2020 went too quickly. No travel. In fact, our activities were mostly confined in our neighborhood.​  Nevertheless, the development of Expresii never stopped. Just check our Update Log for a (truncated) list of what have been done.  

Have been collaborating with a small team of animators this year on a short film Find Find , whose production started in March.  It serves as an experiment for how Expresii can be used for animation. We are developing a system that can automatically control the brush (and other attributes like color loading) in Expresii to produce a sequence of animation frames.  This lays a ground for modern ink-painting animation  (水墨動畫). Click the octopus below to watch an illustrative video.

The animation is set to premiere  in mid-2021.   

In mid-2020, it's been proven that Expresii can run on an Intel-based Mac via Parallels Desktop 15 or later, complete with Apple Pencil support (with pressure and tilt) via Sidecar, but the save / export function of Expresii was not working  due to limitation of Parallels' OpenGL implementation. Since version 2020.11.01, we updated Expresii to overcome this limitation so that it can now run  fully via Parallels. So, yeah, apart from running Expresii via Bootcamp, you can now run it directly from within MacOS via Parallels. 

However, it seems Apple is ditching Intel processors for future Mac's in flavor of their own ARM-based processors. For Expresii to run on ARM,  a crucial part from Microsoft is the support of  OpenGL 3.3+ for Windows on ARM. They have good progress on this, citing   in November   an   Insider version of the compatibility package  that one can test with.  Since one can already   run Windows on ARM on Apple's new M1-based machines, it's quite possible we can run Expresii on ARM-based Apple hardware. 

Those of you having an ARM-based machine can try Windows on ARM (if on Apple M1, here's an   installation guide) and get the   Insider preview     of the OpenGL 3.3 package to try Expresii there already. For those of you hoping to run it via   Parallels,  Parallels just released a   tech preview  in which you can run Windows on ARM as virtual machine  on an M1 Apple machines. So for those of you having a Parallels 16 license, you can already try it.   If you do try them, let me know how it goes!  ​

In March 2020, we got a call from Taiwanese company Ufro.  Their CEO would like us to support their new color-picking mechanism, in preparation for the then-upcoming Lenovo E-Color Pen. We're happy to help. In July this E-Color Pen started to hit the market, and we did some demos for it. Expresii became the only app that can show off this E-Color Pen with gorgeous  color blending effects. 

In May, we added support for on-the-fly adjustment of loading color hue, lightness & saturation via hotkeys in Expresii.   More pen tablet makers are adding dials to their hardware and we also showed you can use those dials for real-time  color adjustment  by assigning the dial to our hotkeys. 

We have been in contact with other hardware makers  too.  Would reveal more when collaborations come to fruition.

Since February, the file size of an Expresii artwork file and in-memory storage size are significantly reduced.   In October, the artwork export rendering implementation is replaced with one that is more amenable to having more layers.  In December, artwork  rendering is also optimized to up to 50% faster (or  80% for a bit lower quality). These path the way  to allowing more layers  or future enhancements. 

Sorry for the lack of a roadmap thus far.   Since the internal of Expresii is much more complex than ordinary paint programs, it takes more effort to design and implement stuffs.  Quite some users still don't have a good GPU and without  a good GPU, we have to be economical when using GPU resources. Now that hardware has improved and capable GPUs are more common in new machines, we'd like to update Expresii to allow better experience given more available GPU compute and memory   resources.

Suminagashi is a form of marbling.  In October, we   gave a preview   of our implementation in Expresii and we passed it to our trusted user Shuen Leung, and she produced the following artwork:

There is still some more work to be done before we can release it to the public. Let us know how you like it so far.

I know many of you find it hard to paint when the paint never really dries and needing to use a new layer for sharp overlapping shapes.   That would change soon. 

With those optimizations mentioned above, we're ready to add support for more layers.

We'll start adding Western watercolor specific features like drips, backruns or granulation.

Some of you were asking for image import.  With that above-mentioned dry-up change, import would be possible.

Our Nelson Chu has been thinking about how to do even better than what he did for oil paint simulation in  Fresh Paint (Project Gustav) . Hopefully, we can come up with a good solution in the coming year following Western watercolor.

We already have an initial implementation of the RYB color model. This makes the colors look more natural, but it actually narrows the range of possible colors you can get. The greys become kind of sepia. 

Existing customers will get these enhancements for free.  So, you don't need to wait if you want to purchase Expresii now.  ​ (^人^)

​If you like what we're doing, please support this endeavor by buying the app (or giving a tip by paying for a trial key) and tell your friends who might be interested.  Everything counts!     Thanks you!      m(_    _)m 

This is an adaptation of the fluid simulation in Expresii to do Suminagashi ('墨流し' in Japanese), a form of paper marbling.   Suminagashi is said   to have originated from China and today it's called 水拓畫 in Chinese. What we show here is a WIP (work-in-progress) and has not yet been released in the public version of Expresii. 

We show that it's possible to load an image  acting as obstacle for the flow, thus creating flow patterns that relate to whatever you put in that image. One useful application is  making animated title sequence.

Changing the palette used results in interesting organic patterns. ​And what about applying the sprayer with suminagashi?

Let us know how you like it.

Perhaps  the highlight of the Lenovo Yoga Duet 7i is its support for the brand new Lenovo E-Color Pen.  Among all the pressure-sensitive styli for iPads, Windows or Android devices, the   Lenovo E-Color Pen is the first that can capture colors from the real world.  Recently, the Apple Pencil was rumored to add such a feature given they filed a related patent application. However, It's not likely Apple would be granted such a patent, as suggested by Jeremy Shu, CEO of Ufro Inc, the company that provides the color capture technology in the   E-Color Pen . 

The Lenovo E-Color Pen is a rechargeable Wacom AES pen. Its USB-C charging port is hidden behind the color capture module, which unplugs from the top of the pen.  The pen is pressure sensitive and drives the cursor when hovering. It doesn't support  tilt sensing, but you can use one of the two side buttons to adjust brush tilt in Expresii. 

​The pen is not magnetic like the Surface Pen, so you can't just stick it to the side of the tablet. Previously Lenovo supplies  holder for their active pens that plugs into USB-A ports of the tablets, but now they switched to USB-C for the Yoga Duet 7i so you will need to find another solution if you want to keep it attached e.g. this pen sleeve  on Amazon, or the same thing on TMall of China for half the price. 

Currently our app Expresii is one of the select apps that natively support the E-Color Pen color capture function.  Its watercolor simulation is a good reason  for anyone to use it for showing the capture capability beautifully.  When you pick a yellow and a cyan from the real world, the virtual paint mixes together to give a nice green and Expresii's watercolor flow further mingles the paint with gorgeous flow patterns in very high resolution.  Expresii supports Ufro's   Mozbii pen since 2018  and we thank Wacom for linking us up leading to   hardware and software innovations working well together.

The following is a video showing general color picking  and the use of the pen for Eastern calligraphy on the Yoga Duet 7i. The machine used in the i5 model, but it's already fast enough for using Expresii. There's the i7 option that gives even better performance for you to choose from.

I came from the Surface Pro family, and I really prefer the keyboard of the Duet 7i being able to operate via bluetooth when detached. It's good that Lenovo is including both the keyboard and the E-Color pen, at least in the markets of Hong Kong and the Philippines, instead of needing customers to   fork out    another   USD 90 to 160 for a keyboard cover  and   USD 99 for the official Surface Pen.  There're cheaper aftermarket alternatives for both items (like these pen alternatives), but consumers need to shop around separately. The Yoga Duet 7i is called Yoga Duet 2020    in the Chinese market, and a normal Active pen instead of the E-Color Pen is included.

Expresii  receives colors from Color King, the proxy software that sends the captured colors to supported apps.  Our Expresii not only can directly receive colors from Color King, but it also offers you the option to auto-load single or multiple-colors into the virtual brush. This is a unique feature made possible by the native support for multi-color loading in Expresii.   As demonstrated in the above video, you could pick a few colors in sequence to make a gradient in the brush. You then can make strokes with such a gradient for even more interesting marks!

We  further demo coloring a piece of ink work using the E-Color Pen.   In this demo, we celebrate  brush stroke economy. We appreciate watercolor having a life of its own. From the thumbnail, you may not be able to appreciate the simulation quality so we urge you to watch the video:

The following video shows the performance of color capture and making strokes on the i5 version of the Yoga Duet 7i.  The color transfer can be immediate. In the above videos, most of the clips are played back at 2x speed up for editing purpose. The following video shows you the performance in real time.

​Our app uses GPU for rendering and flow simulation, so it's often the GPU being the bottleneck.  If you find it too slow on your machine, we can still enable Quick Stroke Mode (Fast Mode), and Expresii would be more responsive as you stroke. If you're on Win10, it's easy to download this Store Demo version of Expresii for you to test out the performance.

How accurate is the color capture? I'd say pretty accurate, as you can see from our demo videos. I tried picking the neon   orange from my sport shirt and the color captured was obviously off. But other than difficult situations like that, it's pretty accurate for the most part.

We appreciate   the startup   Ufro Inc   bringing low-cost color capture tech to the masses. Color sampling devices used to be rather expansive, and only specialized  people would buy them. FYI, you can also order Ufro's standalone color picker InstaPick for as low as USD 60.   We also appreciate   Wacom and   Lenovo for adopting the innovation.

We hope that the Lenovo E-Color Pen would be supported on future pen-enabled machines from Lenovo.  They just announced  the Yoga 9i, which uses Intel’s new and much improved Intel Xe integrated graphics of the 11th Gen CPU. We also wish Lenovo would opt for tilt sensing for their coming pen models. The future looks bright for creative professionals!

Expresii version 2019.08.02 gets a face-lift!   The Windows-7-styled frame of the Settings Window is now replaced with modern Windows 10 frame.   Buttons on the Caption Bar now gives clearer  clues on what options are there for the particular windows.  We also jump onto the bandwagon of  Windows 10 Fluent UI acrylic blur (shown in the Exit Prompt dialog):

However, we got rendering bug of only a portion of the window gets rendered (when DPI scaling is 200%) like this on Windows 10 ver 1803 Build  17134.885:

Updating to latest version 1903 Build   18362.267 fixed the rendering bug. So, be sure to  update your Windows to enjoy our new UI facelift. And In case you don't like Arcylic blur, you can disable it in Expresii's  System Setting Dialog:

The Acrylic Blur is applied on the exit prompt only at the moment and we plan to add the blur to where is appropriate.   Let us know how you like the new design!    ​( •́ .̫ •̀ )

When using 'System Enhanced' mode  override for high DPI, we notice shifted rendering of our UI. 

We believe it's a Windows bug because when we don't use high DPI override, the UI rendering is correct. So, before Microsoft fixes this, please don't use override for high DPI.

Now  in Expresii you can assign a color to a particular brush using the color tag like this:  

It's more beautiful and  easier to see which brush you're holding. It also works perfectly along with Wacom's Pen ID feature.  BTW, You may also noticed the latest version of Expresii  has Quick Access Panels for brushes and papers too (in addition for Colors).  

Color Rings are not new. In fact, we had  them back in the MoXi prototype  more than 10 years ago:  

Years  later Wacom’s  Intuos  4 (came out 2009)  also incorporated similar  color rings like these:

We did meet with Wacom's people in the USA (along with Adobe folks) and gave them a copy of MoXi in 2006.  Maybe they got inspiration from us  for the color rings?  I dunno. Anyway, please don't say we copied Wacom's design, because we have this way before they do. ;)

Since version 2016.06.19 we have added several new papers for you to play with:  

You can zoom in to see the amazing details:

Existing users  would need to do  a Factory Reset to the Paper Presets in order for the new default papers to appear, as illustrated in the figure.  

Enjoy the new papers and let us know what you think!

​

February went too quickly.  On the last day of Feb, we took a day off and visited some friends in Tai Po, Hong Kong.  We also took the chance to get some inspiration for  sample sketches.  

Now with "Whole View" window, you can always check the overall balance (thanks to a user from Japan for his feedback).  You can reposition and resize the  "Whole View" window to suit your need.

 Zoom in to do the details and use the "Whole View" window to check the overall look. 

If it's not for the recent nvidia driver  issue with Expresii, we'd have made  an announcement to call for more artists to try Expresii Lite preview.  We notified nvidia  about the issue but we never hear back from them.  Hopefully this could be resolved soon. If you're an nvidia GPU user and you can't  wait,  you can still enjoy Expresii Lite by using an nvidia driver version 345 or earlier.  If you're *not* using an nvidia GPU , great, just download Expresii Lite Preview  and try it (and give us some feedback)!

Expresii Lite is something waiting to be discovered.  Try it yourself to see why early adopters are saying that it's the most organic among all the tools they've ever used!

Finally, we wish you a  happy and prosperous  Year of the Goat  2015 !