4 ms·

Show HN: Doodle with strangers 1 on 1 in real-time

18 points by paintAcquaint 15y ago

paintAcquaint 15y ago
Hey guys, I'm re-releasing PaintAcquaint and I wanna know what you guys think about my site! I'll be doing a live-stream at 8 o'clock buuut here are the updates: Updates from Beta: -Cleaner UI w/ new icons courtesy of #tehkseven -Updated Java Server -Bitmapping so no more layering for each brush stroke for a drastically improved performance -Full Screen Mode -Hard Link for your saved photos =]
- ssebro 15y ago
  I just had a CRAZY session with some random dude. We wound up playing tic-tac-toe together, without saying a word. edit*-> I guess I'm assuming it was a dude...
  - paintAcquaint 15y ago
    haha awww. That's awesome! I remember when I first showed the prototype to my classmates earlier this year they ended up killing an entire lecture just using it and the professor ended up yelling at them to stop. I really hope this time around it can catch some steam online.
- iatecake 15y ago
  Just did this a few moments ago. No dicks. http://i.imgur.com/ZiZAc.png http://i.imgur.com/ZiZAc.png
nrkn 15y ago
Great idea. Unfortunately all of the people I was paired with wanted to draw pictures of penises, scribble over the whole thing, or leave after 15 seconds.
- alatkins 15y ago
  As soon as I saw this story I thought "DoodleRoulette!".
  - nrkn 15y ago
    Had better luck this time: http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=231 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=231
- paintAcquaint 15y ago
  Yeah.. I'm still trying to figure out how I should tackle the issue of just trollers. I was considering as soon as the current user wants to draw with a different person, they'll never get paired up with their previous partners for as long the session on the website lasts for. And it just keeps track of who they rejected.
jtchang 15y ago
I think I win: http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=224 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=224
WestCoastJustin 15y ago
Pretty neat, but needs a chat window or something. I just found myself painting messages ;)
mrpollo 15y ago
I was painting a guy then someone did a dog, then someone painted the sky, some trees, and someone was starting to do an elephant but i got disconnected, if you saved that image please share! EDIT: here's how it started http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/221.jpg http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/221.jpg
- mrpollo 15y ago
  I was looking for my drawing on his images folder when i got this (NSFW) http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/245.jpg http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/245.jpg Not my drawing by far but hilarious!
JoshTriplett 15y ago
http://colorillo.com/ http://colorillo.com/ does the same thing, using HTML and JavaScript with no Flash, and it allows arbitrarily many participants at once.
- paintAcquaint 15y ago
  Hey JoshTriplett, Colorillo does a pretty good job at real-time drawing collaboration. There's a bunch of online-real time painting programs out there, like Flockdraw or scriblink. I purposely coded it to have the users pair-up to kind of emulate Omegle or Chatroulette. The only reason why I didn't decide to make this application using HTML and JS is because I wanted to teach myself Flash + AS3. This was my only 2nd project in flash. I'm definitely planning on porting it to Mobile once I have free time.
kevinherron 15y ago
http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=233 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=233
BlackJack 15y ago
http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=235 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=235 This was a really fun thing and really creative picture imo! Wow, some of the other links here are terrific. I'm amazed two random people have enough dedication to build such detailed stuff.
ww520 15y ago
Pretty cool. What's the technical stack behind it?
- paintAcquaint 15y ago
  Oh! Glad finally someone asked. The front-end's using flash w/ as3. It was the 2nd project I made using flash, so it was really exciting when I was scrambling across the web for resources. The original front-end the client was actually layering each stroke on top of each other, so what ended up happening was the client would crash after 20ish minutes of moderate use. So I fixed that and ended up using bitmapping to handle the screen. I had a bunch of other features that I disabled for this release [opacity and the undo function] just because they were too buggy. The server's running I believe CentOS 5.6? or .7? And it's written in Java. Anywho when there's incoming information it stores the coordinates that are being drawn into a buffer. If the buffer becomes full then it shoots it out those coordinates. There's also a 50ms cycle that checks the size of the buffer, so even if it's not full, it'll shoot out the points. -edit- I mean, for now the server architecture can handle light load but I definitely plan on implementing a more scalable solution if I get more traffic.
anrope 15y ago
Aww just had a good sesh where we drew (I think) a guy with a poster about looking both ways before crossing the road. Accidentally clicked leave. This is fun, and I understand the idea of communicating through drawing... but I still find myself wanting to type at some point. Maybe if you hang out for x seconds, you can text chat?
- paintAcquaint 15y ago
  I was debating whether or not to add text chat, but I think the general consensus so far from people using it is they wanna talk. I'll definitely be adding it in the near future!
  - anrope 15y ago
    Also, completely separate thought, but I think the reddit crowd would love this if you could draw rage faces.
- nrkn 15y ago
  I like that you can't type
  - paintAcquaint 15y ago
    Hmm.. Maybe I'll have the text tucked by the side, and when its clicked or mouse over it'll appear? I'll play around with the design.
peacemaker 15y ago
I had a great time playing with this tonight, got into a virtual cartoon "fight" creating super-heroes and so on. Great app.
- paintAcquaint 15y ago
  Thank you! All this positive feedback means a lot :D
joe24pack 15y ago
That was fun, I tried to paint a happy sky and a landscape, just like Bob Ross does on his shows. But I think I did it in the wrong order. Wonder if you could capture some of the pictures as they were being doodled and then show it as an animation, then let people vote on their favorites.
paintAcquaint 15y ago
Well, the site's starting to bottom out. If anyone's still reading this, does anyone know what's a good way to pull in more traffic? I've been kinda relying on reddit and deviantArt the past couple of days.

18 points by paintAcquaint 15y ago

Hey guys, I'm re-releasing PaintAcquaint and I wanna know what you guys think about my site! I'll be doing a live-stream at 8 o'clock buuut here are the updates: Updates from Beta: -Cleaner UI w/ new icons courtesy of #tehkseven -Updated Java Server -Bitmapping so no more layering for each brush stroke for a drastically improved performance -Full Screen Mode -Hard Link for your saved photos =]

ssebro 15y ago
I just had a CRAZY session with some random dude. We wound up playing tic-tac-toe together, without saying a word. edit*-> I guess I'm assuming it was a dude...
- paintAcquaint 15y ago
  haha awww. That's awesome! I remember when I first showed the prototype to my classmates earlier this year they ended up killing an entire lecture just using it and the professor ended up yelling at them to stop. I really hope this time around it can catch some steam online.
iatecake 15y ago
Just did this a few moments ago. No dicks. http://i.imgur.com/ZiZAc.png http://i.imgur.com/ZiZAc.png

nrkn 15y ago

Great idea. Unfortunately all of the people I was paired with wanted to draw pictures of penises, scribble over the whole thing, or leave after 15 seconds.

alatkins 15y ago
As soon as I saw this story I thought "DoodleRoulette!".
- nrkn 15y ago
  Had better luck this time: http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=231 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=231
paintAcquaint 15y ago
Yeah.. I'm still trying to figure out how I should tackle the issue of just trollers. I was considering as soon as the current user wants to draw with a different person, they'll never get paired up with their previous partners for as long the session on the website lasts for. And it just keeps track of who they rejected.

jtchang 15y ago

I think I win: http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=224 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=224

WestCoastJustin 15y ago

Pretty neat, but needs a chat window or something. I just found myself painting messages ;)

mrpollo 15y ago

I was painting a guy then someone did a dog, then someone painted the sky, some trees, and someone was starting to do an elephant but i got disconnected, if you saved that image please share! EDIT: here's how it started http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/221.jpg http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/221.jpg

mrpollo 15y ago
I was looking for my drawing on his images folder when i got this (NSFW) http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/245.jpg http://www.paintacquaint.com/g/245.jpg Not my drawing by far but hilarious!

JoshTriplett 15y ago

http://colorillo.com/ http://colorillo.com/ does the same thing, using HTML and JavaScript with no Flash, and it allows arbitrarily many participants at once.

paintAcquaint 15y ago
Hey JoshTriplett, Colorillo does a pretty good job at real-time drawing collaboration. There's a bunch of online-real time painting programs out there, like Flockdraw or scriblink. I purposely coded it to have the users pair-up to kind of emulate Omegle or Chatroulette. The only reason why I didn't decide to make this application using HTML and JS is because I wanted to teach myself Flash + AS3. This was my only 2nd project in flash. I'm definitely planning on porting it to Mobile once I have free time.

kevinherron 15y ago

http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=233 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=233

BlackJack 15y ago

http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=235 http://www.paintacquaint.com/gallery.php?ID=235 This was a really fun thing and really creative picture imo! Wow, some of the other links here are terrific. I'm amazed two random people have enough dedication to build such detailed stuff.

ww520 15y ago

Pretty cool. What's the technical stack behind it?

paintAcquaint 15y ago
Oh! Glad finally someone asked. The front-end's using flash w/ as3. It was the 2nd project I made using flash, so it was really exciting when I was scrambling across the web for resources. The original front-end the client was actually layering each stroke on top of each other, so what ended up happening was the client would crash after 20ish minutes of moderate use. So I fixed that and ended up using bitmapping to handle the screen. I had a bunch of other features that I disabled for this release [opacity and the undo function] just because they were too buggy. The server's running I believe CentOS 5.6? or .7? And it's written in Java. Anywho when there's incoming information it stores the coordinates that are being drawn into a buffer. If the buffer becomes full then it shoots it out those coordinates. There's also a 50ms cycle that checks the size of the buffer, so even if it's not full, it'll shoot out the points. -edit- I mean, for now the server architecture can handle light load but I definitely plan on implementing a more scalable solution if I get more traffic.

anrope 15y ago

Aww just had a good sesh where we drew (I think) a guy with a poster about looking both ways before crossing the road. Accidentally clicked leave. This is fun, and I understand the idea of communicating through drawing... but I still find myself wanting to type at some point. Maybe if you hang out for x seconds, you can text chat?

paintAcquaint 15y ago
I was debating whether or not to add text chat, but I think the general consensus so far from people using it is they wanna talk. I'll definitely be adding it in the near future!
- anrope 15y ago
  Also, completely separate thought, but I think the reddit crowd would love this if you could draw rage faces.
nrkn 15y ago
I like that you can't type
- paintAcquaint 15y ago
  Hmm.. Maybe I'll have the text tucked by the side, and when its clicked or mouse over it'll appear? I'll play around with the design.

peacemaker 15y ago

I had a great time playing with this tonight, got into a virtual cartoon "fight" creating super-heroes and so on. Great app.

paintAcquaint 15y ago
Thank you! All this positive feedback means a lot :D

joe24pack 15y ago

That was fun, I tried to paint a happy sky and a landscape, just like Bob Ross does on his shows. But I think I did it in the wrong order. Wonder if you could capture some of the pictures as they were being doodled and then show it as an animation, then let people vote on their favorites.

paintAcquaint 15y ago

Well, the site's starting to bottom out. If anyone's still reading this, does anyone know what's a good way to pull in more traffic? I've been kinda relying on reddit and deviantArt the past couple of days.