Colors! is the Nintendo DS app that most powerfully makes the point that homebrew is not just a wheedling cipher for piracy. Developed by Jens Andersson, it offers hard and soft brushes, pressure sensitivity, a 512×384-resolution canvas, and can send paintings as PNG files via email. It has a Corel Painter-style hue-circle, saturation-triangle palette.
Wired’s How-To Wiki has a tutorial on how to work with it to produce stunning works of art; pictured above is a reproduction of a Rembrandt self-portrait by Jason R. Dunn.
Forthcoming versions of the app will have undo, a levels tool and collaborative painting.
Download Page [Collecting Smiles]
How to [Wired via Gizmodo]
Gallery of Colors! paintings [Brombra.net]
#11 posted by Lea Hernandez
“Undo really is counterproductive. I am recommending Colors to everyone I know for that reason. I want them to learn to stop fiddling their work to death. Photoshop is a great tool, but it can also be a huge time-waster and a roadblock to learning.”
i agree completely, but the NDS screen is a bit glitchy and occasionally a line will shoot straight across the screen (that happens with commercial games also, so it isn’t just on Colors) and a one level of undo would be perfect for those occasions.
Oh and the collaborative painting feature would be sweet!
#1
http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=14396&highlight=pressure
“If you search within that document for “z1″, you find that Texas Instruments themselves describe the method to derive pressure sensitivity from the touch screen using the z1 and z2 values.
RTOUCH = RX–plate * (xPosition/4096) * (z2/z1 – 1)
This is almost exactly the same math as the actual code Colors uses:
int intPressure = (touchXY.x * touchXY.z2) / (64 * touchXY.z1) – touchXY.x / 64;
which is mathematically equivalent to:
int intPressure = touchXY.x/64 * (touchXY.z2/touchXY.z1 – 1);”
I had no idea you could get some amount of pressure sensitivity out of the DS’s touch-screen; fascinating!
nope no actual “simulation” of pressure sensitivity, the ds screen is actually pressure sensitive, though apparently a lot of work went into compensating for issues such as different pressure levels on different parts of the screen, and generally differences between seprate DSes… read the developer’s forum for other insights into how he did it, and why no one else uses this “feature” (DS games for kids… that advertise pressing as hard as possible on the screen anyone?)
I mentioned Colors in John Brownlee’s homebrew post of May 22. Do go see how I gush in the comments!
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/05/22/get-started-in-the-d.html
The description of it as a mini-Cintiq is accurate in that it is a pleasure to draw on-screen, and it’s wonderful to have a carry-along digital sketchbook.
Crap, I can’t remember where this turned up in links, but someone suggested a regular Wacom stylus will work. It most certainly will (I tried it last week), BUT they’re too fecking expensive to carry around and possibly lose. I recommend the branded Nintendo DS styluses with the fat barrels and retractable tips.
Like these: http://tinyurl.com/5otly8 (Amazon link.)
The included DS stylus is hell on the hands.
“…homebrew is not just a wheedling cipher for piracy.”
It bore repeating.
Why ‘Colors’ isn’t a legit app yet, I don’t know. Nintendo should snatch this up and make it available for the Wii also!
undo is counterproductive in painting.
Video of Colors in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ2piF4tp1w
Seems kind of like a small area to work with but it could actually be useful.
#7 – Haven’t you ever spilled an ink jar and thought, “Ctrl-Z! Ctrl-Z!”
I’ll second Lea’s recommendation for those fat styluses. They’re a necessity if you’re using any DS software that takes a lot of screen-poking (like Colors!, or the games Anno 1701 or Trauma Center). If I’d tried to finish Anno 1701 using the included stylus, my fingers would have curled up and died.
See also: Phidias
Not sure which one would win in a fight, I’ve only used Phidias a little.
@ #6: GOD FORBID. A legit app means a Nintendo cart, likely hobbled and $20.-$40. dollars. I’d gladly pay for it, but I don’t want to pay Nintendo for it!
@ #7: WORD. Undo really is counterproductive. I am recommending Colors to everyone I know for that reason. I want them to learn to stop fiddling their work to death. Photoshop is a great tool, but it can also be a huge time-waster and a roadblock to learning.
This app apparently simulates pressure sensitivity by using dwell time. See http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42399
And the Cintiq supports tilt, no?
#9 – totally. I do that shit with my life