Apple Pencil Pro features

[JohnDunn_art]

Any plans to incorporate the squeeze and rotation functionality in to the app?

[Carlmig]

In testflight there is a beta version with pencil pro updated. I didnt test because I have the M1.

[JohnDunn_art]

Thanks! I had to search around for a testflight link, but I found it and I'm giving it a try.

[pluskid]

Thanks for implementing apple pencil pro support so quickly. Regarding the barrel rotation, current it activate a popup window that actually rotate the brush tip. Is there any way to make it work the same way as the pencil angle? I.e. barrel rotation trigger a real time rotation of the brush tip (like the demo in the Apple Notes app). The current implementation is also fine but it does not trigger reliably and often I need to rotate a few times before the popup window start to show.

[mattnava]

I just got the new apple pencil pro and am very excited to use the barrel roll feature in ArtStudio Pro.

I wanted to echo pluskid's comment above- thank you for getting support for the new features so quickly! However-I do think the current barrel roll implementation is not quite what I was hoping for yet. Please make barrel roll trigger a real time rotation of the brush tip, just like in apple notes with the highlighter tool.


I find the current implementation to have a lot of lag before registering, and the brush stamp window popping up is distracting. It seems that the stamp angle is locked once a brush stroke is started. It would be more intuitive if there was no window pop up and the brush angle rotated in realtime, even as you draw. The hover brush cursor should simply constantly rotate in realtime as you twist the pencil without delay. It's a much better angle preview indicator for this than the pop up window. I am sure this is how other apps like Procreate will implement support for barrel roll, and is what most users will expect.


It looks like theres an option in the preferences to turn on barrel rotation- is this a global setting for all brushes? I really think it should be an option per brush- I was expecting to find a setting for it in the Brush Settings->Dynamics ->Angle section, next to the Pressure, Rotation, Stroke Direction and Initial Direction options. I would like some brushes to use it and others to not, and this arrangement would allow that.

Please implement this stuff, barrel roll is going to be so helpful and intuitive with these tweaks! The Apple Notes implementation is a great reference for how this should behave and feel. I have the beta installed and will happily test updates and provide feedback. Thank you!

[mattnava]

https://youtu.be/LbIB-mCoLrs?si=BX-rzPOv3mixkLEs&t=28

In this procreate promo video, you can see at 28 seconds in (time stamp) how they are doing barrel rotation, with constant realtime updates. Another refererence for how I hope it will work in ArtStudio Pro, I hope this helps. Thank you!

[Maniak]

Any news about this? Procreate made a great implementation of this new features.

[Lucky Clan]

Yes, i agree. We will try to do it asap.

[mattnava]

YAY! Thank you!

[Lucky Clan]

New version with improved barrel roll is available on the App Store!

[Maniak]

Wow, you guys are the best. Rotating the pen works great now.
One more thing I would improve is the colorpicker using squeeze. It would be nice if it workes like in Photoshop or Procreate, in that it is activated only only when I hold it pressed and disappears when I release the squeeze, so I don’t have to pick color or can pick multiple times without having to squeezing again. It seems much more intuitive to me.

Edit: However, there is one thing that needs to be improved. To use the barrel rotation option, you must have this option enabled in general settings. Unfortunately, it affects all other brushes and makes them very difficult to use :/

[Lucky Clan]

Yea, we are not sure if we should use a separate option for Barrel Roll in Brush Editor > Dynamics > Angle...

[mattnava]

Thanks so much for working on this, its so much better when you enable Rotation and Roll in Brush Editor > Dynamics > Angle. It's exactly how I hoped it would work!

BUT- In order for that setting to work, you have to have barrel roll turned on in the prefs, which affects all other brushes
That setting gives all brushes the behavior from before with the brush stamp pop up window which I don't think is intuitive and can trigger unexpectedly, making brushes not enjoyable to use.
With the current arrangement, there is no way to use the brush editor's barrel roll setting without having the window rotation thing on everything else.

Personally, I would simply cut the window rotation feature- the hotkeys to rotate the brush stamp that you recently implemented quite nicely cover the more mechanical usecase I think you were imagining for this idea. This way, you could simply remove the roll option in the prefs- it would be simply the brush editor angle dynamics settings that control whether brushes use barrel rotation, which is intuitive and covers practically everyone's expected usecases.

But if you want to preserve the window rotation feature in addition to the brush editor rotation setting- here's how I would do it:
I would change the preference design to be opt in to the window feature- it should be called something like "Use Barrel Roll to Set Brush Angle." If this setting is on, then you would get the window rotation feature. And if you turn on roll in the brush editor that would always work, independent of this feature(even if this pref setting is off!). This pref should default off to not interrupt how people currently are used to their brushes working.
This arrangement would allow all the on/off states for what I see as two independent features-

• No rotation at all (default),
• Brush editor rotation angle on/prefs window rotation off, (<--what we are missing, and what we want! )
• Brush editor rotation angle off/prefs window rotation on,
• both on.

Additionally, changing the pref to work this way doesnt mean you cant also have a "killswitch" pref for barrel rotation to turn it on and off globally. They should just be separate options.

Thanks again for improving this, I hope these ideas are helpful in solving these design issues. It's turning out great.