Comment from Jake
Time: September 26, 2007, 9:36 pm

I downloaded the 1.6 and 1.6f releases and they worked fine with a DLDI patch. When I got the 1.6g release, however, it’ll boot but it won’t save, load, or email files. Why is this?

Comment from humbuged
Time: September 27, 2007, 2:23 am

Everything is looking very polished! v1.06 looks great. When using the WiFi option, it says upload to the gallery. It got me a little confused until I read that it’s actually to send pictures to e-mails yes? I did try it out but the uploading progress was too slow so I didn’t wait for it to finish. Great stuff, can’t wait for the future updates :D

Comment from Bas
Time: September 29, 2007, 12:23 am

Is there any way to use pictures as background for a new drawing?

Comment from Daniel
Time: September 29, 2007, 1:11 am

Love this app but could it be possible to make to where it can save the drawings as jpgs as well png so i can put my drawings on my wii pls

Comment from Jens
Time: September 29, 2007, 2:54 pm

Hey Bas,

Your e-mail didn’t work, so I’ll answer here.

>Is there any way to use pictures as background for a new drawing?
Yes, but it requires some renaming of files and stuff. Check the “technical discussion” link. I think it’s explained there.

Comment from Fank
Time: September 30, 2007, 12:18 pm

Bas: You can duplicated files on the go with DSOrganize. Use the copy/paste function in the ‘browser’ and rename the files. Or do it on your PC.
Daniel: Use a program like Paint (if you’re on a Windows machine) to open the .png, and then save it to .jpg

As for feedback, I must say that i preferred a fullscreen look of what the image looks like on the top screen (as in 1.05) instead of a layout of the buttons.
I also just noticed that when closed, the DS goes into sleep mode (blinking LED). Colors! is my favourite ap to draw on the NDS, and it helps me to create textures to use in 3D models. Two thumbs up!

Comment from Jens
Time: September 30, 2007, 2:05 pm

Hey Fank,

Thanks for the complements! If you read the instructions carefully on the top-screen, you can see that you press select to toggle the usage-screen. :)

Enjoy!

Comment from Shin
Time: October 4, 2007, 6:29 pm

Amazing App, i love this, i honestly mess about more on this than most of my games.

There is one thing though, i put this on my little 4 yr old niece’s DS too, but the problem is for some reason the calibration settings need adjusting each time, is there an option to save the calibration settings as she can’t go through all the menu’s to set it up as its a little to complicated for her.

For us adults its fine and we can change it each time we boot it up, but it would be nice if it saved your last settings for when you boot it up again.

Thanks and keep up the great work.

I was using 1.06f btw.

Comment from Jens
Time: October 4, 2007, 6:58 pm

Hey Shin,

There was a bug in previous v1.06 versions where calibration settings weren’t saved correctly. This has been fixed in v1.06h, so grab that one, and everything should be fine!

Thanks for the compliments!

Comment from Daniel☆
Time: October 5, 2007, 12:57 am

would it be possible to make where we can name our paintings with in the app just a thought ☆☆

Comment from Daniel☆
Time: October 5, 2007, 1:02 am

make it* ↑↑↑↑↑

Comment from Jens
Time: October 5, 2007, 12:53 pm

Hey Daniel,

As soon as I get the Gallery properly integrated I’m probably going to need the naming functionality you speak of. Keep a look out for new versions.

Comment from Mrchew
Time: October 5, 2007, 11:17 pm

this question is for Jetboy would it be possible to stream the draw files instead of having to download them

Comment from Jens
Time: October 6, 2007, 12:11 am

Hey Mrchew,

I’m currently working on integrating the gallery into Colors! to be able to browse and download paintings directly. It’ll probably take a while longer, but I hope to have it in for the next big update.

Comment from karagh
Time: October 7, 2007, 12:50 pm

I think this is a wonderfull app, a true example of good taste development.
After using it a time, I was thinking if it could be possible to adapt it for pixel art. As I see, only a grid option, and maybe sketch size selection, should be necessary. Other tools could be added, like line drawing and fill, but they are less important. The meaning of all this, is that your software could be used to create all the graphics of a homebrew, that way developing ds software on the ds. :)

Comment from Stephen Mansell
Time: October 9, 2007, 5:06 pm

Fist off, AMAZING app! I have a think for drawing apps on the DS, it’s so suited to sketching.

Previously I had been using Draw & Pictoblog and have integrated them into my site, using colours I should also be able post the images to a blog (Using posting via email) however for more compatability and customisation you should seperate the post to gellery – post as email options.
And most importantly be able to add some basic email info such as the email subject (which would be the post topic) and maybe some brief post text (optional) .. just be able to edit this before sending an email would make it a much more powefull and maybe more used application.

I’m working on integrating colours blog posting into my blog atm, it actually works fine sending emails for me (I just have to code my website how to deal with them, maybe another week or so and i should be finished with it)

I love all the suggestions from all the comments, sometimes its just a little addition that makes the biggest improvment.

Once again great app

Comment from David
Time: October 10, 2007, 4:28 pm

I just wanted to tell you how AWESOME this program is! The playback feature is incredible. Nice job! I’m having soooo much fun with this. :]

Comment from Jens
Time: October 11, 2007, 3:16 pm

Hey Stephen,

I’ve actually been thinking of integrating pictoblog support directly into Colors!. It would probably work in the manner you describe, where you can send your picture in a number of different ways.

Comment from Frank
Time: October 11, 2007, 8:45 pm

Hey, awesome little program, I love it! Can you make the email to address feature more integrated so you don’t have to go to the gallery? If it could save the most recent used email address that would be helpful as well. Keep up the good work!

Comment from Martin
Time: October 14, 2007, 8:20 pm

WOW, what can i say, its INCREDIBLE!!! i was at least expecting a knock off version of paint. damn i was wrong. this is an amazing app, one of the best on my ds, and best ive seen… ever! i am deffinately going to follow this one. i know i didnt get it at the start, i have just downloaded 1.06h, and i was amazed. its so smooth, its like, *jaw drops*
keep up the amazing work

Comment from Korlithiel
Time: October 14, 2007, 9:05 pm

Heyas, thanks for this great program. I recently bought a DS Lite and have found many of the games…lacking. After looking around for homebrew I found this to be one of the best programs I’ve found and it alone has made the DS Lite purchase worthwhile.

Anyways, I have come across a couple of bugs and figured I should report them here.
But first, I am using a Super Key and a Super Card Lite Rumble with a 2GB Micro SD card. Hope this isn’t relevant, the version I’m using is 1.06h.

The first problem is that if I haven’t drawn anything (or have used the clear option and then not drawn anything) and I close my system, upon opening it the program seems to freeze and I have to turn my system off to be able to do anything again.

Second is that when I wipe the screen the controls on the top screen disappear until I’ve drawn for a bit, bothersome but not really an issue.

The final thing is that when I’m using it to write with (I have been using it to practice Kanji with when not drawing) that occasionally a line of two will jut out from where I was writing/drawing. I find this very bothersome since it can completely ruin what I was writing/drawing at times.

I also have a couple of requests, first is could you add an undue option? I find that occasionally I make a mistake and wish I could undue my last stroke. I’m unsure where to implement it but I would definitely appreciate it.

Something I found out when letting my GF play around with the program is that some colors she wanted to use were hard to get just right. This made me think that being able to save a few colors and just be able to prod them and the little ring would go to the right position and that would really help out.

I think that’s all I can think of for now, thanks for this and I look forward to future versions.

Comment from Korlithiel
Time: October 14, 2007, 9:26 pm

A couple of final feature requests.

The first is that it saves your settings, I tend to start off my drawings the same I would when writing Kanji and need to use thin, vibrant lines so I can see them well and I would like that it remembered your settings (an auto save I guess) from each time you tinker with them.

The second is that you consider an undue option, I know it could conflict with the ability to review how a drawing was done so I propose that it become an option that disables the other and would stay that way unless you could figure out a way to use both without causing issues.

Thanks again for this and your time, feel free to email me if you want any more feedback.

Comment from Damit
Time: October 16, 2007, 8:39 pm

What a smashing little app this is turning out to be!

I have been playing around with this since the first day I got my DS and have enjoyed it immensly :)

Its like having your own tiny Cintiq with you at all times :)

The pressure sensitivity and the quality of the “fluffy” brush are vastly improved in 1.06. I just wish that you could undo. Even just one step!

Toggling the top screen is much less important than the ability to undo, maybe the select key could be re-mapped?

The ability to draw a larger image would also be amazing. The images look great on the little screen, but when you put them on your computer you wish you could have done it a bit bigger!

Keep up the great work!

Comment from x_x
Time: October 17, 2007, 9:00 pm

Damit is 2048×1536 big enough? Because you can redraw them that big with Ben Jaques’ java applet. Here is the link: http://colors.brombra.net/downloads.php

Comment from joe joe
Time: October 18, 2007, 7:28 am

can you post a link to your DS to DS adhoc test here.
I downloaded it over at gbadev.
Do you have an updated version yet?

Comment from Sketchling – Kim Taylor
Time: October 18, 2007, 12:54 pm

This program is simply amazing… really, its such a fantastic little ting i now have my ds with me everywhere! A couple of thing I can think of that might be useful though

1) a back-forward button for the record so that you can undo the last stroke from within the colour picker. if it wasnt for the occasional 2 fingers touching mistakes that draw great lines through the image this would not be an issue…

2) I think it ight be very useful to have a square brush… for buildings or the like. Just an idea, but I think one tht might be useful for hard edged drawing.

Anyways, I have to thank ya for this… I love it. It makes me happy and you have collected a few smiles since I started playing with it!

Here are a couple of my paintings so far:
http://www.sketchling.com/artwork/2007/dscolour_jpg/colors_slot2.jpg
http://www.sketchling.com/artwork/2007/dscolour_jpg/colors_slot3.jpg

Cheers
:) kim

Comment from Glauco nobre
Time: October 18, 2007, 2:35 pm

Collecting smiles made my dreams real! Thank you very much for your work! It´s a amazing tool! ^__^v

Comment from Jens
Time: October 18, 2007, 9:30 pm

Thanks for all the compiliments!

>Can you make the email to address feature more integrated
>so you don’t have to go to the gallery
No. It needs to go through a server, since it’s only the .drw that is actually uploaded. That’s also why it can be repainted in a higher resolution.

>and I close my system, upon opening it the program seems
>to freeze
Yes. I’ve heard about that bug, but haven’t been able to fix it yet.

>can you post a link to your DS to DS adhoc test here
I rather not. It’s just a test for development purposes. Once I get it up and running properly I’ll realease it.

>I think it ight be very useful to have a square brush
Yes. It’s possible that that will get in there in future version.

About the Undo suggestions. It’s a very hard problem for me to solve, since there isn’t enough memory in the DS for me to implement it directly. But I’m trying to find ways around it.

Thanks again!

Comment from Stephen Mansell
Time: October 19, 2007, 9:45 pm

Jens – Pictoblog intergration would rule! And the more ways you can share your pictures from Colours the better!

As for the undo feature , If i screw up completely in my drawing i have just done the playback and clicked stop before my screw up , then continued drawing from there.. so theres your way around that..

maybe you can do Undo in like 5 second steps or something.. just a thought, maybe its totally impractical.

Comment from Daniel
Time: October 19, 2007, 11:16 pm

would it be possible to add some music? something peaceful though like Mozart or Beethoven. It would be a great feature please try ☆☆☆☆

Comment from Stephen Mansell
Time: October 20, 2007, 4:04 am

I don’t wish to spam – but I did what I said I would do.
I have got my blog set up to automatically post the pics directly from colours.

http://www.shadowreality.co.uk/?cat=9

Comment from Korlithiel
Time: October 20, 2007, 6:21 am

My GF and I both find the playback feature in lieu of a undo rather burdensome since we both tend to just draw for hours.

Still haven’t gotten around to anything worth sharing though, I may enjoy drawing but my skills are rather limited since I just use it to occupy my exterior while I’m thinking about things.

As for the music, I suggest buying a separate player for that since Jens has already mentioned that the DS doesn’t have enough memory, even for something as simple as an undo option it seems.

Still, I hold out great hopes for an undo button. Really would make it a much easier program to use as a main drawing tool.

Comment from jetboy
Time: October 20, 2007, 8:45 am

Hey Kim! Great works! Both colors and other media. How about putting those Colors drawing in the Colors gallery? http://colors.isthething.com

Comment from austin
Time: October 20, 2007, 8:24 pm

please help me. i have a max media dock and colors v1.5 and ive patched it a million times! and it still wont save. if someone could please help me. from austin

Comment from austin
Time: October 21, 2007, 3:49 am

please help me. i have a max media dock and colors v1.5 and ive patched it a million times! and it still wont save pics. if someone could please help me. from austin

Comment from austin
Time: October 21, 2007, 3:50 am

please help me. i have a max media dock and colors v1.5 and ive patched it a million times! and it still wont save pics. if someone could please help me. from austin.

Comment from x_x
Time: October 21, 2007, 11:04 pm

Are you from the future? AFAIR the last released version was 1.06. AFAIK even 1.1 is not ready yet, so where did you got 1.5 is a question to me. btw. spamming your help plea will not get you anywhere, usually it works opposite.

Comment from Jens
Time: October 22, 2007, 1:53 pm

Austin,

As far as I know Colors! shold work with max media dock. Since I don’t have one of those myself, I can’t give you any pointers. One thing to try is to post a question in the forum liked as Technical Discussion from the Colors! homepage and hope that someone can help you there.

Comment from Jens
Time: October 22, 2007, 1:55 pm

Hey Stephen,

That’s really cool that you can post to your blog directly from Colors! I must fix that for myself. :)

Comment from austin
Time: October 24, 2007, 3:54 am

thanks ill do that

Comment from austin
Time: October 24, 2007, 3:56 am

by the way i love this app and i think it is the greatest drawing tool ever keep the great work up

Comment from Mikey Micro
Time: October 26, 2007, 9:09 pm

Hi Jesse. I’ve just started using Colours. Well done! It turns the DS into such a useful little tool. I love things like this.

My take on things: As a Dpaint guy, it takes a bit of getting used to. I do find the colour selector could look easier/be a bit easier….simple palettes would be nice.

I am a bit of a pixeler so maybe it’s not the app for me…but I do find I’d like to be able to draw a solid straight coloured line…I don’t find it easy to achieve with the transparency thing…..no matter what I try and how hard I push the stylus……

I think a blur tool would be good so you could merge colours….

I know there are so many wish lists and only you doing this ….so sorry to go on! I am quite a fan of pixel art …it would be nice to be able to do this on Colours…but I guess it’s more like Artrage or something…..

I predefined set of brushes would be useful…to save using the slider….a la dpaint :))

Anyway just my take on things. It’s a brill bit of work Jesse. Thank you!

Comment from Jens
Time: October 27, 2007, 10:44 am

Hey Mikey,

It seems Colors! is not exactly meant to do what you would need. :)

Be sure to calibrate properly, so you can get fully opaque strokes. Also, you can disable the pressure sensitivity in the brush/palette screen and a blur tool is something I’ve been considering. Custom brushes are probably not something that will be implemented, since it would complicate the application too much for my taste.

Thanks for the feedback and the compliments

Comment from PingooDandy
Time: October 30, 2007, 11:31 am

This Homebrew is just awesome. I love all the features but you could add a layout support for more complex compositions!

Comment from Daniel
Time: October 30, 2007, 9:07 pm

this might be a n00b question but how did u enlarge that cat drawing on the home page with out messing up the quality

Comment from Jens
Time: October 30, 2007, 9:41 pm

Daniel,

That’s what I get for doing homepages in Word I guess. :)

You can get the uncompressed files of the cat painting at
http://colors.isthething.com/details.php?i=1

Comment from Jens
Time: October 30, 2007, 9:42 pm

PingooDandy,

Thanks for the compliments. I don’t think I will add any form of layering och layout tools. It would make the application too compicated, and it’s meant to be really simple.

Comment from trevor
Time: October 31, 2007, 4:01 am

this is the best thing anyones ever done.

Comment from James Kochalka
Time: November 2, 2007, 6:06 pm

Hmmm… I want to email some pics to my wife at work, but I keep getting an error that says I can’t connect to the gallery and to try again later. I connect to my access point, but it won’t connect me to the gallery so I can send an email. It worked yesterday, but not today.

I love the program by the way, but if I can’t email the pics I don’t have much use for it. I sure hope the problem is temporary!

Comment from jetboy
Time: November 2, 2007, 8:07 pm

James: You can always copy files from your card and send them form your computer. You would be also welcomed to put them on the online gallery (click my name), if you decide to do so, remember to include drw and tmb files too.

Comment from James Kochalka
Time: November 2, 2007, 8:53 pm

Ha! Oh that’s right! Funny I didn’t think of that. Cool, thanks for setting my brain straight.

And it looks like the email function is working again, so that’s cool too.

Comment from DreamWalker
Time: November 5, 2007, 7:01 pm

This is the best App ever! Thanks!
Is there a way to playback longer drawings it seems to cut off at a point.
I would love if you could listen to your own music while drawing.
Alos take a look at my YouTube with music.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=UyszVxKZpkU

Comment from jetboy
Time: November 6, 2007, 10:55 pm

DreamWalker: you call that music? Pretty bold statement.

Comment from Mr_Drayton
Time: November 7, 2007, 2:58 pm

Great painting software, overall one of my favourite even compared to other PC softwares! Maybe you want to add an “Undo” feature, because sometimes I have to load the painting back…

Comment from Quinn Damerell
Time: November 8, 2007, 4:30 am

Hey, I LOVE THIS PROGRAM, I just had an idea. I don’t know if this is possible, but it would be cool to have a co-op painting, over the DS download and play. So two people could paint together, if one person does not have any mod card. Keep up the good work!

Comment from kenneth
Time: November 8, 2007, 9:34 pm

can u please make a undo or a step backward button? for the rest i love it and i make amazing stuff in it, this should be in the stores hahah

Comment from Jens
Time: November 9, 2007, 1:50 pm

Thanks everyone,

I’m hoping to include an Undo button in future relases. It’s really tricky for me to do, but at least I have a plan now. Collaborative painting is also something I hope to get in and hopefully the download and play feature as well.

Comment from re134123
Time: November 9, 2007, 5:15 pm

bought a ds because of colors, arrived today. the program is even better than expected, thanks a billion times for programming this!

Comment from Daniel
Time: November 9, 2007, 9:15 pm

one of my drawings disappeared out of the gallery it wasn’t offensive so i dont why it would be deleted

Comment from Duncan
Time: November 9, 2007, 10:46 pm

Wow – I’m absolutely stunned! This app has blown me away it’s so good!
I’m hoping someday this will become a boxed product with full Nintendo backing – fits perfectly with their “Touch Generations” brand and the laid-back creativity Nintendo work hard to portray.
The planned web features and collaborative painting sound fantastic – perfectly pitched for Nintendo’s growing online presence.

Keep up the great work! :-D

Comment from stan one
Time: November 10, 2007, 9:49 am

Think its possible i can get the source code…to try to port this nifty app to the nokia n800?

Comment from Jens
Time: November 10, 2007, 10:52 am

Hey Stan,

No, the source for Colors! is not available for a number of reasons. It’s possible that it will be released in the future, but I haven’t really decided yet. A port for the n800 would be cool though.

Comment from Jens
Time: November 10, 2007, 10:53 am

Daniel,

The “offensive” system is based on user reporting, but is validated by admins reguarly. If the painting wasn’t offensive it should pop back up again soon.

Comment from Otavio
Time: November 13, 2007, 12:36 am

Great program. I figured I’d throw in a few feature requests for you to think about.

1. It would be nice if the color picker had a sample of the color you’re picking alongside the old color that you were using so that you could see the difference. Similar to Photoshop. It’s nice that the brush preview shows the color, but I’m usually using a brush that is too small to really see the color on it.

2. I understand that undo is difficult on this limited game system and this has been discussed to death. The reason why I usually want undo is because I accidentally did a multi-touch on the screen and drew a big line across my image. I was wondering if you have tried a multi-touch detector? If the program could pause and warn me if my drawing vector travelled more than half the screen, it would help minimimize ugly multitouch errors.

3. I think it would be nice if you could zoom out 1 or 2 more levels. This would help me get a good overall feel of my picture. Even if I couldn’t draw on it, this would be nice. Ideally 2×2-average downsampled. If I could draw on the zoomed out thing, that would help with large strokes. I recently was drawing god-rays into my picture that were near the edge of the screen. Unfortunately, it seems like the touch sensitivity is a bit weak towards the edges of the screen, so I had to scroll around to get them at the right intensity. Zoom-out could have helped me draw that.

4. I know you’re looking into this, but I figured I’d let you know that a bigger replay buffer would be great.

Thanks for writing Colors. It really is an exceptional program and has helped me learn to draw better.

-Otavio

Comment from Y
Time: November 13, 2007, 10:05 am

i was wondering is it possible that you could have a built-in mp3 player so u can listen to music while painting or is that to complicated?

Comment from Shingouki
Time: November 13, 2007, 11:57 am

Best, Software, Ever. I love art again thank you so much.

Comment from Christy lightfoot
Time: November 14, 2007, 8:11 am

I LOVE THIS!! It has allowed me to start drawing again even with my arthritis,fibromyalgia and carpel tunnel. Thank you!!

Comment from Ayman Alagouza
Time: November 14, 2007, 1:02 pm

Hi there …yesterday i bought a nintendo ds lite just to be able to use colors! im not into games at all, the thing is can someone help me by telling me how to get the colors! installation file into the nintendo ds lite???? it doesnt come with a data cable or a memory card so how can i install colors?
thank you

Comment from jetboy
Time: November 14, 2007, 5:43 pm

Ayman Alagouza. You need to get homebrew enabled cartridge to put colors on it. Please visit http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?p=145376#145376 for more info.

Comment from Sim-r
Time: November 14, 2007, 9:17 pm

A great app and really enjoying it !

I have a question – pressure sensitivity in terms of getting a line from thick to thin does not work for me with the pen .I can paint with my finger on the screen and it works then . Is this the way it was intended ? Same problem with opacity. I have version h and have tried the different settings – on off brush size and opacity etc .

Apart from that ( could def be something I am not doing right ) this is fantastic and a huge thanks to you for doing this . I really was looking for a digital sketch pad and the ds is perfect . I ended up just buying one with a supercard ds one soley for this purpose .

Thanks .

Comment from re134123
Time: November 17, 2007, 1:58 am

simon, have you tried the calibration tool?

jens, i know there are a lot of feature requests. there is a very simple thing, that would be great to have: a way to set the background color for a new painting.

Comment from DaveB
Time: November 17, 2007, 9:09 am

Thanks a million for this application.
As for requests, Otavio’s # 1 and 3 requests are the similar to mine.
The #1 thing I find myself wanting is to zoom out 1 or 2x so I can see the entire image easier, work with it smaller, and especially because the DS doesn’t read strokes very well on the edges. Having to pan over to do the edges is a pain when it could be solved by zooming out.
It would be great too if you could some how show the color that is currently selected in the color picker.
Another feature that would help a lot is an option to turn the image greyscale so I can judge the values, a great asset for learning to paint well.
Also another request about brushes, the square brush would be great along with some sort of grainy textured brush as well.
One last thing, I thank for making this usable for both left and right handed people (i’m left handed) but I was thinking if you made a version for left handed people and a version for right handed people you could have more hotkeys available. I know it’s meant to be simple, but there are just a few more things I find useful that could be added with more open keys. Also I find myself hitting those other keys on accident. I think someone needs to invent a Colors! glove to protect your hand from injury, I am already using a headband wrapped around my hand to prevent that hard plastic stylus from pressing too hard into my index finger.

Anyways, I’m going to start posting my Colors! sketches right now! You guys made my life much happier by making this. I thank Sparth for having his DS sketches on his blog, I had no idea about the DS pressure sensitivity.
Thank you again.

Comment from Damian
Time: November 17, 2007, 4:59 pm

Amazing work Jens , i recently purchased an R4 cartridge so i could run the SNES emulator on it , was looking for other interesting applications and found your excellent program , cant thank you enough , you should try and get it published and earn some money for this , it really is that good.

Comment from Jens
Time: November 17, 2007, 5:34 pm

Thanks everyone for all the compliments!

Otavio, I agree that it would be nice to see the old selected color in the brush screen. I’m not sure how I would create a multitouch detector since sometimes they are reported as slow moves towards the second touch point. I do hope to get undo functionality in there for the next version, so perhaps that won’t be a problem after that. Also, I’ve got the suggestion of an additional zoom-out level from enough artists to make me want it in there and an unlimited paint-buffer is definitly needed.

Y, It would probably be nice, but I’m afraid that if I would start with an integrated mp3-player, I would need to spend a lot of time getting it as polished as I wanted it to be. Also, there is memory and performance issues with such a thing.

Christy lightfoot, It makes me incredible proud to have been able to help in that way. Thanks for letting me know.

re134123, In the spirit of keeping Colors! simple I’m not going to have a clear-color since it’s so easy to clear the screen manually.

DaveB, making the image temporary grayscale is something I need to think about. Perhaps that can be worked into the levels-tool screen I’m hoping to implement. Square-brush is something I’ve heard requested a few times so it’s probably something that’ll get in there as well. I’m not sure what to do about the left-right hand configuration though, but I’ll try to think of something.

Thanks again!

Comment from Arialia
Time: November 18, 2007, 1:43 am

Very good application
thanks a lot

but can you make button L or R just a toggle between drawing or choose colors
too difficult for my little girl ( 3 years old ) to hold button when she choose color

Comment from DaveB
Time: November 18, 2007, 7:16 am

Hi again, I haven’t found anything about this so I’ll ask it here.
Is there something I can use to watch .drw files on my computer? Or is it only possible on the DS?
thanks again.

Comment from jetboy
Time: November 18, 2007, 1:04 pm

You can watch drw in the online gallery (if you have java installed).

You can also go to download section of the gallery and download java applet to run it offline. You will be able tosave picture at higher resolution or save avi movie of the painting process, so you can post it on youtube for example. Apllet is not pixel perfect, but is close enough.

Applet was written by Ben Jaques, and you can even use it on your own page completely free. It is not necessary but if you use that applet on your page, please give Ben a credit – a link to his page maybe http://masscat.afraid.org/

Comment from dyl
Time: November 18, 2007, 1:38 pm

Great software, my 6 year old loves it. Just a thought, could you implement an eraser tool? She finds it tough to select a perfect white using the triangle thingy, then forgets to change it back to full colour. Thanks a million for this.

Comment from Y
Time: November 18, 2007, 2:01 pm

hey great app

when will the new colors be out?

will be out before the end of this year?

Comment from Jens
Time: November 19, 2007, 2:37 pm

Thanks again for all the complements. It makes me happy that I’m a programmer.

Arialia, yes, that is something I’ve seen as well. I’ll do some tests about alternatives for future versions.

dyl, I’m not so fond of the idea of an eraser tool, but it’s possible that I should add shortcuts to black/white colors. I’ve also been thinking about having the option of a simplified palette.

Y, yes, I’m hoping to have a new version out before the end of this year. Not promising anything though.

Thanks for the feedback!

Comment from CautionCat
Time: November 21, 2007, 6:08 am

This is so awesome to have wile on the go. Having a little digital drawing pad with me everywhere.

Do you think layers will be added to the next update?

Comment from Jens
Time: November 21, 2007, 10:24 am

CautionCat,

I’ve currently not planned to include layer-support for Colors!. Apart from the technical problems they would cause, it would also make the program much more complex.

Thanks for the compliment!

Comment from Kitetsu
Time: November 21, 2007, 12:47 pm

Jens, I would like to know, how’d Colors! users make vertically large pictures, like this picture madwurmz did?

http://colors.brombra.net/details.php?i=1545

Did he use both screens of the program? Make 2 pictures and then join them together? Drew it sideways in the drawing screen? Secret technique? Haha… Seriously though, how did they do it?

So now i’ve finished asking… Jens, you have created an indispensable product, just like CautionCat said. Though I’ve found that the product is not yet ripe for me to deem it perfect, nonetheless, the experience of being accustomed to the program was not as arduous as i first thought. Please, continue to refine the program, because i will be looking forward for all future versions i can find, beta or official!

Comment from jetboy
Time: November 21, 2007, 1:29 pm

Kitetsu: The secret technique is to draw keeping your DS rotated 90 degrees to the side. :)

Comment from otavio
Time: November 22, 2007, 1:44 am

I figured I’d throw 2 more ideas out there for Jens to think about.

1. Dithering would help with smooth gradients. It looks to me like the DS is using a 15 bit frame buffer even though the picture is saved at 24 bits. If you use a standard dithering algorithm, it might confuse the artists since it would change pixel color without them directly changing it. So my ideas are like this… Make dithering as an option? Only dither when zoomed in? Or maybe dither over time. So like every other frame the color would flicker 1 level up or down. Since it’s only one level, it probably wouldn’t distract too much. I recently programmed something similar for part of an xbox360 game I’m working on. Time-based dithering seems to work as long as the color changes are small and the frame rate is fast.

2. Earlier, I had suggested having a current color and last color in the color picker. It might be interesting to have a short queue of the last few used colors. Like a recently used palette. I find myself frequently going back to a color that I just used 3 colors ago.

Ok, just some random ideas. I don’t know how hard these are to implement or if anyone else would be into them, but I figured it can’t hurt to suggest. :)

-Otavio

Comment from Harp
Time: November 23, 2007, 2:21 pm

I bought a DS just for this program. Thank you very much for all the hard work and effort. Everything about it is just beautiful.

Comment from Shinkon
Time: November 25, 2007, 7:23 am

When I saw this I was like “finally”
But it won’t work with Super Card SD slot-2
Any way I can get it to work?

Comment from Arialia
Time: November 27, 2007, 2:06 am

Jens :
My daughter has learned all alone how changing colors, load picture and save picture in few days !
Look at this : http://arialia.dev-fr.org/p3760/2007-11-27-colors-ds-ma-fille-m-epate.html
i’m so surprised !

Shinkon :
It works fine on all Supercard but you must patch colors with good DLDI ( for mine the Moon SCSD DLDI ) or test autopatch DLDI with new firmware 1.84 for supercard, i’ve tested with supercard MiniSD Rumble and it’s work fine ;)
If you want learn about DLDI : http://dldi.drunkencoders.com/

Comment from Otavio
Time: November 28, 2007, 9:08 am

Hey everybody, I can’t seem to stop posting to this site, so if I get annoying, ignore me.

Jetboy, the gallery site is lots of fun. I was wondering if you could do something like limit the number of uploads per person per day. It seems like sometimes there will be some sweet pictures that people upload that get quickly bumped off the main page when someone decides to upload 8 “modern arts” all at once. Also, when is the next contest?

My last feature request is… How sweet would it be if the Colors program kept track of how long you have been drawing a picture? Then you could have contests where you have to draw something in a certain time limit. I think that could be lots of fun.

-Otavio

Comment from S-I-T
Time: November 28, 2007, 12:57 pm

Hi all,

I have a quick question, Ive just bought my daughter a ds for christmas and have seen a lot of news about this awesome looking package. Will this Homebrew App work on an
M3DS Simply cart?

Ive read a few places about using a DLDI patching program, will I need to do this for this cart?

Just want to put my mind at rest – I think this will be the toy of choice this christmas :D

cant thank you enough for this

Comment from jetboy
Time: November 29, 2007, 1:55 pm

@Otavio:
I know this is important issue, but we dont want to discourage people from posting to the gallery. I know you are used to the higher standards, but colors gallery is for every colors users. I will think about it and we could discuss it on the technical forums http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=14182.

As for the time painted thing – it was planned from the beggining. Jens did put that field into drw specyfication, just he didnt implemented that feature yet – so the field is left blank for now. Maybe next update will include that.

@S-I-T:
Colors will work on most flashcards, M3DS Simply is one of them. There is more explanation in gallery on FAQ page.

Comment from Corg
Time: November 30, 2007, 1:58 am

Great app, and definitely the best painting app for DS! Something I think would be an important feature in the future is of course UNDO. I don’t know anything about programming on DS so don’t really know about limitations of like how many steps you could UNDO, I quess its the memory, right? But even a single-step UNDO would be so GREAT and useful.

Comment from Paul Lee
Time: November 30, 2007, 3:26 pm

Great software. At least one undo would be great. Custom brush shape would also be great. I think there should be some way to alter an image in Photoshop and bring it back into Colors to work on. I tried this this and something strange happened. When I opened the png in Colors, I could see the modified image. I could paint over it and eyedrop sample colors from the modified image. But when I email the image to myself or I copy the file back off the SD Card, the Photoshop modifications don’t appear. Only the actions in Colors. You should find a way to allow importing of our own original images that we can then paint on. I would like to set up some toned and textured backgrounds so I can make images that look even more like paintings. Instead of only being able to work on the default white background.

Comment from Paul Lee
Time: November 30, 2007, 3:34 pm

Oh, I forgot. One more thing. It would be preferable if you could change the file saving from the limited number of slots to something unlimited, or limited by the size of the SD Card. And if the saving function behaved like other programs, giving you a directory and the ability to name your own files. Of course loading from the same directory. It doesn’t make sense to limit the number of saves.

Comment from Sergio
Time: December 1, 2007, 2:12 pm

First, thanks for the most powerful paint program on console ever!!!

second, i wrote a colors article on my blog (in spanish) to make may more people know colors.

Third, maybe a thing, a 1024*768 document and angle brush are a things to incorpore to colors.

thanks!!!!

Comment from Y
Time: December 2, 2007, 5:20 am

hey jens

when is the wifi gallery going to be up?

will it be up before the new version of colors?

Comment from Anotherboyblue
Time: December 2, 2007, 1:56 pm

Absolutely fabulous software! thank you Jens! now my daily 2 hours lost on the train to and from work will be put to very constructive use. I cant thank you enough. I’ll let you know when i have a site up! (so much to do and so little time!!)

Comment from Paulie
Time: December 2, 2007, 7:52 pm

Hey, I got an M3 DS Real.. but i cant get Colors working on it.. can anyone help me?

Comment from n8
Time: December 3, 2007, 9:55 pm

Hi,

Thanks for Colors, I think my daughter and I are going to have lots of fun with it. I have a few suggestions:

1. Undo of at least a few strokes. Like others have said, this is a biggie if you actually care about what you’re making.

2. When pressure-sensitivity is enabled for size/opacity, you should be able to choose a min *and* max value. I often don’t want huge ranges, just some subtle variation to make things look more natural.

3. A way of creating a palette of colors and/or “brushes” (i.e. color+size+opacity), preferably along with the ability to save and restore them. Note that this would give people a way to have an “eraser” as a saved brush with white color and 100% opacity.

Anyhow, thanks again for the nice program!
Cheers,
-n8

Comment from I want Jelly
Time: December 7, 2007, 4:12 pm

I’ve been waiting for a soft like that since I bought my DS. It even was a reason for buying it, but I didn’t find a good enough drawing soft. I even tried painting on my palm, with many crappy and buggy apps, and no pressure, and no precision in the stylus…

“Colors” is just awesome ! Well done, easy to use, and all you need to paint is implemented : pressure, opacity, and the indispensable color circle. Made by a painter for other painters, I guess… Very ergonomic and well thought.

Now I’ll paint everything I see !

Thanks.
Thanks.
Thanks.
And thanks again.

Comment from SewerShark
Time: December 8, 2007, 3:48 pm

Well, I really liked this little App, reminds me too much of Painter.

I have some sugestions tough, as someone who works professionaly with photoshop and digital art.

1- An eraser tool could be handy. It would save a lot of trouble.

2- Custom brush support. I know this is a simple paint App, but I guess you can add this, Like photoshop, you make a custom brush tip out of a black and alpha PNG.

3- Bigger canvas sizes. I know, maybe for simplicity, convenience, or memory issues, you guys choose to use the DS screen size as the default canvas size. But, as seen that you can pan and zoom the canvas, I think it could suport a larger drawing area, so we can generate larger images. It would be great for a quick sketch that can be used later on Photoshop or any other graphis app on PC or Mac.

Well, maybe I’m asking too much, but, untill now, this was the best homebrew App I’ve seen on the DS screen.

Keep up the good work

Comment from Hammer6
Time: December 8, 2007, 6:50 pm

Just wanted to add my well done and thanks to the many other comments here. Colors! is exceptional!

Comment from Andy
Time: December 11, 2007, 8:06 am

Incredible! When I saw Colors! on the blog lines and colors, I went out and bought a DS the same day. Within 20 min. I was sketching. I own a cintiq 18sx which I love, but the DS goes wherever I do. Simply brilliant. Your app is so great I really hate to suggest a thing, but….

I do comics, so a feature that would help me would be the ability to see the last painting I painted as I am painting a new one, this would be good in general, because then you could double the canvas size without needing more ram or processing. You would just paint the top half, save, and paint the bottom half matched to the top.

Anyway, awesome app. Well worth the price of a DS game. At free it’s absolutely flawless!

Comment from Harryx
Time: December 12, 2007, 2:18 am

This program is really the best painting program i have see ever, even on windows or anyplataform

i think a “ctrl + z – Function” may be the best improbe for the program
(i have make Bigs, miss painting xD)

Comment from color_user
Time: December 12, 2007, 2:55 pm

First of all: this is a great piece of homebrew software. I was searching for a possibility for painting/sketching while travelling for years. It should be something small, so the DS is a good choice.

After using it for some days I have some suggestion for the future development:

- A request before clearing the image
- Size of the brush relative to zooming (painting very soft can produce strokes, that can been seen
- the selected color is hard do estimate in the settings menu (the brush is often to small for this). A box showing the current color will do the trick.
- Presets for brush types would be convenient
- compensating pressure sensitivity divergences on the pad. My DS interprets my strokes very differently depending where on the PAD I paint. This is the biggest disadvantage for painting on the DS. This surely is a hardware problem, but maybe an improvemt to this situation can be found by the software. Painting a black&white picture, defining different pressure sensitivity areas, could be a solution.
- UNDO. I´m aware that there are memory problems that prevented this feature. Maybe implementing a kind of UNDO this way works: saving the picture, reloading it and just dropping the last task would do the trick? There shouldn´t be memory problems with this solution. Of course it will take some time to load/save the picture, but I guess it´s better than repainting it.
- Blend modes for paintning (lighten, multiply)

Here are some “nice to have” wishes:
- Layers
- Macrorecording (Recording a bunch of strokes to one macro)
- History
- different Brushtypes
- scaling of the picture (I often start a picture and notice while painting that it will not fit on the canvas)
- Smear

I´m looking forward to a new version of Colors!

Comment from Daniel
Time: December 12, 2007, 11:18 pm

why can’t I post to my pictures to my CR page from the gallery with the image URL. its the only way I can do it because im limited to only the functionality of the wii, or I would save them.

Comment from Manuel
Time: December 12, 2007, 11:55 pm

Hi,
I can honestly say that Colors! has brought alot of exitement into my art life. I carry a sketchbook every where I go, and this is pretty much better, in a convenience sort of way. I plan almost all my art now on Colors! One only suggestion I have is to integrate an “Undo” button… even if it’s just a few undos, please.
Thanks for all the great work.

Comment from Freeke
Time: December 13, 2007, 2:26 pm

This is the best home brew app bar none!

Nevertheless my $.02

1. I like Colors a lot but I want them snappy!
The animated background menu is beautiful but it takes roughly 5 seconds to open on my DS-X.
The screen clear effect doesn’t bother me that much, at least it’s fast.
What about ‘eye_candy = off’ config file option or even a real preferences pane where this could be configured.
I don’t know if this will fix the slow menu loading, don’t really remember how fast it was in the previous versions.

2. ‘Amiga Deluxe Paint’-like swap screen
Would be great for color mixing and testing brush sizes etc.

3. Memory usage
I’m a paranoid guy, would you care to share with us how much you can paint and what happens if the memory is full?

Comment from MikeyMicro
Time: December 14, 2007, 4:44 pm

Hey Jens
I’m sure you’ve heard the rumours about the new DS……with bigger screen! Cor imagine Colours on a bigger screen ( same resolution ). That would be fab! Whether this DS will materialise next year is another matter…we could all be waiting for a while yet.

Comment from jetboy
Time: December 14, 2007, 9:23 pm

@MikeyMicro: Chances are pretty big that the new big screen DS wont be capable of pressure sensing.

Comment from Darksidehearts
Time: December 15, 2007, 10:54 pm

I love your program it was the first thing I used when I got the R4. I just downloaded the newer version, I’m not quite used to it yet but I’ll keep going at it I’m used to 1.50. Well anywho the program rocks and it’s very useful. I love to draw and I always wanted to get a tablet so this is a 2 for one deal alright!

Comment from Manuel
Time: December 16, 2007, 1:14 am

Great job! “Undo” option maybe?

Comment from Sergio
Time: December 17, 2007, 5:10 pm

thanks for the feedback Jens!, the angle brush is a feature in painter, in a simple paint program like opencanvas appear the angle brush.

other feature maybe is a little blender tool and a layer tools , like moonshell have a little button on the top of the screen you have the tools here, what you think? (sorry my english)

Comment from Frank Nauta
Time: December 18, 2007, 1:31 am

I often find myself pressing the ABYX buttons when I’m drawing (I’m right handed) Perhaps an option to turn those off (of the D-pad for left handed). Not something very important, but a nice feature if added. (Perhaps this or something similar was mentioned before, didn’t read all the comments)
Keep up the awesome work!

Comment from trabitboy
Time: December 19, 2007, 12:24 pm

Hi!
Just wanted to drop a line to state this is SO GOOD , so intuitive yet powerful, that it just replaced phidias in my everyday painting.
Thanks a lot for this program,
it is getting a LOT of use .

Comment from brad
Time: December 19, 2007, 5:18 pm

Really amazing application. Thanks so much. I got this up and running and now the artists in the office are clamoring for an R4 card so they can get this :)

Comment from lonelydrunk69
Time: December 20, 2007, 11:16 am

this program is so freakin awesome, its more fun to use than Phidias (an excellent program btw)… But I guess Phidias is more for sketching and Colors is for painting… But if you could incorporate pencils then Colors would totally blow away the other said program, just because Colors is more intuitive and easier to manipulate. (sorry Tassu, I guess you have some competition here). I’m too lazy to read all the previous comments… but I echo the request for an undo or history button (“command+z on mac”). . . and more canvas size choices. Thanks for renewing my motivation to create !

Comment from AJB2K3
Time: December 22, 2007, 7:10 pm

1.5 Works fine but 1.6g won’t boot.
Keeps comming up with (failed to initilise efs_lib)

Comment from Ookami
Time: December 29, 2007, 4:12 am

I really enjoy what you have done with the program thus far. There are only two things I feel it may be lacking. One would definitely be a “Smudge” brush or some tool like it to be used for blending. The other would be a “back step” button of some sort maybe. To add “Layers” might be a little excessive. I really do love your program though. Best painting homebrew for DS yet.

Comment from PiGhead
Time: December 29, 2007, 9:05 am

I just found about this on imagineFX mag. and i’m so glad i did i love this software is so nice to use and the possibilities of creativity are endless, im even thinking of buyin my own DS just for this, ( i use my wee lad’s). Thank you very much for the time and dedication on this. Im so hooked on it, hope there’s a new update soon, perhaps some basic layer feature would be nice.. or an eraser option.. ;) thank you again.

Comment from sam Gorrie
Time: December 29, 2007, 8:36 pm

Im on a mac, this may be the problem, but I can’t find my drawings on the sd card. maybe i’ve set up the folders incorrectly? because in the faq section it says they should be found as png files in the root colours folder, but i don’t have a colours folder.

this is what it looks like:
_DS_MENU.DAT
_DS_MENU.SYS
_DS_MSHL.NDS
_system_
Colors.ds.gba
Colors.nds
Colors.SAV
moonshl

moonshl and _system_ are folders but the others arn’t, just applications or files or whatever.

Comment from Evalei.
Time: December 30, 2007, 3:38 am

Just letting you know that the COLORS app somehow freezes everytime I put my DSLite into sleep mode (ie: whenever I close the lid down). Hope it’s corrected in later versions.

Comment from Javis
Time: December 30, 2007, 10:49 pm

Hello! First I want to say thanks for the extremely useful application! I use it daily (I used to sketch on paper but it’s easier to use the DS now), and will be using it very soon for textures of my 3D models. I really don’t have any complains, just a few suggestions or feature requests. :)

I would love to have a line tool, it would help me with architectural drawings and sketches on the DS.

A smearing/smudging/blur tool would be fantastic.

And lastly, a simple grid overlay would be handy.

Other then that, I think this is the BEST app for the DS. Period. Amazing work, keep it up!! I am looking forward to your next build.

Comment from Paul
Time: January 3, 2008, 10:24 am

has wifi support but will not pick up hidden ssid networks

Comment from Manuel
Time: January 3, 2008, 7:52 pm

I’m not sure if this is possible, but here’s an idea… download play… if someone around me has a DS, but no cartridge, can you make it so that they can draw on the same canvas. Cooperative art :)

Comment from JR Laval
Time: January 4, 2008, 1:18 pm

It is nice to see people picking up where the big developers have missed and opportunity. I can’t wait to download this little gem and try it out.

Comment from MarcoBucci
Time: January 6, 2008, 4:28 am

Hi Jens – thank you for this genious program. I am absolutely addicted to it, and will contribute to your gallery regularly. This is *the* perfect tool for a painter like me to have an easy way to do quick studies when I can’t bring my oils out with me.

I really only have one update request. I love the zoom feature…but is it possible to be able to zoom OUT of the image (to 50%)? Sometimes I want to cover large areas with the airbrush, and it can get cumbersome to have to pan over to the corners to make sure I’m hitting them evenly. One step zoom out would be awesome.

Thanks!

Comment from Eric
Time: January 6, 2008, 7:31 pm

Jens and all who are responsible for working on Colors! DS thank you very much for creating such a cool little program. Also, when will the next update be ready for download?

PiGhead, which ImagineFX issue has the article about Colors! DS? Thank you very much.

Comment from Andrew
Time: January 7, 2008, 7:48 pm

Ty Jens for The Best homebrew app on the DS! btw when is the next update? Its been a while =/

Comment from Shironeko
Time: January 10, 2008, 12:01 am

I just downloaded the program and started testing it. ¡Amazing!
Although there are two basic things that are missing in my opinion:

1- Bigger painting area.
2- A rubber!! A simple, easy and accessible rubber.

Thankyou ^ ^

Comment from Luke314pi
Time: January 10, 2008, 12:12 am

This is an amazing program! I look forward to future updates. Thanks for sharing!

Comment from o0 Hayato 0o
Time: January 10, 2008, 12:35 am

Hello there,

What an awesome soft i can’t buy a graphic tablet and now i can train my draw (sorry for my english i’m french ^^) i’m a designer 2D / 3D Video games (HOT PXL on PSP & Downstream Panix on PSP and now Wii game ^^) and now i can work my sketch book in train ;) thanks a lot

Continue in this way u make a great work ALL TEAM of Colors!

THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Bye bye

Comment from Templedog
Time: January 10, 2008, 6:33 am

Was really excited to give Colors! a whirl– It seemed to launch with dldi patching on my G6 lite, however after the ‘initializing’ and spash screen, it froze and basically corrupted my whole flash card!!

Oh well, it’s homebrew, and this will give me a reason to try one of the newer slot1 cards. Still looking forward to it, but G6 users might want to be cautious until someone confirms it works with this card.

Time to go see if I can salvage this G6.

Comment from Andy
Time: January 10, 2008, 9:51 am

Wonderful – you guys need a Paypal donation link, I looked for it and had nowhere to throw my money!

Features I want:

1) Start from a black canvas (or any color I guess)
2) Be able to scrub within the time bar when doing a playback (then undo is totally redundant)

Thanks!

PS – Paypal link!

Comment from Dise
Time: January 10, 2008, 10:09 am

THIS IS INSANE! This is really awesometastic. I’d say you guys pulled a Sakurai.

Comment from Corinne
Time: January 10, 2008, 1:07 pm

Thanks a lot for this awesome little program ! I just started to use it a few days ago, and I’m absolutely delighted with it ( the playback feature is so fun :) ) ; I used to carry a “real” sketchbook everywhere, now I can easily draw in colors on my DS – I’m addicted ! Thanks again !

Comment from Duc
Time: January 12, 2008, 12:08 am

hey Jens!! I just got it today!! And i must say i love it!!!
It so cool!!
Man I dont what to say!!! Just thank u and man u should get money for it!! U deserved it! If it would cost 50 Pounds i would have bought it!!! THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!!
JUST MADE MY DAY and for sure the next few years!!!

Comment from AngelaBridget
Time: January 12, 2008, 4:40 am

Ola.! Ano Novo Feliz

Comment from Michael
Time: January 13, 2008, 12:36 am

Wish List:
1. Ability to turn of pressure sensitivity for both Brush Size and Opacity Indepently.
2. Layers, PLEASE!!!
3. Ability to set the minimum and maximum brush size when using pressure sensitivity.
4. That is all.

Keep up the awesome work.

Comment from Dawn
Time: January 13, 2008, 5:29 am

Fantastic! I read about your program on DRAWN! and couldn’t wait to get the R4 and microSD card. The download instructions weren’t as simple as they looked (even went to the Jannis Borgers link), but happily, my husband figured it all out for me!

I know I’m going to be hooked and hope to contribute to the Gallery really soon! Thanks for a brilliant app!

Wish List:
1) An eraser!
2) Being able to save colors in a palette/tray.

Comment from gg
Time: January 13, 2008, 8:25 am

Wish have the Undo and Redo option,thx~~

Comment from Dawn
Time: January 13, 2008, 9:06 pm

I finished mt first drawing and would love to post it. I tried the Borgers link again, but I am not having success. I think the Colors FAQ should have directions on how to post your work.

Help?

Comment from jetboy
Time: January 13, 2008, 11:05 pm

@DAWN:
1. you copy your picture form your card to your pc. It is located in Colors directory relative from place where you put Colors.nds. You copy 3 files (# means number):
colors_slot#.png – PNG representation of your file.
colors_slot#.drw – Playback of your painting, please include them as they are valuable for others watching your drawings – they can learn your techniques and its simply fun.
colors_slot#.tmb – Thumbnail used to display in colors loading screen on DS. Its needed so people can download their images from gallery and put them on their consoles. Without it you will have troubles loading the file.

2. Once you have this on PC go to gallery http://colors.brombra.net and register.

3. Once registered you are ready to upload pictures. Select “Add picture” link.

4. Fill the title, description of your picture. Press Browse next to png, drw and tmb fields and select files copied to your PC.

5. If you picture contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, blood, gambling, and/or strong language, check the checkbox next to the statement. It is to prevent kids from viewing inappropriate things.

6. If you have painted your picture with your DS turned to the side or upside down select the proper position – or skip this part if keept it normaly when painting.

7. If you want your picture not to be displayed on the frontpage check it. In most cases you want it to be unchecked.

8. Press Upload button.

9. You will have to wait a while depending on the speed of your connection, and then you will get your picture uploaded.

Rinse and repeat.

You can see your pictures on Me link. When you get into details you can see comments others left for you, and you can add your own comments. You can also add some tags to your picture – others can do this too so if you are new skip it until you learn how pictures are usually tagged. Once you get a grip of it – you can start tagging both yours pictures and others.

Comment from zeopyrix
Time: January 15, 2008, 9:06 am

Hello, your homebrew is amazing! I have two questions for the developers:
Will the app support layers in the next releases? I’d be nice have at least 2 layers (1 for outlines and the other for coloring).
Are you going to release the source code?

Thank you very much.

Comment from hevonen
Time: January 15, 2008, 2:56 pm

As suggested earlier, it would be very nice if DS’s 555 or 565 screen would be dithered to fake 888 “true color”. Currently colors look bit blotchy. I would think that ordered dithering of upper screen wouldn’t require too much horsepower (or maybe Sierra’s Filter Lite, it’s simple error diffusion algorithm) as it’s updated after stroke.

Another nice thing would be to show current color larger in color picker (and also previous color for hue/value comparisons).

Thanks a bunch for this software, it’s beautiful.

Comment from FSME
Time: January 15, 2008, 3:00 pm

I love your tool, but I just did something really stupid: instead of selecting “load” on the blank image, I selected “save” and thus killed a finished pic I had no backup of :((

Maybe an idea would be to implement an idiot failsafe message especially for the white screen case reminding confused people like me that they are about to overwrite the file with the white screen and not loading the existing pic? That would be awesome.
I’m off to cry now… (I do admit, it really was my own stupidity)

Comment from J
Time: January 16, 2008, 9:16 am

Thanks for a great tool!

I have a problem: Runs on M3DS-Real, no problem. But if I try to run it with the M3 Rumble Ram Pack (slot-2 add on) inserted, it turns the rumble motor on fullspeed (making terrible noise) and colors does not get past the white screen and will not start. I’ll write them, too, but please let me know if there’s something you could do about this (besides pulling out the RAM pack).

Version 1.06h

Comment from AJB2K3
Time: January 16, 2008, 9:02 pm

Thats chief, its now working on the classic with the Datel Cartridge Construction Kit.

How ever for linux (ubuntu ) pc users a specific set of instructions need to be followed.

Comment from Dawn
Time: January 17, 2008, 2:40 am

I loaded one of my images onto the Gallery, but now when I am using Colors! and want to load it on my DS Lite (to work on it some more), I get an error message and the image won’t appear! It says something about “this happens to some flash cards” and try resetting the DS. Well, I don’t think you can actually reset a DS, but I did take the battery out for a day, and I still can’t get my image to load back up!

Anyone else have this problem? Any solution?

Comment from BOLL
Time: January 17, 2008, 12:42 pm

First off, thank you so much! Colors! is a fabulous piece of software! I’ve been off of drawing for ages and ages, but this has gotten me to start again. I’ve always wanted a Cintiq, but as I don’t actively draw, it has been hard to motivate (as a hobby user). Now my DS is a miniature Cintiq :)

Another awesome aspect of Colors! is the way it works. I’ve always been an abuser of layers, objects etc. I’ve never been comfortable drawing and painting on my computer in a natural way, just adding all the time, but when I’ve been creating things I always kept that back door open that lets me adjust everything. In Colors! I know that I can just draw on top of what I just did, because I can, if I would need to, go into playback and stop anywhere in my progress! For my head, that’s awesome. And I immediately know that I’m using the application in the best way possible, instead of thinking of if I should add another layer or not.

Now it’s the time for some suggestions and stuff.

Recently I drew a portrait of my brother all with the smallest brush. It took probably 25-30 minutes. When I was going to save, the DS froze loading the menu, only displaying the painted background. I assume this was an out of memory situation, but it has also made me cautious doing more detailed drawings… I’m pondering if it would be possible to make it compatible with the DS Browser 8MB memory expansion? If so, I’d get that ASAP!
If not that, it would be nice if menus and functionality was prioritized before the painted background, or maybe a memory warning when you’re getting close to the limit. For reference, I have an M3 Simply with a 2GB Sandisk microSD.

I know you are considering an undo function, and others have written this as well. I think everyone would like a playback-to-second-to-last-action option even if it was a tad slow (or even really slow). It could be repeatable too.

A few of the other suggestions I’ve read that I feel would make sense is toggling on the shoulder buttons (mine are glitchy!), the ability to see your previous color when picking a new. Expanding on that, the ability to see the last 3-5 brushes you used would be neat as well (size, transparency, pressure options, and maybe color).

The last thing for now is about the Wifi functionality. It’s really awesome to be able to send pictures I’ve drawn to my friends, just like that, but sometimes I get the stuck on the screen locating my access point and I need to reboot. Would it be possible to make that screen cancel-able? Is there a timeout?

Thanks again for this awesome application :)

Cheers!

//Andreas

Comment from Anupam
Time: January 21, 2008, 4:30 am

Awesome. I just love to spend hours on this. Its like just discovering watercolors as a child

Comment from Rollkran
Time: January 21, 2008, 10:08 am

Excellent program. Would be world class if it had an undo feature, at least of the most recent stroke. I dont know if there’s enough memory to do it, but i’m an undo addict, cant work without it.

Comment from Fred
Time: January 23, 2008, 1:20 am

Sweet program!
As another user said, please make it selectable to use the d-pad and/or buttons.
I often put my hand on the A button and the screen moves away instead of paiting on it and then I draw in the wrong place and then no undo button ;)
So just fix the d-pad/button selection and skip the undo =)

Comment from lonelydrunk69
Time: January 23, 2008, 2:58 am

4 the people who are freezing when closing the lid to sleep…

if you hit start first to go into the menu before closing the lid, you should be fine.

“Comment from Evalei.
Time: December 30, 2007, 3:38 am

Just letting you know that the COLORS app somehow freezes everytime I put my DSLite into sleep mode (ie: whenever I close the lid down). Hope it’s corrected in later versions.”

Comment from Y
Time: January 24, 2008, 12:57 pm

when is the new version of colors! going to be out?

will this version have DS-to-DS collaborative painting?

Comment from Max Tyler
Time: January 26, 2008, 6:08 pm

I recently transfered to my ds, colors! v1.05, after being quite dissapointed to find that the latest version does not work on my ds.
I was again dissapointed to see the screen display: FAT was not initialized, colors! wont be able to load or save paintings.

I did what was suggested on the screen and tryed to solve the problem in the FAQ, but could find nothing of hepl.

Please could someone provide me with some form of technical support, so that I may be able to run colors! on my ds properly.

Thanks

Comment from MadwurmZ
Time: January 28, 2008, 2:22 pm

Heay Max, it’s not clear what card you’re using..
Just reply on the forum at:
http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?p=140721
where technical support is coming from many users.

Comment from Tero
Time: January 28, 2008, 4:41 pm

First I must say that I bought DS just for this program only and it ROCKS!

I do have few suggestions though:

First about the main interface:

- I’d put the option for choosing the interface for left/right handed under Start somewhere. The reason for this is that then for example flip canvas (and other upcoming features) could be placed to some of the A,B,X,Y buttons (since now the flip canvas it is quite hard and slow to get access to, because the start button is so small).
- Also if possible, I’d let the user map the keys how they want. For example I’d like to have palette mapped where the move canvas tool is now, and move tool could be in the shoulder button

Then some features:
- Zoom: Can we have at least one step AWAY from the canvas too? :)
- Line tool (could use the current brush size)

Comment from Tero
Time: January 28, 2008, 4:42 pm

Hmm this clipped the last part of the message…

So here’s the rest:

- Line tool (could use the current brush size) Would be really useful for perspective / architecture stuff.
- I know this is on the list already but one step undo would make life so much easier.

Thanks for this great piece of software!

Comment from Jeff
Time: January 30, 2008, 5:40 am

This is just amazing… and to think, most overpaid developers don’t even use the pressure capabilities. Great work…

Remap keys – I guess if I had to choose a feature it would be… remapping any action to any key available.
(For example, I keep wanting to sample a color using the bumpers and flip the canvas on x using the up and down d-pad buttons. I never zoom so panning, flipping, color picker and undo would be on the d-pad whereas the menu, the playback, the email would be on the buttons and sampling colors would reside on a bumper. That’s just me but I am sure everyone would work differently if you allow for more flexibility in this way.)

Other than that this program coupled with the DS are a marriage like none other. Thanks!

Comment from Sergio
Time: January 30, 2008, 3:23 pm

hi there!!! i hope you have fine, i think a good addition to colors! be a other stroke brush, and a really thin-to-bold brush for detail work.

cheers!!!

Comment from Riccardo
Time: January 31, 2008, 10:52 am

Really good tool for painting.

For my point of view, i’ve 2 request:

1- undo button

2- possibility to listen music(mp3) while painting (i don’t know if CPUs permit….)

Comment from Phil
Time: February 2, 2008, 7:44 am

I saw some people talking about pixel art… and I totally agree! Plus, it takes almost no memory. Another nice thing would be pixel art animation but now I’m dreaming! :)

Thanks for such a wonderful software!

Comment from sarkw
Time: February 3, 2008, 1:11 pm

I got some serious problem, and I don’t see anyone reporting it… I don’t know if it only happens to me… Sometimes (very often) when I just put the stylus on the screen, or when I take it off, a line is drawed to the border of the screen (screwing up my drawing). I use a NDSLite, black and an R4DS.

Comment from Jeff
Time: February 3, 2008, 9:55 pm

Hey sarkw, I have the same problem. This occures at least every other time I cange colors from the color wheel menu then the next stroke is like you say. Sometimes it happens durring painting but mostly just after changing somesetting in the color wheel screen. I have the same setup as you. Frustrating little bug when it just draws a line all the way across the screen right through your whole painting.

Please fix :) Thanks

Comment from Asterokid
Time: February 4, 2008, 1:59 pm

I suppose I am not the only one to praise, but first of all, thanks for making such an amazing software. I think it’s perfect! It gots exactly what it needs and nothing more. Nevetheless, I have an idea for a feature which would be quite useful. In photoshop you have this function called “New Window”. Basically it creates another window for the same file which allows you once zoomed to keep an eye on the overall result. I think it would be a great thing to benefit from the dual screen by displaying the actual pixel image in the top screen while you are drawing in zoomed mode on the bottom one. Well… That’s just a suggestion to contribute, nothing that will prevent me to carry on drawing on my DS like a crazy monkey! :D

Comment from M dot Strange
Time: February 7, 2008, 1:22 am

Hello I am an animator/filmmaker and I LOVE Colors! Its so great! I’m planning on storyboarding my next animated feature film with it… I have a couple dream requests to make it the perfect storyboarding tool… It would be great if you could switch the top screen so it shows all your previous drawings while you are drawing… Just like the images are shown in the mosaic view when you save or load an image in Colors… If only that was visible in the top screen while you are drawing… When doing storyboards it helps to see the previous frames… Also if there was a way to number an image and display the number in the corner of the image at all times…and a shortcut so that you could press one button to save the current image and clear it. I can send you a copy of the 2 DVD set of my last film in trade for these great features and give MAJOR credit to Colors for my next film. Well keep up the great work!!!

M dot Strange

Comment from Tetine
Time: February 8, 2008, 10:40 am

Really impressive software! I tried to draw something with it and it felt like all common drawing software, but on my ds. There’s just one bug I came across : I’m not sure but it seems that when you close the ds while Colors is still running, it “forgets” if you did a flip in either direction while recording the strokes.
And it would be so nice to have at least a one step undo XD (I see some people here share my opinion) and perhaps the possibility to launch a music player while painting (but this might not be a priority =p)
Anyway I really enjoy it and already use it anywhere I can’t bring my pc :)
Waiting for other wonderful features \o/

Comment from Asterokid
Time: February 8, 2008, 8:28 pm

Shame on me, the feature I requested is already in there. Forget what I said obviously everything was very well thought.

Comment from Mr.Impatient
Time: February 9, 2008, 1:01 am

When is the new version Colors! coming out?

I can’t wait anymore I had to ask

Comment from Jens
Time: February 9, 2008, 3:27 pm

Thanks again for all the compliments. It seems I’m getting slower and slower answering all the requests here. Most of you should have personal responses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve missed a few. As you might have seen I’ve been sidetracked with another project, but with that out of the way I’m going to strive to get another version out the door. I don’t have an estimate for when that will be.

Thanks again.

Comment from Rosencrantz
Time: February 9, 2008, 5:29 pm

Incredible software! A lovely feature to have would be some kind of contrast/brightness or color correction sliders, only second after the multi user wifi painting goodness, that is.

Tack så mycket!

Comment from carlos
Time: February 11, 2008, 5:41 am

i put my rumble ram pack in my ds lite without the m3 real cartrige, and the ds don’t show it as is set in the 2 slot. i still don’t have an micro sd, so i haven’t set my m3 real, and i was testing the rumble ram to see if it work with my original game( not the m3), so is the rumble pack defectid or it just work with the m3 system?

Comment from Ageman20XX
Time: February 11, 2008, 3:05 pm

Hey, first time posting here and I have to say I LOVE the program. I am having one major problem, however, and that’s the program’s ability to export accurate drawings. I have a picture that I’d been working on for days – lots of shading and it turned out great.

Important to note is that I use the ‘Soft Brush’ a lot – but it seems this is a problem for Colors!. The image looks fine when I load it up in Colors! and the PNG thumbnail that the program automatically creates looks normal as well….BUT…

When playing back my drawing, anything that was drawn with the soft brush ends up being redrawn as thick, 100% opacity lines. Same thing happens when emailing the image to myself. On places like the face, where intense shading was used, the face just looks like a bunch of scribbles upon redraw…

I know it’s hard to understand, but as an older example I have a link to a picture that shows what I mean but I don’t wanna post it and get banned or something.

I hope you know what I’m talking about – it’s just that I put tons of effort into this picture and now it’s ruined. I have to settle for the tiny PNG file as everything else is being redrawn [very] incorrectly…

-Age

Comment from kamui
Time: February 12, 2008, 6:15 pm

Hi,
I’m really impressed by this awsome homebrew. I thinks that the main 2 features that lacks are :
- Possibility to select a region (rectangle) and then to move that region by draggin it with the stylus, it would be great to correct proportions.
- Undo feature, but this one was already requested I know ^^
About memory restriction, I there is memory expension of 16 MB in some GBA Slot2 cards (I have one :p ) and it should boost the ds memory, you could add an option to activate or desactivate some features if the user have or dont have the expension, or by desactiving the animation feature…
Anyway, thank you very much for this awsome tool, and please update it when you have the time and mood ^^
bye
ps : sorry for my poor english >_<
my first try :

Comment from Mgamerz
Time: February 22, 2008, 2:13 am

Hey Jens, I have v6 and Max Media Dock and it’s patched to work with it, and your program is great!
Anyways, i can’t seem to connect to the gallery but i’m in my house with my router. Perhapss you could update the menu to not confuse people… Because connecting to the gallery go email a picture is kinda… weird. But ya still gotta connect!
Is there something wrong because it just won’t go there, it just stops at ‘connecting to gallery’, and the wifi light is flashing (Homebrew Style).
-Thanks, Mgamerz

Comment from Jens
Time: February 22, 2008, 3:37 pm

Mgamerz,

You still need to connect to my server, since you are not sending an e-mail directly from your DS. The painting is repainted in a higher resolution on the server (the DS has to little memory for this). I don’t know why it won’t work for you. Have you configured your connection properly using the Wi-Fi setup in a retail game?

Comment from Drashi
Time: February 22, 2008, 4:49 pm

Not sure if you guys saw this yet, but:

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/02/22/gdc08-hands-on-inchworm/

The Gist: Bob Sabiston of Waking Life wrote a program he calls Inchworm that allows drawing and animation on the DS. I find it interesting to compare and contrast his program with Colors, and wonder what this might mean for Colors’ development.

Comment from Jens
Time: February 22, 2008, 4:54 pm

Well, I don’t know what it would change for the Colors! development. I will definitely not try to implement all the features that Inchworm has. It looks very cool though and I really hope it makes it to retail. In my opinion, consoles like the DS can’t have enough of applications that allow you to be creative. :)

Comment from tsenzen
Time: February 23, 2008, 12:34 am

some suggestions,

L and R should flip pages when loading/saving your paintings (rather than pressing down, or sliding the right bar for a long period of time, it gets tedious when your working with 30+ paintings)

When you hit the clear button, there should be an “Are you Sure Yes/No” to confirm. (this way its consistant with the rest of the gui, and had bad experiences with that button)

I love it to death.. keep up the great work~

Comment from Anonymous
Time: February 24, 2008, 10:07 am

Hello! I would like to say i love this program! I bought a flashcard for my ds mainly for this program. I dont know what features that could be added.. maybe a rubber, but i welcome any!

Oh, one issue.. sometimes when i playback an painting, some of the strokes got more concentrate than what they actually where, but luckily, i got the orginal picture saved.

Keep up the good work. I am looking forward to the next version!
And honestly, this is one of the best homebrew for DS out there.

Tackar så mycket! :)

Comment from Simon
Time: February 24, 2008, 12:03 pm

Needless to say, I love Colors!, but I guess it’s always good to hear it ;)

I hope you continue working on it, as there is still a lot that could be added/improved. Most of all I’ld like to see a “snapshot” function, much like an “undo” but not one step back but to a user defined state.

I’ld imagine it like this: When you’re at one point of drawing where you are not sure how to continue you make that “snapshot”, then you try something, reset to that snapshot and try something else until you like where it’s going. That way you don’t have to redraw when you mess something up.

Thanks for all the time you put into making Colors!
It’s time well spent ;)

Comment from Kim Taylor (sketchling)
Time: February 24, 2008, 11:55 pm

As iv already said, I love this program! :D One suggestion would be to always have an empty save slot right at the top… cause now I have 50 or so it takes AGES to scroll down to a free slot. Just a suggestion due to my laziness though. :)

Comment from Puddingbat
Time: February 26, 2008, 1:26 pm

Managed to get your great looking program onto my ds, touch screen is totally unresponsive. Help?

Comment from Jens
Time: February 26, 2008, 1:44 pm

I’ve heard of this problem for people that doesn’t have the latest system-files their flashcart. So, try updating that and see if it works better. If it doesn’t work I’d like to know what type of cart you are using.

Comment from Puddingbat
Time: February 26, 2008, 3:38 pm

I have an Ewin2.. and trying to find a sysupdate on the chinese BBS is a nightmare….. the most recent rar file was filled with crc errors….

Comment from Puddingbat
Time: February 26, 2008, 5:11 pm

It seems I need a slot 1 card instead. Never mind. :(

Comment from Aric
Time: February 27, 2008, 3:31 am

Awesome, awesome game! I love to draw (despite sucking bad at it) and never really got more into it because I don’t carry around a pad and pencil with me everywhere.
However, with this game I can practice drawing on the bus to and from work or school or when I am bored in class. Needless to say I have many sketches of lectures halls and bus seats =D

All in all I love it!
One minor thing is that the pressure controls are a tad strange. I apply pressure, but the brush stroke doesn’t increase quick enough for it to be any use…but, I see that the planned upgrades in the next version will include a tinkered-with pressure calibration, so I’ll just keep opacity and thickness on manual for now.

Awesome, awesome work!!!

Comment from Anonymous
Time: February 29, 2008, 4:36 pm

I just got an idea! What about the ability to see the time you have spent on the picture? I’t should be an option though, because some people might be stressed by it. Of course the time should not be on the picture itself:P

Comment from Syntax
Time: March 2, 2008, 12:18 am

hands down the greatest program I have ever seen… ever. The playback feature is definetly a really unique item. a lasso/marquee feature would be cool. it could work like the lasso tool in PS.

this tool could ten be used for…
-copy/paste
-creating brushes
-editing selected areas
-deleting unwanted sections
ect…

Still an amazing piece of software.

2 thumbs up.

Comment from Vickyvani
Time: March 3, 2008, 12:56 am

Voted *Best* Homebrew App for now ^_^
I know you’re still improving It and we like to thank you 4 improving our creative side…

WishList:

1-The Ability to Rewind Or Forward during Playback
USING advance Bar…(by simply pointing anywhere on the Bar…)
2-The Ability to name the files & directly send the drawings via http://FTP..! (allowing nearly real-time website updating !! could be useful… ;)

Thanks 4 your (good) work…

Comment from bryan
Time: March 3, 2008, 11:00 pm

I’m an artist that sucks at photoshop because of it’s inprecision without a touch screen. I consider this to be a photoshop for the DS. It works great, and works on Games N’ Music, which is hard to find things that do.

I suggest, how ever, an easier way to navigate the play back. I like going through my drawings and seeing where I mess up (I save several copies of each drawing) so that I can fix it. With this, you have to wait quite a while before it gets to the correct part of the play back, and then, you have to consider the chance of you missing the part and having to play back all over again.

I would also suggest other brush styles, but that wouldn’t be needed, so you guys probably shouldn’t worry about it. :)

Comment from Puddingbat
Time: March 5, 2008, 2:32 pm

Fab program (now I have it running) though I keep having problems with the “jump” line, I had so many in a minute I thought my picture had gone to warp speed.
Wish list:
Undo (for those jumpy moments)
Thank you.

Comment from Christopher Howarth
Time: March 6, 2008, 1:23 pm

I email my doodles to a doodle blog. I would love your application to have the ability to change the “subject” of the email you send.

The main reason for this request is that blogs take the subject of the email and make it the title, all my titles on my blog are exactly the same “you have received a painting from…”

Also it would be nice when I email someone with a piccy to let them know what it is in the subject.

Maybe if no subject is entered your app could default to the standard message?

Great App though, blows every other paint app for the DS out of the water.

Comment from yared0319
Time: March 9, 2008, 1:51 am

I started with v1.06 and I just want to say that I think Colors is a great app for the DS. Thank you for your hard work.

Comment from atanok
Time: March 10, 2008, 5:53 am

First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to produce Colors!
It is, as many have said before, more valuable than many – if not most – commercially available games.

However there are some features I’d like to see implemented… I’ll present them as suggestions I’d like you to consider.

First, the ability to ‘quicksave’ the current state of a painting, and I’d suggest the creation of two modes: one that saves just the PNG and *.tmb file, and other that saves it with the *.drw aswell.
This could be later used in a slideshow fashion – which would be quite useful for me for I’ve gained the habit of scribbling notes with Colors! during college classes, instead of using paper.
I would suggest an automatic numbering algorithm that could be reset, generating filenames such as colors-3-4.png ; colors-3-5.png ; colors-3-6.png ; *reset* colors-4-1.png etc…
There might be other – better – ways to look at it, tough.
A similar feature has already been mentioned by Kim Taylor.

Secondly, the implementation of a custom color palette, on the palette/brush screen. Also, still linked to this subject, a tool in the same screen to quickly toggle between the ‘brush’ and an ‘eraser’ – which is essentially, just another brush with a user-specified color (supposedly, the backgroung) and another size, opacity and style. This would really save a lot of time, at the expense of a small amount of memory, as I see it.

Thirdly, and just a thought, one of the shoulder buttons (user-specified) could be used for a different purpose than opening the palette screen. I’d suggest, for instance, that this button should be used as a disabler – that is, while it’s being depressed, the brush wouldn’t paint, but it’d still show its circular outline. This would be useful for previewing/practicing a stroke or for correctly placing the brush before a precise stroke. This could be achieved by setting the button press as an opacity toggler. However, I feel this would probably interfere with the recording feature, resulting in garbage data being recorded (null strokes).
I surely don’t intend you to waste unnecessary resources on this matter – it’s just a minor optional feature.

Also, regarding the palette screen, I think an option to make it toggle would be appreciated.

A «overhaul» of the main menu is due to happen at some point, too. The controls, as noted by tsenzen, could be slightly improved. Like he suggested, it would be easier to navigate the files menu if the shoulders were user to skip pages. The load and save screens should also be reversed, showing the most recent files on the top, and on the load menu, an empty slot should be visible on arrival.
The addition of new features would also call for an ‘options screen’ – maybe a replacement of ‘calibrate’ that would also link to it – that if keeping the main menu layout is a must.
Simplicity is one of the main themes behind Colors! and I understand that the addition of such new features shouldn’t interfere with this – for that I would suggest an off-by-default ‘advanced mode’, less suitable for children or casual users, but much more appealing to more advanced ones, such as myself and most frequent users.

I think that’ll have to be it, by now – I’m reaching the critical point where I’ll have to tl;dr myself. I hope you take my ideas into consideration if you would.

One last question, as I’m studying to be able to program myself: is or will the source code be available?

Thank you, once again.
I wish you the best of luck and inspiration on your algorithms.
See you soon.

Comment from mardom
Time: March 11, 2008, 4:51 pm

I’m waiting for the next relase… It’s a beautifull soft!!

Comment from Bäg
Time: March 13, 2008, 11:13 am

I love this thing, it’s amazing. Best painting program out for the DS so far with little to no problems, but.. I can’t get the connection portion of it to work, so I can’t see the wifi bits.

Searched for an answer in the technical questions bit of the forums, so I’m just taking a more direct route now. Might just be a bug with my stuff.

Thanks for the awesome, and keep it up. Have you considered a donation thing?

Comment from Jen
Time: March 15, 2008, 10:31 am

Thank you for this beautiful program! I have only just found it, but if I had known about it, I would have certainly brought the DS earlier than I did, just for the sake of Colours

To second some of the requests above:
* undo
* line tool (maybe)
* simple layer function – in combination with:
* ability to load my own images for work in Colors

- ie
I would like to load a (scaled down) photo (street scene, landscape, whatever), in order to use it as a backdrop to draw over.
Partly for the sake perspective practise/cheating ;)
But also because it would make a brilliant hands on method of re-rendering a pre-existing image – much more satisfying than going through layers/filtering/etc in Photoshop.

Comment from Bryan
Time: March 17, 2008, 12:04 am

Hey, jen, you can actually do that. I used it for one of my drawings. Just get the picture to twice the deminsions of the screen and then, name it as the file (just start a new file), with .png. So, for slot one, it would be Colors_slot.png at deminsions 512 x 386, I do believe, and then, you can use it as a background :) (sorry, had to help her lol)

Comment from Scott
Time: March 18, 2008, 2:45 am

As mentioned by almost every user here, thanks for making such a sweet app for the DS! The simplicity and precision are something that every developer should strive for when making such a pure tool to use.

While I do love the simplicity, I would like to see more shortcuts available with the extra buttons. I realize that this was set up as an ambidextrous tool but I could see some shortcuts really fleshing out the interface for ease of use.(As if it’s not easy to use :) Here are my suggestions that were inspired by your brilliant program:

1. Have a “lefty/righty” setting in there somewhere that would free up the 5 opposing buttons which aren’t used when either hand is used. Something like increasing/decreasing brush sizes or opacity incrementally or even just toggling the pressure sensitivity on/off.

2. I’m pretty sure that this was mentioned too, but different brush shapes could really be useful in more ways than one. Basic shapes like square, triangle, and circle could easily be stamped out and can also make for more unique brush strokes as desired.

3. Also saw this mentioned above, and I know there are ways around it within the program, but it would be nice to have a small custom pallet where your common colors could easily be accessed so you wouldn’t have them painted off in the corner of your canvas.

Just ideas and suggestions. With or without them though, this program stands alone on the DS and is unrivaled. Funny thing about when I found your program. I had just recently been bitching about the lack of a “Mario Paint” game for Wii and DS so this fit right into that void and is likely even better than what Nintendo themselves would have released.

Thanks again and keep up the good work.
I look forward to updated versions of Colors!

Comment from KillaZwerg
Time: March 18, 2008, 6:56 pm

I’am really suprised about colors. Sometimes I thougth, why I need Photoshop CS xD. What some guys can draw is amazing, so that I think, that can’t be possible.
All the guys who draw great pics and these one who develope this great Homebrew, keep work ;)

Comment from Lauren
Time: March 19, 2008, 10:57 pm

Will there be a way to have lefty/righty settings.
Undo & redo please <3
Layers.

Also making the reply movies into a gif :D that would be AMAZING!!!

Comment from Cevius
Time: March 20, 2008, 3:23 am

An Undo would be great, even a layer system with only 3 layers would be more than enough. The option to save a few preset brush setups would be fantastic, since i find myself constantly going through a few brush setups again and again and again…

still, even with its current list of fantastic features, its an awesome app. Keep up the good work! :D

Comment from Kyle
Time: March 20, 2008, 11:32 pm

Kudos for the great program! I am picky about my homebrew (out of necessity – can’t afford a new SD chip right now so I’m stuck with the 128mb that came with my flash card), but I have collected a small handful of great pieces of software. I use Colors! more than anything else (my commercial games are starting to resent the layer of dust they have collected). All I could possibly ask for is a couple other brush shapes – square and four versions of a bar shape (vertical ‘|’, horizontal ‘–’, and angles each way ie ‘\’ and ‘/’). Maybe a customisable stamp setup? Pixel art to design the shape of the brush would allow for any imaginable shape… but I can’t complain by any means, the program could already be considered complete as-is.

One other idea that could be useful with any brush that isn’t round – angled brushes that rotate according to the direction of the stroke (as if you were dragging from one end, the rest trails behind). I don’t know if I’m describing it correctly… I’m imagining a sort of caligraphy brush effect.

It’s too bad the touch screen can’t read multiple touch points simultaneously – the kids love this program, but I only have one DS… and they’re a little too young (3 to 5 years) to understand sharing just yet. This is truly a program for all ages!

Comment from Sarah
Time: March 21, 2008, 5:36 am

This program is absolutely wonderful~ Thanks for creating it!
I can’t wait to see future updates to it. I would be happy for an undo as long as it didn’t take away from the responsiveness of the program. I know DS memory limited and I’m really impressed what you’ve done with it.

Comment from Jen
Time: March 22, 2008, 1:34 am

Thanks Bryan! Actually, I worked out how to load my own images just after posting, feel a bit foolish…

Still, I would really like to see a simple layer tool. Even just two layers would do me fine – if there was the option to fade opacity on the layer (does that still count as simple?)

ie, Like a lightbox. Rather than simply drawing over images, to be able to trace. The original could be faded down so that it could only be used as a rough guide – free the hand (quentin blake’s method ) – and leave an original to check your work against (up the opacity, did those lessons on anatomy pay off? Spot the novice drawer!)

I can do this now if I go through photoshop first and load two images (original and faded) onto the DS, but I can’t compare to the original without saving and loading. Its kinda cumbersome, and of course, there are other advantages to simple layers.

One thing I’ve found after using Colors! more – I’d like to be able to easily select plain white/black. I use white as an easy workaround for eraser/undo, but sometimes I find I’ve actually selected a very subtle tinge of blue for instance, rather than plain white. Can be irksome, particularly without an undo.

Enough said, Colors is a brilliant tool, and the one program that has made a toy I couldn’t afford (the DS) belatedly justified :)

Comment from mmmh
Time: March 24, 2008, 9:33 am

i would suggest an idea. is it possible to add a “rough paper”. when we draw we are not sure about what will be the result with a color and a particular size or transparency of pen , so a rough paper would be appreciated to make some drafts or some prepared colors where we can choose more quickly

thanks

Comment from Greg
Time: March 24, 2008, 6:30 pm

Like everyone else, thanks so much for making this great app. I tried it at a friend’s house this weekend and was instantly hooked! I should have my own gear in and up and running by mid-week, so I’m pretty excited. I also think you should add a paypal donation button… And, along with everyone else, I thought I’d add a few suggestions (some of them already echo’d more than once)

* a hold/fetch buffer that would hold the current image, as is, and then fetch from that. it would jack up the redraw process, though.
* being able to re-configure the + buttons (or swap the up/down and side to side) — I’m constantly sampling colors and it’d be much more useful to me if that button was on the bottom, right by where my thumb naturally rests.
* a grey value scale (from black to white, 10% increments) in the palette window
* Size of the brush relative to zooming might be nice
* one single layer, black only, that could be shown in “overlay” mode at the push of a button for a grid, an initial sketch, etc. (probably going nuts there). It wouldn’t be stored anywhere in the redraw process. If it wouldn’t require too much more memory, do a full color layer instead so people could keep paint swatches there as well.
* it’d be great if one of the shoulder buttons flipped the image while you were holding it

Comment from Bryan
Time: March 25, 2008, 1:27 am

I think you should bring back the Colors! 1.05 (I think) look. I think it was a bit better looking than the 1.06. Also, I have a question, is colors known to have a problem with some SD cards? I just got a new 1gig SD card, and every time I try to use Colors! I get an error saying that something can’t be intialized (it’s not FAT, it’s something else.) I’ve patched it and everything and I’m using a Games N’ Music.

Comment from Dylan Mallia
Time: March 31, 2008, 2:45 am

I love this program so much, it makes me want to be able to draw better, but when I try to send pics to my email I do not receive them. How long is it meant to take?

Comment from Pippilina
Time: April 4, 2008, 10:53 am

I used to work for Metacreations, back where Painter was originally invented and conceived. I want to thank you for creating a program true to the original vision of painter– intuitive, powerful, small footprint, you guys did a great job. Compared to the nightmare Corel twisted painter into, it is refreshing to see something pure and beautiful like Colors, with very little standing between the artist and the digital medium. It’s fantastic to see that good old friend, the painter color wheel!!! Nice job.I’m so addicted to Colors that I will probably go through 2-3 NDS’s with it :) FYI I am using it on an NDS lite with Cyclos Evolution DS and a 4gb mini SD card, it works great! cmk@nanobrat.com

Comment from Pippilina
Time: April 4, 2008, 3:13 pm

Actually, before Metacreations it was Fractal. I miss those days!

But if you know the program, Dabbler, it has a nice feature that might benefit Colors. Instead of having single image files, it had an “art pad” mechanism, where you press page-up and page-down to flip through your pad, and on each sheet you can paint.. flipping forward or backwards, you can see your previous work without having to do a save. You could export the art pad sheets as individual image files too. This would be very convenient with a program like Colors, because you could quickly flip back and forth between drawings, and press a key to add another sheet to the pad as you like. I think with Colors’ portability and being well suited to sketching, this would be a good thing!

Also, a smudge tool like the old “Just Add Water” tool in early version of Painter/Dabbler would be brilliant.

You rock
pippilina

Comment from Dana
Time: April 4, 2008, 3:29 pm

Haven’t tried the program but it is such a great idea. If you are marketing this you should promote “your digital sketch book” as your tagline, it is perfect. Also I would work to enhance your logo and make it seem more professional.

Comment from jetboy
Time: April 4, 2008, 3:41 pm

@Dylan Mallia: Sending to email is experimental feature and might not always work. Sorry for inconvenience. I bet Jens will work on this some more when he gets back from his journeys.

Comment from wai
Time: April 5, 2008, 6:02 pm

i am using v1.06 on R4
when my microsd left only few MB and tried to save an image
it said fail but it still can show the image preview on the “Load” page

repeat the save and error for few time and i restarted the ds
the microsd became totally unreadable, on both DS and PC

may be the program corrupted the FAT table when not enough space left ?

Comment from Vicinalace
Time: April 7, 2008, 8:53 pm

WOW is in one word THE word to describe it. it is so awesome i would eat poop to aquire it. (oh noes here it comes) BUT i would like a line tool, i like making perspective drawings and its hard without straight lines. or like an line that always stays on top (like Adobe Illustrator). That would make it even more awesome for me

Comment from Andrew001
Time: April 9, 2008, 2:44 pm

When is the next release out? i neeeeeeeed new features ;)

Comment from Zarxrax
Time: April 10, 2008, 2:37 am

Could you implement a sort of “smoothing” feature into the way it tracks the stylus? What I mean is, instead of having it immediately draw where it detects you pressing, have it track over about 3 frames, and then if there is an unnatural “jump” off to the side or something, that data can be ignored. This would prevent it from jerking off to the side.

Comment from Lueshi
Time: April 15, 2008, 6:19 am

One word : UNDO!!

other then that, nicely done.

Comment from jetboy
Time: April 15, 2008, 2:58 pm

“This would prevent it from jerking off to the side.”
This would prevent it from being responsive and fun too.

Comment from Mgamerz
Time: April 18, 2008, 2:32 am

Finally got wifi working, I guess your program might not support DHCP(i get it mixed up… DHCP or DCHP?)… Darn, it froze at email entry… v.v
Well, at least the wifi works.

Comment from Mgamerz
Time: April 18, 2008, 2:39 am

Edit: It only connects when I use DSOrganize’s Chism Loader (Alot of my apps do that…) I’m using Max Media Dock (D:)… When I get to the email address input screen I have the keyboard, send and cancel, but nowhere to put the address and nothing responds, but the background animation is still gonig so I know it’s running… <.< I want a hi-res!

Comment from James
Time: April 22, 2008, 6:21 am

“This would prevent it from being responsive and fun too.”
Quoted for truth. I’m looking forward to using this program, so I can paint during my classes instead of paying attention. I just need to buy one of those DS card…things. Does anyone have any recommendations as to which one I should go for? (And/or where I should buy it from?) I’m not really into modding, so I’m a little lost, but I really want to give this program a go. =D

Comment from Patrick
Time: April 22, 2008, 8:20 pm

Thank you for making Colors! I’m loving the current build. I’m looking forward to any future updates. Keep up the amazing work.

Comment from umer
Time: April 23, 2008, 1:46 pm

Downloaded the app and was using in for a few mins (great app), when i went to save it froze my ds. i restarted and found that the r4 couldnt read from my micro sd, i stuck the micro sd into my computer and tried to read it, it said i had to format, losing all my files in the process i did, but when it finished i couldnt access my card again. i tried to formate it again but i wouldnt happen, i oen up the properties and it says there is 0mb used and 0mb free. so now i have a micro sd that is useless.

Comment from Leopoldo
Time: April 23, 2008, 4:06 pm

How about putting the color picker and brush settings on the top screen as on option? That way it’s accessible directly without having to push a button every time you want to change a setting.

Comment from TechnoCat
Time: April 24, 2008, 5:31 am

I see the faq saying an undo is unlikely because of resources, but what about an undo feature that only stores say… 5 levels of undo? surely most of us will only use it to undo once at a time.

Comment from Jens Andersson
Time: April 25, 2008, 12:28 pm

Sorry for the silence on my part. I’ve been busy with other things. :)

As usual, thanks so much for all the compliments and feedback. I’m currently not spending much time on Colors!, but I still plan future version. This means that I don’t have an ETA for you.

Here’s a bulk-response for all the questions stacked up since my last comment.

Undo – Next version will most likely contain an Undo, and it may be more than the one-step Undo I’ve mentioned earlier.

Save time spent on a painting – I hope to have that in there as well.

Rewind Or Forward during Playback – Can’t be done with the current approach, sorry.

Send the drawings via Http/FTP/Name subect etc. – I hope to expand on the SendToEmail option to include other things as well, but that may take a while.

I keep having problems with the “jump” line – It seems that some people have this problem. I’m not sure what more can be done to solve this, especially since it doens’t appear for me. If anyone want’s to donate a “bad” DS there may be something I can do.

First, the ability to ‘quicksave’ the current state of a painting, and I’d suggest the creation of two modes: one that saves just the PNG and *.tmb file, and other that saves it with the *.drw aswell. – Saving the .drw usually only takes only a small portion of the time, so it wouldn’t be very quick.

I would suggest an automatic numbering algorithm that could be reset – I’ve actually done a Storyboard version of Colors! that has this functionality. I’m not sure if I want to integrate this into the real version though. I’ll think about it.

Additional features on the brush/palette screen – In general, I am having trouble visualizing more features on the brush/palette screen. Personally, I think it’s a bit too crowded and complicated as it is. There are many great feature-requests here and it’s something I need to take into account when redesigning it.

Regarding the palette screen, I think an option to make it toggle would be appreciated. – I agree. I hope to do something like that.

I’d like to be able to easily select plain white/black – Agreed.

It would be easier to navigate the files menu if the shoulders were user to skip pages – Agreed.

For that I would suggest an off-by-default ‘advanced mode’ – It’s possible that there will be a few options that can be turned on in the .xml config-file in future versions. That would allow me to implement “advanced” features without sacrificing simplicity or having to spend time on making them fit into the user-interface.

Is or will the source code be available? – No, it’s not, but a number of people have been granted access to it. If you think you have what it takes to help out. Feel free to contact me about that.

ability to load my own images for work in Colors – I hope to have something where you may load a reference image that you can try to replicate in future versions.

Have a “lefty/righty” setting in there somewhere – I hope to have a button-configuration screen in future versions.

is it possible to add a “rough paper” – It’s an interesting idea of having other backgrounds than plain white. I’ll definitly consider it.

Size of the brush relative to zooming might be nice – We’ve been playing around with that. I’m not really sure what’s best.

When I try to send pics to my email I do not receive them. – It’s may be caught in your (or your ISP’s) spam-filter. I hope to improve the mail-handling a bit to make this less likely.

Instead of having single image files, it had an “art pad” mechanism – I like that idea, and I’ve been considering something like it. Not for the next version though.

I guess your program might not support DHCP – As far as I know, it does. Colors! uses DSWifi for access-point communication, and DSWifi should not have a problem with DHCP.

How about putting the color picker and brush settings on the top screen as on option? That way it’s accessible directly without having to push a button every time you want to change a setting. – Well, the top-screen is not touch-sensivity, so that wouldn’t work.

I just need to buy one of those DS card…things. Does anyone have any recommendations as to which one I should go for? – Check http://colors.brombra.net/faq.php

A lasso/marquee feature/line tool/simple layer function/different brush shapes/a smudge tool
– Probably not. At least not for next version.

Regarding saving corrupting your memory card – It’s sad to hear that some of you have experienced this problem. Colors! uses libfat for file-handling which relies on every flash-cart’s individual DLDI driver. Basically, that means that any corruption is most likely due to bad drivers from the flash-cart manefacturers and nothing I can do anything about. It seems though that it may be related to running out of space, so a work-around for some of the problems may be for me to refuse saving if you are running low on space.

“I wish you the best of luck and inspiration on your algorithms.” – Best good luck line so far. Thanks. :)

Comment from trabitboy
Time: April 28, 2008, 10:29 am

A few months down the line this program is still as fun in daily news as ever ;)
I’ve noticed a very little thing:
when you paint in zoom x2 or x4 ( can’t remember ),
when u bring up the palette menu, the size of the brush you
see is x1, which is misleading ;)

This program still is impressing most drawing people I show it too, you should consider a paypal donation button!

Comment from fourth
Time: April 29, 2008, 1:16 pm

very great application.. Love It!!

Is it possible to convert the playback file into a video file?

tnx..

Comment from Aerith
Time: April 29, 2008, 10:47 pm

I love colors! and look forward to your next version. Here’s my most important/basic wants for the next update:

1. one step undo (it can be more of course but I just need one)

2. a simple color pallet which you can pick 8 colors of your choice. I’m thinking 8 little squares or circles which start out as black and white as default.

3. smuge tool (I don’t know if this tool is difficult or time consuming to make but I would really love this.)

4. Way to get thru the pages of saved pictures faster. The LR buttons maybe?

If the next version could have those things I would be set. :)
Thanks for working on this program!

Comment from Valance
Time: May 1, 2008, 12:34 am

I love the program. The only problem is how sometimes the cursor for the stylus will jump half way across the screen, and ruin one of my masterpieces.

Comment from kenneth
Time: May 6, 2008, 12:55 am

hey jens, im happy to see that the upcoming version has step backward/undo in it, it would also be so awesome if u could add layers into it, i make my living drawing in photoshop, and when im on my journey for inspiration i always draw my sketches in Colors when i see something nice :) its the best drawing app for the ds and i dont get why there isnt a official game like this, if u would add layers and undo u maybe can sell it to nintendo hahah, also 4 or 6 squares with selectible colors would be nice, thanks alot for making this , i use it every day

Comment from kenneth
Time: May 6, 2008, 1:02 am

oh and to valance, i had that too, but its our own faulth, u accedently touched the screen with your hand finger, so it sets a line to the other side of the screen, thats why a undo function would be very nice, greets

Comment from kenneth2
Time: May 6, 2008, 1:03 am

oh and to valance, i had that too, but its our own faulth, u accedently touched the screen with your hand or finger, so it sets a line to the other side of the screen, thats why a undo function would be very nice, greets

Comment from kenneth3
Time: May 6, 2008, 1:04 am

sorry double post lol

Comment from Filip
Time: May 8, 2008, 12:16 am

i love colors great program i just have one small request
could you please move the flip image function to the choose color menu

now i need to hit the start buttom to get there
and i feel its not as userfriendly as it can be ……

Comment from Filip
Time: May 8, 2008, 12:44 am

is it possible to in someway make a function/tool that can do straight lines

possible a line tool
or by holding down a button and putting down to dots…that then form a line

Comment from morcue
Time: May 12, 2008, 6:42 pm

“is it possible to in someway make a function/tool that can do straight lines

possible a line tool
or by holding down a button and putting down to dots…that then form a line”

try with two pointer at the same time, you will have a straight line

Comment from Pat
Time: May 18, 2008, 12:37 pm

Hey, thanks for making this awesome programme. It’s by far my favourite Homebrew app, I actually like it more than most DS games.

But when I tried to save when I had no space left my R4Ds got formatted, all my games/save files and stuff gone. Obviously it’s not your fault but I’d really appreciate it if you could add a feature that would not allow you to save if you don’t have enough space on your card.

Thanks,

Pat

Comment from Mgamerz
Time: May 19, 2008, 3:13 am

Heres my problem now that i got wifi working:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZA7-fDZcW8
Can’t get it to not freeze.
I’m on a MMD.

Comment from Paul
Time: May 24, 2008, 10:26 pm

Wow. Just… wow. Like it, am working with it, hope to have amazing stuff soon.

A feature idea which came to mind: cross-fade, selecting 2 different colors and using pressure to control the relative values of each. I’m willing to contribute to the effort with active to the source.

Comment from -SPEC-
Time: May 24, 2008, 11:17 pm

First of all thanks you for making such an amazing application :D it’s definitely one of my favorite.

I think everything works great but i had a question, do you think maybe in the next release the drawings can be a higher resolution? (maybe 800×600 or a bit less?) Would the ds allow that?

Comment from aamir
Time: May 25, 2008, 4:00 am

this is the best thing since paper and pencil

Comment from Jay
Time: May 25, 2008, 4:04 am

This program is awesome! it has helped me to develop artistically greatly. my art always looks best when done using this program over pens, pencils, computers or anything. thank you!

Comment from peder
Time: May 26, 2008, 9:38 am

I would really like a undo feature, especially since my ds seem to have a bad case of drawing lines from where i stop a line to exactly the same spot on the right just off-screen. A simple key do do undo in such a case would be a thousand times better than having to redraw the part that that line ruined. A workaround to limit such lines would of course be greatly appreciated too.

Comment from Bmud
Time: May 26, 2008, 5:36 pm

1. I like the old menu’s placement of buttons. Having the credits in the load menu is silly.

2. BUG : If the wifi fails to connect to the gallery, the touchscreen becomes (remains?) deactivated. Add a cancel button too.

3. I liked being able to see the whole picture in 1.05 where in 1.06 the top screen is always white which feels like a waste.

Thanks for this fantastic tool, and for digging through all these responses. I think you’ve got a winner here! :D

Comment from Thomas Klewe
Time: May 27, 2008, 8:50 am

I LOVE this app! It’s simply amazing! If i should suggest something it would be a color pallet.. a place where you can collect tones you make so you don’t have to try and make the same tones over and over when you want to correct something later on.

Comment from Jac Ting Lim
Time: May 29, 2008, 4:41 am

I downloaded “Colors!” and has made (and finished!) 3 digital paintings at 2 hours each.

Each time I try to save it though it froze up. Like, the saving progress bar stops halfway and that’s it. I wait for saving to finish overnight. When I woke up my DS power light was blinking red and the progress bar is still stuck on the same place. No choice but to power off, reset and start over.

After this happening three times I have no choice but to give up on the program :( I wasted at least 6 hours on paintings that gets lost in the end as unsaveable data.

Comment from Ben Sawyer
Time: May 29, 2008, 10:09 am

Can you add a “kids mode” something that might simplify it a bit. Make it wasy enough for a 3-4 year old. Right now my kid uses pictochat to “draw” and that has problems of course but one of the things that would be good is a kids mode that maybe reduces the complexity and turns off some of the choices in the name of giving them a basic doodling tool. Ideally you choose kids mode and it goes into that mode and to get out you need to maybe press both flipper buttons at the top to exit making it hard for them to inadvertently exit the mode.

Comment from TeTine
Time: May 31, 2008, 11:28 am

When I searched for a drawing app for my ds I found an app called phidias before Colors! (and I actually learned about Colors! on his page). It has some cool stuff too ( some more options like blur tool, custom brushes, etc but the painting is less intuitive and it just doesn’t look as good as colors).
I read that the creator wanted to speak to you about merging projects. Did he take contact?

Comment from mat
Time: June 1, 2008, 11:30 pm

omg i hate you so much this fuckin thing deleted everything on my DS. what the hell is rong with you guys im so pissed

Comment from Jens
Time: June 2, 2008, 8:40 am

mat,

I’m sorry about that happening to you. Feel free to contact your flashcart-manefacturer and tell them that your their DLDI driver is bugged.

Comment from Kiras
Time: June 2, 2008, 6:48 pm

Great work! I’ve loved ur app. I only wish if it is possible to add layers for easier drawing and an eraser ^^ but thank u very much for the great work.

Comment from mat
Time: June 2, 2008, 7:43 pm

im sorry for my previous agressive post because this program destroyed my card. i am using cyclo DS and i cant even delete these unknown corrupted files off of the 20 dollar 1 gig card a got for it. please email me better instructions on what to do .

Comment from Jens
Time: June 3, 2008, 7:07 pm

mat,

It likely that you need to format your memorycard to get it back into shape. If you are using Windows you just right-click on the drive on the My Computer screen and choose format (which wipes the card clean).

Comment from Savante
Time: June 4, 2008, 5:12 pm

Thanks so much for this app, it’s allowed to me to explore color on the go, and it’s so many kinds of awesome.

As for feedback on what I’d like to see in a future version, it’d be nice if the file system could be set up in such a way that you could delete files to clear up slots. I’d also be interested in being able to create a user-defined palette.

Comment from Tim
Time: June 6, 2008, 12:29 am

Jens, any idea when the next version will be available? Not to rush you…

Actually, the program is really good at 1.06. I hope you get some sort of commercial success going on with it. It’s definitely worth paying for in cartridge form.

Comment from hadibi
Time: June 13, 2008, 9:48 am

Any updates? :)

Comment from noj
Time: June 15, 2008, 12:25 pm

What a Great Application ! Colors is unbelievable.
You have created an excellent homebrew for DS.

Here is some ideas (basic i think), for your next implemantations :

1/ “undo” features (i think only for lastest mouvement)
2/ Simple “Layer” system (maybe juste 2 layers, one foreground and background)

Some others idea (not so basic) :

3/ Different Brushes, or better possibility to create our own brushes (maybe simply by using thumbnails of before created image)
4/ Other Tools, like Smudge or Smooth system, maybe a copy tools (duplicate an area where you paint after you’ve select it)

Just for the pleasure :

4/ Music/mp3 player while drawing

————

Anyway, continue with your great Homebrew.
Noj

Comment from Julius
Time: June 15, 2008, 3:54 pm

Love this program. Its seriously perfect. I love how simple it is. To be honest, anything more you add would be nice, but I like the purity of whats there already.

I do have one request, but would it be too hard to add the ability to save email addresses?

Thanks for this, and giving me a reason to use my DS again.

Comment from Samuel
Time: June 16, 2008, 9:54 pm

Thankyou for making the program, I enjoy it a lot and have had no problems with it(which is more than what I can say for some homebrew). Grateful.

Comment from James
Time: June 17, 2008, 6:50 pm

After a few painful weeks of waiting, I’ve finally gotten Colors! up and running. I just want to thank the people involved with the project; it really is a great program, and I think it’s going to encourage me to get some much-needed painting practice.

Thanks for being nice enough to give such a gem away for free. :3

Comment from Don
Time: June 20, 2008, 12:52 am

I too like this little app very much.
One undo would be great or a “fast backward” instead of “fast forward”?
Nice handling (the developer must have taken the artistic approach and handling in mind while developing it :) ..nice work!!)

Comment from Olei
Time: June 20, 2008, 4:17 pm

Hi,

Have anybody tried to run colors! on a iTouch card?
Have tried several times, with and without DLDI patching, different versions … but i am not able to run it. I always receive a black screen.

Thanks in advance.

Comment from Carlton
Time: June 20, 2008, 11:18 pm

I enjoy this program. How about a donate button function for the gallery site in support of this program.

A discussion forum on the gallery site would be nice too.
And maybe a sort function for various criteria.

I like that there is no undo function; make me focus on future strokes as opposed to perfect strokes.

a colors fan,
Carlton

Comment from Tobin
Time: June 24, 2008, 5:01 am

This program is wikid. two things i would like added to it:
- play music (play music that is stored on the card. nice to listen while you paint with headphones plugged in ^_~)
- undo (not completely necessary if u’re a skilled artist of course :).)

Comment from Dado
Time: June 28, 2008, 3:08 am

Jens, thank you so much for making such a wonderful program. After hearing about it I decided to get DS just for Colors! The program runs great! I hope you continue developing it even more. My only wish would be to have simple level/layer tool and more brushes, even better would be to be able to load custom created brush.
Again, thanks for a such a wonderful gift!

Comment from Josh Hartdegen
Time: June 29, 2008, 8:29 pm

hey guys, i love your app, literally :-)

i am only requesting :

a) 1024 X 768 images, 1280 X 1024 would be mantastic
b) that Undo function sounds vital, maybe an Undo 3 times
c) layers is needed
d) pressure sensitivity calibration needs work

i love it othawise

:-)

later

Comment from Frederic NGUYEN VAN VIEN
Time: June 30, 2008, 10:29 am

Just a word : PERFECT !

Please never stop the dev of the best ever apps on DS ! Thx a lot for this.

And for requests, i agree with Josh Hartdegen. ^^

Finndo from France.

Comment from señorsomobrero
Time: July 5, 2008, 12:32 am

incredible app, never I thought something like this could be pulled off

thanks a lot for your efforts! :)

Comment from wahay
Time: July 6, 2008, 5:06 pm

This is the best DS app out there. I am upgrading to a DS Lite ONLY because of Colors!, so I wanted to thank you for your dedication to getting this out there, and making it free. It means a lot to me. :)

Comment from Inque
Time: July 13, 2008, 11:35 pm

I’ve been using this program for a few months now off and on. It’s very nice. I wish I Nintendo DS Lite and Colors! DS had been available back in the day when I was a kid. Who knows? I would be a better artist now. One thing this program has over photoshop is the playback feature. An artist can immediately see his/her mistakes and change them however they need changing. I’m working on some paintings right now that are better than what I could have done prior to using this program. I’ve been studing the work of artists who are much better at painting than me and I’ve learned how to paint from them. I’ll upload some paintings soon. Jens, thank you very much for creating this really cool program. And, whoever came up with the idea for the touch screen functionality of the DS, thank you very as well.

Comment from NoXizMaD
Time: July 17, 2008, 4:41 am

I really love colors, awesome work Jens… damn i wish that the ds screen/resolution was better, would have made …
>anyway, do you plan to integrate drivers for the GUITAR HERO GRIP so it can be used as button set (very useful to paint in portrait mode) , like that other painting app did lately (ua paint)…
>Also, still no plans of porting Colors! on the NOKIA N800??? seriously, think about it, its high resolution tablet, supposed to handle pen pressure, and it’s CHEAP… like a sketchbook should be:)
Thanks again for this fantastic piece of software…
peace, nox

Comment from solidus126
Time: July 18, 2008, 2:08 pm

Colors! has been a great program to use in my spare time. I have experienced a weird problem with it, though. For some reason, my GMail account is not receiving the pictures I draw, whereas a Hotmail and Yahoo account from other people I know have no problem getting the pictures. I have only received successfully one or two pictures in my GMail account.

Comment from tark
Time: July 18, 2008, 6:29 pm

fantastic program! i sterted to draw more here than my sketchbook!

i hope you guys find the time do go ahead with it!!

Comment from Mgamerz
Time: July 24, 2008, 9:47 pm

Jens! You need to seriously get an update on this.
Most DS homebrew is dead now, like Clirc and dsorganize and I ‘think’ moonshell.. Cmon update one of the best homebrew :P

Comment from Nathan
Time: July 28, 2008, 3:25 pm

I just downloaded Colors v1.06h, playing on an M3Real. For some reason, the top screen, as well as the color wheel screen, are completely corrupted when I use Colors. Looks like total garbage on the screen. Is this normal?

Comment from Pierre F
Time: July 29, 2008, 7:53 pm

I just bought a DS to run Colors after a friend showed me what the program could do. I’ve always wanted a portable digital sketchpad and now I’ve got one! Alot of the work I typically do is done with the polygon tool in Photoshop. Is there anyway to incorporate a filled polygon tool in Colors? This would make certain kinds of paintings, such as architectural subjects much easier to create.

Otherwise, thanks for a great program! Nintendo should promote this type of application more…I think more artists like myself who would normally shy away from game systems would invest in a tool like this.
Pierre

Comment from Sir
Time: August 3, 2008, 8:55 am

Great program, I can’t quit using it :)

Sadly, I’m hoping for an update :( I hope the project’s not dead, It’s the best homebrew out at the moment.

Comment from bem69
Time: August 10, 2008, 1:05 pm

This is a truly great program, for me, its THE homebrew for the DS, and one of the reasons to own a DS. Please keep the project running and probably make it an option for us to upload to the gallery via wifi.

Comment from io
Time: August 13, 2008, 10:11 am

Dear Jens,

and sure all the rest of the Colors team,

first of all..as so many other…just want to say Thanks,you made a dream come true. How Cool it is to just walk around a sketch and paint where ever I want with such ease !

And as so many….I have some suggestions that you could consider

1.Would it be possible to simulate different paper as backround?
That behaves different and gives your pic another look !

2.Would it be possible to have a pencil sketch brush ?
I mean an option where you simulate a normal pencil,coal pen
or other tools,such as water color or what ever!

Hm..maybe it would make it to complicated. But it would be nice to have that feel.

3.For the save option,I always have some problems when I
import other peoples color paintings on my ds.Caused by an
existing save slot number on my ds. What means I have to
rename them every time. Is it possible just to save a pic by
name so that there would be no conflict ?

Anyway..thats all. You Guys did already a Supppper application,Thanks once again.

And

Looking at all the previous comments,it’s been a while since any news. Do you still work on a updated version ? And if so..any possible date ?

And the most important thing…Where can I donate some for you Guys ? Can’t find a paypal on the site.
I really would like to support you and this great program,it brought me so many drawing dreams come true !
So..hope to hear from you soon..

my best regards

Comment from Stephen Mansell
Time: August 13, 2008, 2:52 pm

You know I have to agree, I don’t want to see this project die and for me it is also one of THE top rated homebrew apps for the DS.

Stick up a paypal box so people can donate and keep the project alive!

I have it plugged into my wordpress site also.
http://www.shadowreality.co.uk/ds-pictoblog/

Comment from io
Time: August 17, 2008, 9:55 pm

Glad to read you Stephen,Hope really this project does not die !
I think many people are feeling the same about this,
please let us support it in any way,donations would be really a nice way to help and show you guys our appreciation !!!

And another suggestion…the D- Pad..has not only 4 directions,
don’t forget the diagonals !

You could put in there some more options,so practically You could circle through some options.

You could maybe put the color pallet in there too.
I for my self have always some problems to switch to there and get my fingers around when I draw or paint with my DS upright .
Would be nice to have this if possible on the D-Pad. Since you would have 4 more directions.

Maybe the R – Button and L – Shoulder button could be then used for quick save and quick load..in a way this could help with the undo if there is still a problem with.
So practically with one touch you could save your work..and with the other you could load it again..maybe a simple question if you really wanna load it would be cool,so you dont do it by accident.

And save would be in the menu,where you maybe could name your pic.

Just some Ideas..:)

Best wishes…

Comment from Jens
Time: August 20, 2008, 10:09 am

Thanks again for all the compliments and the feedback!

No, the project is not dead, but I’m not working on the DS version right now. Instead, I’m hoping to have an iPhone version out very soon, which I think is very cool. There are a number of improvements in that version that will also benefit the DS version. Once the iPhone version is out the door, I’ll try to make a new and improved DS version as well.

Comment from nox
Time: August 27, 2008, 7:42 pm

so long N800 version … :(

Comment from moshing
Time: August 29, 2008, 12:42 am

go on do a n810 version as well

Comment from Net
Time: August 31, 2008, 2:00 am

jus got the application works like a charm, but i couldnt seem to find an undo function
if there isnt will ther be one in the future?

Comment from Daniel
Time: September 1, 2008, 1:24 pm

something that has proboly been metion many times, but won’t hurt to be said again I think something the program really needs is a grid to help with scale.

Comment from keith
Time: September 4, 2008, 5:05 pm

I’m having issues with unreliable booting…sometimes it works but most times it doesn’t…any ideas?

Comment from mr skullface
Time: September 5, 2008, 9:20 am

this is the best thing to happen to art since the tablet! being able to travel and jot ideas down in color without making a mess is amazing. you guys should be proud of yourself for all the good artwork that is being done with this.

Comment from Naughty
Time: September 5, 2008, 9:21 pm

Thank you so much for a simple, but truely lovely painting experience for the DS… It’s everything I hoped it would be. here’s hoping you get a chance to improve and enhance it even more.

Comment from Niccolò Rogai
Time: September 7, 2008, 1:56 pm

This program is wonderfull!!!! It would be perfect with an “Undo” option. Please consider this suggestion in the next release! Very good job!

Comment from io
Time: September 8, 2008, 5:14 pm

Glad to read some news from you again Jens.
And really glad to hear you are still working on,and the project is not dead :)
I have no iphone,but I guess it’s a good news if all the NDS users can benefit from it too :)

Many people are waiting for a new release,please don’t forget about us.

And really,it would be great if people could donate something to show you our appreciation.

Thanks again for this wonderfull application you guys made.

Comment from Abraxas
Time: September 13, 2008, 2:20 am

When is the next version of colors! coming out on the DS? also i noticed on the website it has been released for iphone but i couldnt find the app for it. how do i get it on my iphone?

Comment from murro
Time: September 15, 2008, 5:02 pm

very compliments,
I hope you will consider to make a version for ppc, iPhone can’t have a pressure sensitive but the pda screen should be pressure sensitive, and is more large of a nds screen.
In any case thank you very much for your beautifull work!!

Comment from David Phillip
Time: September 18, 2008, 8:44 am

MUSIC.

PLEASE PLEASE.

I need music when I draw.

I would LOVE the feature to listen to mp3 music on DS while I draw.

Yes Moonshell plays Mp3, but you can’t listen to them and use colors.nds at the same time.

Oh please consider this.

Then Colors would be PERFECT.

thankyou!

Comment from Tubaz
Time: September 19, 2008, 6:58 pm

This program, Colors! is absolutely fantastic, my 2 sons, 8 and 11 years old, are enthusiastic!
Thank you for your work!!!!

Comment from mark levy
Time: September 21, 2008, 11:49 pm

HI GREAT PROGRAM!!! I just have one problem that i cant seem to find an answer. I am running colors on a R4 NDSL card. and it works fine, it saves AND loads teh painting fine. Problem is, when i put the SD card into my MAC laptop or PC computer, i cant seem to find the files. I have done a foind/search for the png files as well as drw files, but it says they arent there. the only thing that gets updated is the SAV file. i have removed and replaced the whole folder, including the nds and sav files and put a fresh colors.nds file back on the card, when start it up, it all works fine and it can stil load the images, even though i have removed all folders.

Please help, as i have a WPA2 encrypted router and cant use WIFI to upload the images as it seems the DS only supports WEP. Any help would be greatly appreciated as i have just bought my DS especially for colors!

thanks in advance

Mark

Comment from hK
Time: September 22, 2008, 1:34 pm

Thank you! Being able to draw full-colour drawings on something as small as a DS Lite is definitely very cool!

Alas, I seem to have run into issues. I’m using the EDGE card and when saving, a lot of times it just hangs after 30% percent or so. Nothing happens in the next 5 minutes, so I usually just turn it off and then I find my files corrupted. Saddening, since that means losing all drawings, not just the one I was saving..

I have had a few other crashes as well, but most occur when saving with Colors! Any thoughts on that?

Comment from Mark Levy
Time: September 22, 2008, 3:53 pm

for anyone how suffers the same problem as me (see previous post – sept 21,2008) it turned out to be a faulty sd card, got a new one and it all works fine.

Comment from KENN
Time: September 23, 2008, 3:22 pm

I’d love layers. 2 or 3 should be fairly enough though. Other than that a great thing!

Comment from palodi
Time: September 24, 2008, 5:42 pm

I really like Colors

It´s what I mostly use the DS for, I don´t use the DS to play that much since I installed Colors.

Other than that it would be cool to have at least 2 separate layers to work with,

one for foreground and another for the background, Like Animanatee has

That would force Colors to have an erase tool too

the layers and an undo are the features that I miss the most in Colors

other than that it´s great

Comment from moto
Time: September 28, 2008, 2:45 pm

I first found out about Colors at a Life Drawing class were a friend was using it to sketch the life model. 2 days later I bought a DS just for this program and now I carry it everywhere, just in case I have a spare minute for full colour sketching.

It’s so easy and intuitive to use, and I’m actually glad it doesn’t have layers as this encourages me to concentrate on my drawing (I tend to get distracted into “cheating” with layers when I paint in photoshop.)

I’m hoping to take Colors and the DS with me when I tour South America in a few months time, as the perfect full colour pocket sketchbook, we’ll see if I can find the odd wifi hotspot while I’m out there so I can email my pictures back to friends.

Thankyou again for a fantastic piece of software, a fair few of my friends are now digging out their neglected DS’s to try out Colors for themselves.

Cheers! M

Comment from penninja
Time: September 28, 2008, 5:19 pm

Thanks a lot. Now all my ds games are boring compared to this. If I had to lose all my ds games and only keep colors ds I would still be content. But if I lost colors DS being left with just games, I would be sad. Thats how great this program is. It should be on the store shelves and exposed more.

Not to be negative, because I am all for any updates. But the only thing I see with layers is that anyone could load a .png and trace over it. I think colors DS is good the way it is. It is much more impressive to see artists doing some very detailed and realistic paintings with its limited features.

I am very grateful for this little program. Now I have a sketchpad wherever I go. I think you guys know your work on this ds-app is greatly appreciated by everyone who enjoys using it.

Comment from fasick
Time: October 1, 2008, 1:52 am

i dont know if ive completely missed or overlooked the feature if it exists… but if it doesnt. could you possibly incorporate some kind of eraser function. like hold a button in and it will be in eraser mode while its held so we dont have to go into the color pallet and get out the white and then have to switch back again and have to try to find that exact same color we were working with?
just an idea :)
besides that… i effing love this homebrew! <3

Comment from NewDSi
Time: October 3, 2008, 12:46 pm

Hi Jens & everyone,
a New DS has been announced…(not a major evolution IMHO, but still…)
it is called DSi, have you already checked the specs ? ;)
Can’t wait to hear from you & new Colors adaptations…
Bye…

Comment from June
Time: October 4, 2008, 11:52 pm

Colors! is fantastic! It gets me better drawings than I can actually draw on paper :)

I was recently looking for sources to develop a drawing application for mobile devices in Flash Lite, and then I remembered Colors! and ran straight here. I think Colors! is the perfect model for the app I’m trying to make! Would it be possible to get some advice on this subject? I’d really appreciate the help. The device I’m thinking to create for is LG Viewty, with 400*200 pixels pressure-touch LCD and a firmware for Flash Lite 2.0. It’ll be nothing commercial.

Since more and more handheld devices will support Flash Lite, I think a Flash Lite version of Colors! might be nice, too.

Well, even if you don’t have any advice for me,
I thank you always for this wonderful app!

Comment from TeTine
Time: October 9, 2008, 10:26 pm

I don’t own an iphone but when I saw the colors! homepage, I was all “OMG! this is awesome!”
Great work on this one
I bet the new ds version will be uber-awesome as well, take your time to make it even better ;)

Comment from ssoltero
Time: October 10, 2008, 11:08 pm

Hehe, no wonder we haven’t seen any updates for the DS in so long. You’ve been busy with the iPhone version! That’s pretty sweet. I’m glad too see that you are making a little cash off this program. Hopefully you’ll find time to make the DS version a little better in your spare time. :)

Comment from Josh Hartdegen
Time: October 11, 2008, 12:36 pm

hey, its me again :)

just thought i’d let u knw that i’ve heard the iPhone version is just as amazing.

Comment from Chad Covino
Time: October 12, 2008, 3:24 am

I’m really impressed with Colors! I turn mine sideways and draw on it like I’m hold a sketchpad…maybe I’ll make a book cover for it.

Will we be seeing a Rectangle/sqaure shaped brush anytime in the future? I would love to see that.

Comment from Mgamerz
Time: February 4, 2009, 4:50 am

So I don’t see this getting any more updates for the DS… huh.

Comment from Jens
Time: February 4, 2009, 6:42 am

So people are still finding their way to the comments section. :)

Anyway. I do believe that there will be an Colors! v1.1 update. As you might have seen, my priorities are slightly different now, but it’s definitely on top of my todo-list for things I want/need to do whenever I get the time. As for an ETA, I can’t say, but my guess would be in 2-4 months, completely guessing of course. So have faith in me for some time longer. :)