software you’ll ever see. You click and drag to draw a vertical line to establish the height, then move the mouse to the side to establish the width. These are all built on random numbers so the images dance around with each move of the mouse. It’s not intended as a game, but you will quickly fill up a drawing with things.
We’ve toyed with the idea of a group of tree leaves to the Leaf tool, so you could create a pile of leaves for a group of shrubs. I may continue to fight with it today. It would be just as wild and insane as the Bradford Pears...
And my next project will be to finish the new tool palette designs I’ve been working on for the past two years. They are variable in size between the two overall sizes we’ve always had. The icons will be very crisp on Retina displays. They all resize together, but you can also have ‘eccentric’ palettes that have their own size that you can set individually.
It also raises the possibility that Matt suggests that you could permanently pop the palette open so you could see all the tools in a glance. I think we all fight over getting every pixel of screen space, but if you have a second monitor you are not as parsimonious. I have two 27-inch displays and treat the second one on the left as spare desk space.
Alfred
Matt asked for a multi-click mode on the Clip tool, much like we already have on the Combine tool.
So if you have a polygon shape with a lot of other polygons surrounding and overlapping it, you first click on the main shape, then click, click, click... on each overlapping shape which trims to the main shape. It’s a huge time saver when you have a lot of overlapping shapes.
(I’ve never actually cared about these tools, and I don’t think I’ve used them even once in an actual drawing, but Matt uses these things all the time. On the leaves for the trees, he will create a basic leaf shape, then duplicate and scatter them around using Jiggle, then make them all into a single polygon with the Combine tool. So there are often only a few polygons for all those leaves.)
Matt came up with new people shapes for the People tool.
And there are new Shrub Elevation and Tree Elevation tools in the Trees & Shrubs palette. These include a wide assortment of shapes, from basic generic trees to small bushes and trees with leaves, Ginko, Cedar, Pine, Palm, Fir, Bradford Pears, etc. While these are intended to empower you to draw and increase your productivity, in fact they will destroy your productivity. This is the most insane software you’ll ever see. You click and drag to draw a vertical line to establish the height, then move the mouse to the side to establish the width. These are all built on random numbers so the images dance around with each move of the mouse. It’s not intended as a game, but you will quickly fill up a drawing with things.
We’ve toyed with the idea of a group of tree leaves to the Leaf tool, so you could create a pile of leaves for a group of shrubs. I may continue to fight with it today. It would be just as wild and insane as the Bradford Pears...
And my next project will be to finish the new tool palette designs I’ve been working on for the past two years. They are variable in size between the two overall sizes we’ve always had. The icons will be very crisp on Retina displays. They all resize together, but you can also have ‘eccentric’ palettes that have their own size that you can set individually.
It also raises the possibility that Matt suggests that you could permanently pop the palette open so you could see all the tools in a glance. I think we all fight over getting every pixel of screen space, but if you have a second monitor you are not as parsimonious. I have two 27-inch displays and treat the second one on the left as spare desk space.
Alfred