Back in 2011, we announced a new version of Procreate in development, dubbed Procreate X. This version of Procreate was so ambitious in scale, we decided to split it into more manageable updates. The first realisation of this massive undertaking came with the release of Procreate 1.6 ‘Blackstone’.
Today we’re super excited to announce we’ve officially begun the second step in this plan, with the start of Procreate 1.7 ‘Obsidian’. Along with a host of new improvements and features, we’ll be focusing on three major features–Sharing, Transform and CLASSIFIED.
Being able to create the best digital brushes in the business is cool, but being able to share them freely is even cooler. And we’re taking this a step further buy developing a Procreate file format, so you can easily share and open Procreate files on multiple devices or just archive files for safe keeping. We’re really excited to see what you guys do with the ability to share your custom brushes and files!
The current transform method is the same design and code as it was in the very first version of Procreate. Its also the slowest part of Procreate and is very cumbersome to use. We’ve really spent time analysing the reasons why moving things around is important and we think we’ve designed a beautiful answer to these problems. And to match the design, we’re ditching Core tech and re-engineering the whole system in OpenGL! Good for stability and great for performance.
We’ll be revealing more about the CLASSIFIED items in the future, so for now please follow us as we once again share our development life with creation of Procreate 1.7!
For those of you who are new to our public development lists, this is a living, breathing document of features which we hope to design and develop. New stuff might be added as we go and not everything on this list is guaranteed to make it into Procreate 1.7.
Green items indicate the feature is complete and will ship with the update. Grey struck-through items indicate the feature was not possible at this point in time or did not meet our standards. Classified features are only visible if you have a class ‘A’ or above security clearance.
New Procreate sharing
• Custom brush file format
• Brush upgrade & migration
• Custom brush export to email
• Custom brush export to Dropbox
• Custom brush export to iTunes
• Custom brush import system
• Procreate file format
• Migration system for Procreate file format
• Upgrade canvases into Procreate files
• Procreate file export to email
• Procreate file export to Dropbox
• Procreate file export to iTunes
• Procreate file import system
• Export PSD to Dropbox (already shipping with 1.6.3)
• Export JPG to Dropbox (already shipping with 1.6.3)
• Export PNG to Dropbox (already shipping with 1.6.3)
• Export JPG to Facebook
• Dropbox settings (already shipping with 1.6.3)
New layering system
• Reengineered layering system
• Redesigned interface
• Drag and drop layers
• Reorder layers
• Automatic layer names
• Rename layer
• Copy layer
• Delete layer
• Duplicate layer
• New layer opacity adjust
• Merge layer up
• Merge layer down
• Lock alpha pixels
• Hide layers
• Show layers
• New realtime background colour adjust
• Crop and enlarge pixels to thumbnail
New Transform system
• New OpenGL transform mode
• Move, Zoom & rotate object
• Object transform interface & method
• Rotate and scale object
• Lock rotation
• Lock scale
• Distort object
• Rapid gestures
New OpenGL blend modes
• Colour
• Saturation
• Hue
• Luminosity
• Soft Light
• Overlay
• Linear Burn
• Colour Dodge
• Colour Burn
• Hard Light
• Difference
• Subtract
CLASSIFIED
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
CLASSIFIED
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
CLASSIFIED
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
• Classified
Improved colour tools
• Flood Fill (Paint bucket)
• Multiple swatch panels
• New precision eyedropper tool
• Default colour memory
General improvements
• New brush pressure system (For 3rd party styluses)
• Improved and faster Silica tile system
• Increased Layer performance
• Begin stroke performance increase
• New Advanced brush settings layout
• Lock to Pixel grid
• General Interface improvements
• Advanced brush interface improvements
• New set orientation method
• New import image system
• Silica engine improvements
• JaJa Stylus support
• File associations
Update 26.6.2012 So it turns out, creating an exchangeable file format, along with an exchangeable brush format, means we must re-build almost every part of Procreate. So thats exactly what we’re currently doing!
We always knew developing two exchangeable file formats, simultaneously, was going to be an immense challenge. In general, iOS apps should always save documents & data inside the app itself. Currently, thats how Procreate behaves.
This self contained method works really well for almost all iOS apps–except for Procreate. We believe that being able to share your brushes, download fellow artists brushes and archive native, layered Procreate files, are mandatory features.
Update 7.8.2012 With All the 1.6 bug fixes finally submitted to Apple, the Si army of 3 is back working on version 1.7. Over the last few days we’ve had major breakthroughs for the classified items, which means they are one step closer to being real features that will ship.
Keep an eye out on the blog as we really ramp up the development process. We’re all bursting for you guys to get your hands on this version–its going to be our best release yet.
Update 22.8.2012 We’ve been making incredible progress here on version 1.7. Because the new Procreate file format is tied to so many aspects of the software, we’ve been busy making massive improvements to almost every part of Procreate. For instance, Files load quicker, the RAM footprint has decreased and general performance has increased. Not to mention sharing and backing up files is so cool to see. So much has changed in fact–if you could see our internal development list, its about 10x longer than the above public list. Now that we’re close to finalising the new file format, we’ll be moving on to the Classified !.
Update 21.9.2012 The fallout from the Classified features continues to encroach on more and more Procreate features as we progress. The latest feature to be targeted was the entire layering system. For the last two weeks we’ve been busy re-thinking, re-designing and re-developing the layer system, from scratch. And its now close to completion!
Interface wise, you’ll now see 8 layers thumbnails in landscape mode–double the amount in the current version. And in portrait you can now see 11 layer thumbs. This is important, because the amount of visible thumbs is directly connected to the classified features.
The layer menu is also much thinner, so you can see more of your canvas. And we have a feature you guys have been asking for since v1–you’ll now have the ability to name your layers! All the old features are still there, but we have re-thought and redesigned the whole system to be far more efficient, reliable and robust.
Update 17.10.2012 All hands are on deck as we race towards the final release! We’re finishing up some of the loose ends and then we’ll begin the the last significant feature, the brush exportation system. This guy is quite an undertaking, because large portions of Procreate require rebuilding–much like the file format.
Also, as you can see the classified features are not one feature, but three secret features! Two of them will be 100% shipping with 1.7. One of these features however, requires more development time in order to reach our quality standard, so it will be moving into the next release.
For all you guys out there with pressure sensitive styluses, the new pressure system is also completed and working beautifully. We’re just in the process of testing this with all three styluses before its marked as completed on the list!
Update 20.11.12 Procreate 1.7 is now in Beta testing phase! As you guys can see, the list is now complete, and we’re one step closer to completing the biggest Procreate update ever!
We’ve added almost 100 new improvements and features into Procreate 1.7, and only two features have been moved into the next release (not counting the classifies surprises!). Flood fill will be one of the features moving into the next update. It became clear a short while ago that we needed additional time on flood fill, so rather than delay 1.7 any further, Flood fill has been moved into the next major Procreate update so we can make it better.
Procreate 1.7 will also require iOS 6 as a minimum. We’d like to let all the iPad 1 owners out there know–we spent a lot of time with the iPad 1, but in the end the iPad 1 just isn’t capable of supporting many of the new 1.7 features. We’ve taken the iPad 1 as far as we can!
Keep your eye on the blog over the next few weeks as we announce the classified feature and post a release date for Procreate 1.7! We think you guys are going to love this update–and we can’t wait to see what you guys are going to do with it!
