+2
Under review

Coloring book feature enhanced

Anita Sølver 10 years ago updated by Alin Alexandru Matei 10 years ago 2
I have read some of the posts about coloring books/coloring pages, and I think there's room for improvement to Interact Builder in this area. No need to make things so complicated :)

The ability to make the kids pick colors is fine.
But the way we have to make a coloring page is not so great, in my opinion.

What I would like to see is two things:

1) The ability to let the lineart be on top, and let the kids color freely beneath it. That would be an awesome feature. It could be done by somehow locking the top layer with the lineart, or have a target layer for the kids to paint in.

2) Be able to place a lineart, and then click on areas between the lines that are meant to be colored (a bit like fill color in photoshop with the paint bucket), and add the fill color action (or even free draw within this restricted area).

If #2 can't be done that way, then at least be able to place the lineart on top, and place the files premade for the individual areas underneath, so we'll have a nice and crisp lineart, that can variate in thickness and so on.

Should the last part be the solution, I would really, really like to be able to make the images all the same size in transparant png's, and thus import and place them all at the same time. This is not possible now, since when I am clicking on the canvas (let's say on an apple), it chooses whatever file is on top, because it also selects the transparant pixels, and not just the filled ones.

It's just not very logical the way it works now, and it involves an insane amount of work to make a coloring page with more than a few details.

If any of this is possible already, then I'd love to be pointed in the right direction, since coloring pages will be part of the apps I plan to make, in addition to stories and other activity.

Thanks for reading :)
Just want to add, that I will happily provide a .psd file with a lineart for a coloring page, that you can try to make into an interactive coloring page in Interact Builder. 

You could make a tutorial about how to do it the easiest way, with something more complex than a duck (no offense to the duck or the old tutorial).

My own take was:
  •  To copy my lineart in a new layer and make the second layers lineart grey. 
  • After that, I filled the bottom layer with black. 
  • Then copied the black filled layer, and changed the color to white.
  • Then selected the white layer, and took 2 pixels of the edge, to make sure there wasn't going to be any white borders around my character. 
  • Then I made a selection of the grey lineart layer - still with the white layer active, and hit delete (after this, the grey lineart can be deleted)
  • The white layer will now contain all the white parts that will be used for colorfill in IB3. Separate all the parts into individual layers with the lasso tool/cut to new layer. 
  • Export all parts to seperate png files. Unfortunately, they have to be trimmed to minimum size, to be able to select them in IB for the fillcolor process.
  • Drag all the files into the desired IB page. 
  • Spend way too much time nudging the white parts around, to mimic the way it looked in Photoshop. 
  • Bang head down in the keyboard or scream out loud, as needed. Repeat for every separate character, and perhaps a background, if desired. 
Actually, the worst part is, that the transparent pixels in png files are acting like filled pixels, thus calling for the need to crop/trim each part as much as possible. If we could click/select through them, we could export like we do for an animation, where all parts are of equal size. And when we drag them over in IB, every part of white will already be placed in the right spot.  That would solve the biggest part of the problem, although I would looove to see the possibility to select areas to be filled, directly on the page, as mentioned in my original post above.

Don't get me wrong, - I really think that IB3 is awesome, and has a lot of wonderful features and possibilities. But this particulary thing, just doesn't work as smooth as it could. 

I understand if it's not something that will jump to the top of your to-do list, but I hope you'll consider it for a future update, and not just declare that it's possible to make it already. I know it is, but it's also possible to walk a thousand miles... Personally I prefer to drive, because I'll get there faster, and can use my time on something fun instead. Like drawing a new coloring page, or make a new app ;)

Have a great day, and if you read all my ramblings about this, then thank you! Hope you're still awake :)
I have checked out some available coloring book apps from the app store, and it seems perfectly normal to be able to:
- color freely (without lines being colored over)
- color freely within restricted area (without lines being colored over)
- fill color (that is do-able here too, but it's really hard to set up, and you can't use a lineart)

All in all, I just want to be able to compete with other apps, which will be hard, if I only make one with "fill color" available.

Again, I understand if it's not on the top of your list, other things are more important, but it's not something weird or state of the art new stuff I'm looking for, so hope you'll consider it for a future version of IB. Charmaine and I can't be the only ones who's looking into making coloring pages.