After four years of development, The new version of the specialized program for digital painting MyPaint 2.0.0 has been published. This new version is established as a new stable branch since a great leap was made, from version 1.3 to the new 2.0.
For those unaware of MyPaint, they should know that this is an open source cross-platform application and free written in C, C ++ and Python and that its code is released by the GPL v2. This application used to illustrate and draw with a digitizing tablet to make the most of this application, although it is also possible to paint and draw with the mouse
It has a simple interface, where almost all basic drawing functions are assigned a keyboard shortcut, making access to tools faster. Also I know you can hide the entire graphical interface, and focus all attention on the drawing, without being distracted with unnecessary or complex buttons or paddles.
Main news of MyPaint 2.0
In this new version of MyPaint 2.0 by default, linear composition and spectral mixing are used (pigment mode), which are very suitable for creating work that simulates the use of traditional materials and tools.
Since the new methods are not without drawbacks, such as performance degradation, complication of layer merging, and portability violation; MyPaint 1.x compatibility mode is provided in the settings and open file dialog.
When this mode is selected, lspectral blending is disabled and by default, normal layers are used instead of pigmented layers, allowing you to open files created in previous versions that look different in MyPaint 2.
Besides that now rotating and scaling the canvas affects the shape of the brush strokes. The new shading behavior resembles the action when the paper is turned in front of the artist (previously, the shading was done as if the artist was rotating together with the sheet). Likewise, a change in the zoom level affects the shading parameters, as if a piece of paper has been magnified in front of the artist.
Also se propose many new brush parameters (offset, advanced blur, posterization, pigment settings) and brush input features (angle of attack, base radius, zoom level, etc.). Additional symmetric drawing modes are proposed: vertical, vertical + horizontal, rotational, snowflake.
The fill tool was improved, Added scroll fill, shading, gap detection. And also it is noted that full support is provided for Python3 and the transition to using the PyGI library (PyGObject) instead of PyGTK is completed.
Of the other changes that stand out:
- AppImage builds added.
- New Import Layers feature.
- Interface language configurable in user preferences.
- Pooled funds optimized for size.
- Fixed many bugs, blockers, and other annoyances.
- Ability to emulate inputs with modifier keys.
- Support for barrel rotation input.
- The performance of the flood fill was improved.
- Added compensation, fading, and gap detection to Floodfill.
How to install Mypaint on Linux?
If you are interested in installing this application on your system, you can do so by following the instructions we share below.
For those who are users of Ubuntu, Debian or some derivative of these from the terminal (which you can open with the key combination Ctrl + Alt + T) and in it we type
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:achadwick/mypaint-testing -y
Done this, now we are going to update our list of packages with:
sudo apt-get update
Finally we are going to type the following command to install the application:
sudo apt-get install mypaint
Installation from FlatHub
If you don't want to add any repository to your system and you like Flatpak packages, you should know that MyPaint has such a package.
To install only You must have the support to install this type of application on your computer and execute the following command:
flatpak install flathub org.mypaint.MyPaint
And in case you can't find the application launcher in your application menu, you can run MyPaint from the terminal with:
flatpak run org.mypaint.MyPaint
Installation from AppImage
Finally, another installation method is with the help of the AppImage, which we can download by typing the following command:
wget https://github.com/mypaint/mypaint/releases/download/v2.0.0/MyPaint-v2.0.0.AppImage
We give permits with:
sudo chmod +x MyPaint-v2.0.0.AppImage
And they run the application with:
./MyPaint-v2.0.0.AppImage