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I see someone arguing that this is useful because orientation affects real pens, so being able to see the rotation of the fake pen is useful. But... does the pr
by spywaregorilla 2y ago
I see someone arguing that this is useful because orientation affects real pens, so being able to see the rotation of the fake pen is useful. But... does the program actually utilize the imagined rotation of the pen in this physical way? I would guess no because that would not work very well with the apple pencil that is irl geometrically not the same.
- veidr 2y agoYes, it does. The "shadow" isn't a shadow, it is a preview of what your mark will look like, before you actually make the mark. So if it isn't aligned how you want, you can rotate the stylus in your fingers to get the angle you want before drawing. I'm not an artist, but this is actually useful to me even for just writing sometimes, e.g. when writing Japanese characters with a flat/bladed pen style. You are right that the physical Apple Pencil stylus doesn't have the same geometry as the virtual pen/brush/etc it is modeling, so without the preview mark on the screen when you hover the tip of the stylus near it, it would be really hard to know what the angle was. Perhaps some real artists could develop a muscle memory, because while the stylus tip is round, the body of it has one flat edge. In my quick testing, it seems that the angle of the virtual brush/pen tip stays consistent relative to the flat edge of the stulus itself, even across drawings and putting the styus away and taking it out again. But for normal people, I think the preview indicator is very useful and easy to use — although not needed at all for many pen/pencil styles, since those also are modeled on writing implements with round tips.
- spywaregorilla 2y ago> Yes, it does. The "shadow" isn't a shadow, it is a preview of what your mark will look like, before you actually make the mark. ... No it's very clearly a shadow of the pen. Watch the link. It's not the angled mark preview.
- elliottkember 2y agoLook at the tip.
- Borgz 2y agoI would tell you to go to a specific timestamp to see the pen shadow that you are missing, but the Threads video player doesn't seem to have a visible time nor a way to pause playback. That's unfortunate. If you go 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the video when the camera zooms in, you'll probably see it.
- spywaregorilla 2y agoThere's a shadow of the tip of the pen, but it's not the mark preview. The mark preview has been there for a long time.
- veidr 2y agoYes, you are right, of course. I missed the faint pen shadow the first time I watched the video. It appears in addition to the mark preview, and is indeed a nice touch.
- snowwrestler 2y agoThe program does alter the mark shape based on the rotation of the physical Apple Pencil. The faked reflection of the fountain pen may help illustrate that for the user.
- freedomben 2y agoI love the attention to detail and the artistry of this feature, but ironically it actually backfires on me. The shadow being there mainly raises my awareness that the physical pencil isn't actually the right shape. The shadow isn't visible enough to let me quickly grok my pen's orientation either, and it being directly underneath the pen (as though the light source is right above me) makes it very hard for me to see. I like to position my eyes right above where I'm drawing and it helps me be a lot more accurate, but that's the worst position for viewing this shadow.