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.
2020 Review
Animation / Automation
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.
Running on Mac / ARM-based machines
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!
2021-04 Update: Yes, Expresii runs on Windows 10 ARM version via Parallels 16.5 on Apple Silicon M1 machine!
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!
2021-04 Update: Yes, Expresii runs on Windows 10 ARM version via Parallels 16.5 on Apple Silicon M1 machine!
new hardware for color input / control
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.
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.
 Beautiful watercolor patterns produced while demonstrating an XP-Pen pen display |  Demonstrating the Lenovo E-Color Pen |
Optimization
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.
2021 Ahead: Improvements & New Features
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
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.
Better Dry-up
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.
More layers
With those optimizations mentioned above, we're ready to add support for more layers.
Western watercolor
We'll start adding Western watercolor specific features like drips, backruns or granulation.
Image Import
Some of you were asking for image import. With that above-mentioned dry-up change, import would be possible.
Oil paint
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.
RYB color model
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.
Your support is Essential
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
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
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