We are delighted to offer a beta of our upcoming Comic Life Magiq 1.0.3 update.
It has numerous stability and significant performance improvements over 1.0.2.1 - so we would love previous users to download and let us know if you come across any issues.
A free update for Comic Life Magiq is available for all users.
Identical to 1.0.2c in all but version number, which has been changed to ensure 1.0.2 users are made aware of the 1.0.2c update via the menu: Comic Life Magiq > Check for Updates...
This 1.0.2.1 update is recommended for all 1.0.2 users and fixes a serious saving issue introduced in 1.0.2 that caused images to be left out of the document.
If you're already running 1.0.2c (v10939) you can "Skip This Version".
Head to the plasq downloads page to get the 1.0.2.1 update or update from within Comic Life Magiq.
Comic Life is great for sharing those funny little moments from school, in the office, or while on worldwide progressive-rock-legends tours.
Robert Fripp and Tony Levin have been sharing the day-to-day stories of touring within one of the most influential prog rock bands - on King Crimson’s 40th Anniversary Tour.
Ever wished you had the fun of Comic Life handy at all times? Ever been out at a party, family gathering or on public transport and wished you could add your 'comic touch' to a photo? Now you can!
We're giggling with glee to announce Comic Touch for iPhone and iPod Touch. Add various speech balloons and captions to your photos. Choose a fun special effect to warp and bend your family and friends, then email the results to them!
Re:Any chance of - 2008/09/30 07:42Here's a video I found after watching that one that looks at Flash from the point of view of wanting to draw in it, which is basically what I want. It's kind of annoying (especially the voice), but it's a good demonstration:
As for smoothing, there was a command that would let you "smooth", "straighten", or "simplify" selected fills (imported line art became fills). I think that smooth and straighten tried to get rid of little deviations by removing some points along the outline of the fill and either creating a curved or a straight edge in their place. The simplify command was more agressive, and tried to simplify the geometry sort of how a raster image is scaled down. It tried to throw away information (fill geometry) while retaining the essential appearance of the fill. You could choose how agressive you wanted it to be.
After watching that video, I'm thinking that the ability to manually manipulate the edges of the vector objects would be enough, if the smooth and straighten commands are too unwieldy to program. I really just want the ability to tweak line art that's been converted to vectors.
Earlier I mentioned that the ability to create a library of reusable elements would be nice (Flash calls them Symbols). This video, at around 1:20, is the first one I found that demonstrates that a bit. You can also see, though, how being an animation program complicates things needlessly if all you want it to draw (for example, the three types of Symbols, and of course the timeline).
To be clear, it's not really that I want a cheap alternative to Flash, rather I would like a tool that works like Flash for drawing, but that is more friendly for that purpose, and I'm willing to pay for it. Besides, I'll bet you guys could design a better interface than Macromedia ever did (not sure about Adobe since they've taken over)...Life in Idle
Re:Any chance of - 2008/09/30 07:43Here's a video I found after watching that one that looks at Flash from the point of view of wanting to draw in it, which is basically what I want. It's kind of annoying (especially the voice), but it's a good demonstration:
As for smoothing, there was a command that would let you "smooth", "straighten", or "simplify" selected fills (imported line art became fills). I think that smooth and straighten tried to get rid of little deviations by removing some points along the outline of the fill and either creating a curved or a straight edge in their place. The simplify command was more agressive, and tried to simplify the geometry sort of how a raster image is scaled down. It tried to throw away information (fill geometry) while retaining the essential appearance of the fill. You could choose how agressive you wanted it to be.
After watching that video, I'm thinking that the ability to manually manipulate the edges of the vector objects would be enough, if the smooth and straighten commands are too unwieldy to program. I really just want the ability to tweak line art that's been converted to vectors.
Earlier I mentioned that the ability to create a library of reusable elements would be nice (Flash calls them Symbols). This video, at around 1:20, is the first one I found that demonstrates that a bit. You can also see, though, how being an animation program complicates things needlessly if all you want it to draw (for example, the three types of Symbols, and of course the timeline).
To be clear, it's not really that I want a cheap alternative to Flash, rather I would like a tool that works like Flash for drawing, but that is more friendly for that purpose, and I'm willing to pay for it. Besides, I'll bet you guys could design a better interface than Macromedia ever did (not sure about Adobe since they've taken over)...Life in Idle
Re:Any chance of - 2008/10/01 23:21I'm thinking that the ability to manually manipulate the edges of the vector objects would be enough You want to be able to manipulate the edges of Doozla created strokes AND potentially import line art that has been scanned and vectorized? Also, how much control over manipulating the edges would be sufficient? I noticed the brush vectors allowed points to be dragged, but didn't give any handles for the curvature.
What about the option to change the brush shape, would that also be required (oval, square, slanted line, etc).
Going back to the head of the thread, grouping is needed along with being able to apply gradients to the stroke shapes. Would a full layers interface be needed or would grouping and the ability to move shapes forward and backwards (and lock them there) suffice?
Re:Any chance of - 2008/10/02 22:39Actually, that particular comic may not have been the best to post. It includes a bunch of effects that you'd need something like Photoshop to create (blurs, the rain effect, etc.). The line are, however, is something I'd like a program like this for.
I didn't realise how complicated a request this was going to turn out to be. AS I said, it all sounds so easy when I say it (I'll bet you deal with that a lot).
I'm not sure how Flash handles the editing of bush vectors. there aren't any visible points, and you can stretch from any point you grab. those videos above show it better than I could explain.
Different brush shapes would be nice, but I personally use round for just about everything.
Gradients would be nice, they're great for coloring reflective objects (like the car in that first comic I linked to, which was done entirely in Flash starting with scanned artwork incidentally).
I guess a full layer system wouldn't be required. Just a way to group and order objects so you could, for ecample, create a background then put characters over it, but still be able to move and manipulate each seperately.
Give me Doozla with layers (or similar), gradients, a more powerful UI (access to a color picker, for example), and a way to import line art and export images at extremely high quality, and I'd be happy as could be. Easier said than done, obviously, but that would be great.
As is it, I'm greatful that you've humored me this far.
Re:Any chance of - 2008/10/03 01:58No problem, JClark. For the record, I don't work for plasq, but I've been enjoying their products for some time. While there has been requests for a feature expanded Doozla before, yours seemed to be specific and realistically limited. I felt it'd be good to have that fleshed out in this discussion so that the plasq guys, like Keith, could get an feel for the changes you're proposing and figure out if it's something they can do.
Yeah, programming is complicated, but having specific information about the desired feature and how it should work helps greatly towards making that feature happen!
