New Ruler: Perspective Ellipse!
July 5, 2018Today's update adds a new ruler called Perspective Ellipse! This ruler will help you quickly draw perspective correct concentric ellipses and circles.
When drawing circles and ellipses in perspective, it's always tricky to find the right center/degree/rotation for the projected ellipse. With this ruler, all you have to do is align the four corner control points with the projected square or rectangle within which you wish to draw circles or ellipses.
New Ruler: Vanishing Lines!
June 8, 2018Today's update adds a new perspective ruler called Vanishing Lines!
This ruler will help you quickly add perspective-correct elements to an existing scene without having to know any of the view parameters or line angles (as long as the scene is using linear perspective)!
You have up to 6 vanishing points (VPs) to work with. Each point it computed automatically by adjusting two control lines. Simply line up the control lines with edges that are parallel in the 3d scene (for example, the opposing edges of a wall). You can then use the measure points to quickly figure out 3d distances (each VP has its own independent measure point unit distance control). Press control+shift to toggle VP setup mode, or click on the blue control point while holding control. Press shift to cycle through the VPs.
In the following example, I extend the top block of the building, making it symmetric. Doesn't it look a lot safer now? I can't believe they built it with a whole third sticking out, yikes!
This ruler will also help when you need to draw inclines, such as roofs and ramps, as shown in the following example.
This update also adds grids to the Linear Perspective ruler! These will help you better visualize and plan out your perspective scenes.
To activate them, you must first go into Freeze Mode by holding control and clicking on the pink control point. When you hold control, you'll now see a new orange control point right next to the Freeze Mode point. Clicking on it will cycle through the 3 grid planes: XY, ZY, XZ, off. You can adjust the size of the grid by using the yellow measure distance control point. The number of lines can be controlled via the Overlay settings window.
Minor Fix Update
May 7, 2018Today's update fixes a bug that would sometimes prevent the perspective ruler's line 1 and 2 angles from being reset correctly after changing presets.
The update also addresses an initialization issue with some older Bosto tablet drivers.
For people who like to work fullscreen in Photoshop, I've added two options in Settings/Edit Photoshop Options to display the current tool and layer names when they're changed. This can help you avoid inking on the wrong layer.
And finally, code was added to prevent the hooking of UWP apps (like those found in Microsoft store), as LNP is incompatible with them, and can cause them to crash when hooking.
Perspective Angle Link
April 8, 2018Today's update adds a button to the Perspective ruler params that enables line 1 and 2 angle linking. When this is enabled, their angle difference remains constant when you interact with either of them. This makes rotating objects a lot faster.
This update also adds an option to the Connected Lines ruler so you can connect to the previous line's center point. An orthogonal line was also added so you can find right angles easily.
Canvas Zoom/Pan Tracking Update #3
March 20, 2018A patch update (build 18.03.08.1600) was released today. This fixes a another potential crash. Thanks to everyone who reported issues, and thanks for your patience while I ironed out the bugs, this was a very tricky update.
Canvas Zoom/Pan Tracking Update #2
March 13, 2018A patch update (build 18.03.08.1500) was released today. This fixes more stability issues, and adds proper canvas tracking support for multiple windows of the same document.
Canvas Zoom/Pan Tracking Update #1
March 10, 2018A patch update (build 18.03.08.1400) was released today. This fixes a potential Photoshop crash, and allows the ruler centers to be updated as soon as the active document changes.
Photoshop Canvas Zoom/Pan Tracking!
March 8, 2018Today's update brings something that many people have requested ever since I added perspective rulers to Lazy Nezumi Pro: automatic zoom/pan tracking of the canvas in Photoshop!
For a long time I thought this was impossible because of limitations with Photoshop's plugin API, but after a lot of researching and experimenting, I finally found a way!
This will work with Photoshop versions CS3 and up. If you're not using CC2018, you'll have to disable the canvas rulers (ctrl+R), or the center will be slightly offset after zooming (and apparently these rulers are a performance hog, so you should probably disable them anyways unless really needed).
This will work with all the Lazy Nezumi Pro rulers. When multiple documents are open, each document will track its own set of points. I will now be looking for a way to save all of this information with the document so it can be reloaded automatically when you resume your work.
Many thanks to all the people who helped me test this, and kept encouraging me when I hit all the unexpected roadblocks!
Ellipse Radial Line Option
February 23, 2018Many people didn't bother reading the update notes, and I ended up receiving a lot of emails about the ellipse ruler "only drawing straight lines". So I decided to make the radial line an option you can turn on or off, and disable it by default. When enabled, you can toggle between the ellipse and the radial line by tapping shift (don't hold it down) before drawing (the key can be changed via Settings/Edit Shortcuts, by changing the Select Line ruler shortcut). While drawing, you can switch lines by pressing control.
This update also fixes a couple of bugs, including a Photoshop plugin init issue.
Box Mode!
February 1, 2018Today's update adds lots of improvements to the rulers, including features you won't find anywhere else!
One new feature I'm pretty happy with is called Box Mode! When enabled, your pen position will be clamped so that your lines won't overshoot when reaching pre-established limits. This can effectively help you draw a perfect perspective box without lifting the pen! The box dimensions are automatically computed as you draw on each axis (reminder: press control to change lines while drawing), and reset when you lift the pen. This is available for the Perspective, Isometric, and Ellipse rulers.
The perspective center can now slide along the X or Y axis when you hold control (with finer adjustments when also holding shift). The Freeze Mode position stays put while you do this, so if you set it on a previously drawn object corner, you'll know you've found the correct perspective view center position when the vanishing lines line up with the object edges.
I've improved the auto-start Line Select Mode for the Perspective rulers so that you don't get a zero-to-full pressure jump at the start of the lines anymore. This allowed me to increase the detection distance a little for better precision.
The Ellipse ruler also has a Box Mode, and it has X-Symmetric and Y-Symmetric options. This will help you draw closed circular or elliptical sections, without having to count angle ticks to know when to stop! You can now also toggle between the ellipse and the radial line before you start drawing by pressing shift (don't hold it down while drawing or your art app will draw straight lines, just tap to toggle). You can press control to change lines while drawing. This will be great tool for logo design!
I've also added new script inputs that let you access some of the ellipse ruler's properties, like its width, height, rotation, and current angle. I've written some new script modes that can be used to draw circular patterns that are isometric-perspective correct, as long as the ellipse has a degree of 35.26°! These are in the Isometric Circle Patterns section of the script modes.
If you go to the Overlay Settings, you'll now see a list of Direct2D adapters. Unfortunately Direct2D doesn't necessarily pick the fastest one by default, so if you experience any lag, please try a different adapter. I've also been notified that some GPUs just don't handle Direct2D that well, so you'll get better performance by turning it off entirely.
And finally, I've started a Lazy Nezumi Pro SubReddit, where I'll be writing LNP status updates. Please feel free to jump in and discuss what I'm working on. And as always, let me know if you have ideas that you think could make LNP better!
Happy New Year!
January 1, 2018Happy new year friends! What better way to start the year than with a Lazy Nezumi Pro update!
Today's update brings improvements to the Ellipse ruler. I've added angle ticks that scale correctly when you change the degree. This will help with perspective constructions. I've also added a radial line that you can switch to while drawing by pressing Ctrl (the direction change works the same as with the perspective presets). This will help you quickly draw circular sections without lifting the pen!
This update also fixes a couple of issues, including one that would sometimes cause the plugin to fail loading in WinXP/Vista.
