ArtRage 3 development - keeping mum?

[arenhaus]

Hi people.

I can't help wondering: ArtRage 3 has been under development for 3 years, I believe, and still we know nothing about it except it being under development!

Hey, Rage Team, can you tell us why are you keeping it such a secret?

I suppose you maybe wouldn't want to make false promises or set a definitive deadline, but aren't any features stable enough - after three friggin' years of development - to at least put up a teaser? Or hint on what improvements you're busy with? Or discuss them with us? We're the ones who will use it, after all, and I am probably not mistaken to say that many of us here would buy AR3 the instant it is published without any reservations.

You have a very dedicated community here who love this program; why do you treat us like this?

P.S. I've recently acquired a used Compaq tablet PC equipped with a Wacom digitizer; if you want to test run AR3 beta on such hardware, you're welcome to let me know.

[Someonesane]

They (the AR team) have mentioned before that they are reluctant to release any information concerning the new version, because they are not sure what will, or will not, make it into the end package. Meaning, they wouldn't want to tell the community that they were working on a particular feature, having the community get excited about it, then have to remove it from the package because of unforeseen issues that it may cause in the final product.

It may seem cruel, but sometimes not knowing what one is missing, is better then knowing what's coming (IMO).

[Fashmir]

Has it really been three years? You sure? Hmmmmmm.....

[AndyRage]

It's been two years since ArtRage 2.5 was released - we started development of ArtRage 3 immediately after the release of 2.5
ArtRage 3 is currently in Beta testing, and that is going well.

We're a small development team, and it takes quite a while to get a product to completion. If we give out information about what is upcoming it can give our competitors time to steal our thunder. It can also harm our existing sales if people get the impression there will be an new version soon - we still gotta eat. And it can also create an unreasonable expectation of features if we discover we need to remove a feature before release (for whatever reason).

I'd love to shout about the new stuff in ArtRage 3 - I think it's a fantastic product.

[Sketchism71]

Thanks Andy! I say take whatever time is needed for a product that Im sure will blow our minds just like the other versions! There is plenty of painting and exploring to be done with the current version. To anyone that may wait for AR3 to be released before they purchase AR2.5 is missing out on a whole world of mind blowing artistic capabilities and tools!:D

[screenpainter]

I agree with Sketch, I will never fully master artrage 2.5... or utilize all it's capabilites...it is an amazing software capable of utterly fantastic things! I hope to keep it even after buying the artrage 3.0 because I simply love it. It is a powerful program at a great value and capable of amazing things.
Take as long as you want or need on 3.0. to make it fantastic. I am not in a hurry at all. Please take your time.
Photoshop comes out and makes you buy a new version every year or two and it still works about like my Photoshop 4.0 did 12 years ago. Since then I have bought 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, and CS 2. Still seems to run like Photoshop to me. Not a lot has changed really. Knowing the excellence in programming at ambient, 3.0 will be worth the wait. In the meantime... let's see some work in 2.5. It's a great program!

[Silentman]

Out of all the people who would like to say what's in AR3 it would be Matt & Dave, lets not hound them, lets not do anything to interfere with the development progress, as frustrating as it is waiting at times, lets support them by awaiting the arrival of AR3 patiently :)

[arenhaus]

OK, I see. Still wishing that the team had adopted the "release early, release often" strategy. :)

By the way, does anyone feel that the "don't want to raise the expectations" argument doesn't quite work? Development time this long becomes a hint too: it raises an "after two years in development, it better impress the hell out of me" sort of expectation.

[Someonesane]

One has to take into consideration the amount of people who are programming this product. The AR team consists of a handful of people, who are programming the product, marketing the product and taking care of this website (among many other things I'm sure). They simply wouldn't have the resources needed to throw out new versions of the program every few months, like some of the other companies we are familiar with.

[Fashmir]

One has to take into consideration the amount of people who are programming this product. The AR team consists of a handful of people, who are programming the product, marketing the product and taking care of this website (among many other things I'm sure). They simply wouldn't have the resources needed to throw out new versions of the program every few months, like some of the other companies we are familiar with.

... Not to mention that Tycho is bound to get cranky if not fed and patted on a regular basis. ;)

[arenhaus]

irishrose - You're really assuming a lot, aren't you?

Just for record: I did purchase AR2, and I did dish out big bucks for Painter. And I know a thing or two about programming and managing programming projects.

Your passive aggression is, to say the least, uninformed.

Anyway, I've just been wondering what was cooking, and frustrated at being held in the dark. I got the explanation. Thanks. That's it.

[pentool]

And I know a thing or two about programming and managing programming projects.
Well, no offense (cuz I'm not interested to start a war) but the way you put things (including your previous posts), you sound like more of a teenager as opposed to a manager who knows about dev cycles.

[Peter Pinckney]

Hey!

Chill out!

Or big bad thread closer will shut us down.......................cool??:D:D

Life's too short and AR3 is coming when it does.................and it will knock your socks off!!:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

[Peter Pinckney]

Fashmir said "Not to mention that Tycho is bound to get cranky if not fed and patted on a regular basis. ;) __________________
Be well,"

He's right! Lighten up Man!

[MattRage]

Feature Confirmation: We can now confirm that Tycho will be in AR3.

[fraser_paice]

Feature Confirmation: We can now confirm that Tycho will be in AR3.
Hmmm... that's discrimination against dogs that is... plus it's murder getting the furballs out of my keyboard.

[AndyRage]

Please keep the discourse civil.

The reason we were unable to do this release in increments is because there are massive changes 'under the hood' for ArtRage 3. It hasn't been possible to release with those changes in a partial state of completion. Once ArtRage 3 is complete and released, we will indeed go back to incremental updates.
By way of example: One of the changes has been a 20% reduction in the amount of memory each layer uses by removing some redundancy in the layer data. But as soon as you change the structure of a layer, you need to change how the layer compositor works. And when that changes you need to change the lighting renderer. You need to change the FileIO to save the new structure in a way that older versions of the application can still understand, and convert old project files into the new structure. You need to change every function that performs functions on a layer, such as merging, copying, resizing, transforming. All the paint tools which interact with the layers need to be tweaked to work with the new layer structure, and they need to be optimized because the layer data arrangement affects performance so profoundly. The undo/redo system has to be tweaked to cope with the change in layer data it needs to protect. And the results of the change have to be invisible - users want their old paintings from ArtRage 2.5 to look the same under 3.0
During all that, strange bugs are liable to show up relating to the changes, and it will take a lot of messing with the application to find the circumstances of recreating the bug for killing it.
The 20% reduction in memory for layer data is, to the users, relatively trivial. It's not a 'selling point' for ArtRage. It's important in that it means artists can produce more complex documents, and it improves performance. But it's not a profound new feature.
It was done because other profound changes to ArtRage 3 are going on at the same time which also rely on the layer data structure layouts being a certain way.
In essence we pulled ArtRage apart, made some mighty changes, and we're putting it back together. That isn't something we could do in increments - it was all or nothing.

You could actually consider ArtRage 3.0 to be the starting point for the new incremental updates. We are almost certain to release 3.x updates (and we may not even charge for them!) to get to what I consider to be the final ArtRage 3 feature set. We did the same with ArtRage 2. ArtRage 2.0 was just the first step in releasing ArtRage 2. We gave out free updates - each with quite major improvements - at no cost to get ArtRage 2 to completion. ArtRage 2.5 had the full feature-set we were planning for ArtRage 2

And, of course, we want ArtRage 3 to be as bug-free as possible before release. If you think you're getting annoyed at waiting for an update to ArtRage, imagine how annoyed you'd be if we rushed it out the door and you spent many hours working on a painting, only to have ArtRage crash during a save operation, corrupting your save file and losing your work.

So... it will be done when it's done, and it will have the feature set it will have (at least, to start with...). And yes, it *will* have a watercolour tool.

[PICASO41]

WATERCOLOR TOOL = HUZZZAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES :)
Friggin awesome, awesome, awesome.

This announcement alone had brought me to my knees :)

mb

[DaveRage]

... Not to mention that Tycho is bound to get cranky if not fed and patted on a regular basis. ;)

This is quite accurate :)

[Silentman]

Well Said Andy, and if this isn't the end of this discussion, the thread should be closed imo, this forum thrives on positive feelings, not negative ones, negative feelings ought to be treated like program bugs, they should be killed at the earliest opportunity.

Silentman out....

[Doug B]

I know a thing or two about programming and managing programming projects.


If that was the case then you would know that software is released when ready, not before.

There is absolutely no point in stating a release date when such things are very seldom accurate and only serve to create ill feelings if 'late'.

I'm sure the Rage Bros. will be only too happy to talk about features when ArtRage3 is ready, not before.

[Doug B]

Doug, I'm right with you, and as for negative remarks, you just have to go back in the archives and read many of Arenhaus' posts to see that he retains much of this negativity in what he writes. I am going to go RAH RAH RAH, go RAGERS if it takes YEARS to get finished (well, lets hope it's not years!)

Thinking POSITIVE all the way and wishing great blessings on the Rage team to finish when they finish, to be thorough as all software companies should be :) I like the way you think Doug! Better not to let the cat out of the bag than have a bunch of whining when it's not showing at the date it was supposed to. That just leads to angry people.. we want to be HAPPY! And we are with AR2.5 and will be with AR3 as well :)

Thanks, Rose! :-) The older I get, the more I feel that there is no point in worrying about things that you can't change-like software release dates. As I said, it will be out when it's ready. I have to wonder if Arenhaus does not have a different version of ArtRage than I do. I mean my ArtRage2 didn't stop working the day ArtRage3 was announced! :rolleyes:

I can't understand constant negativity over something so trivial as a software release. I have major health problems (fibromyalgia) and refuse to be negative even about that. (If you do succumb to gross negativity, the bad guys have won-and that ain't a gonna happen!)

Cheers, Rose

Doug

[byroncallas]

Has anyone stopped to consider the potential effects on Puddy??? Has she been consulted?

[furio]

fanboys :rolleyes:

[Someonesane]

fanboys :rolleyes:

Everyone is. It's just a point view.

[Doug B]

Oops, almost forgot..

Pentool.. thanks for posting and noticing that I wasn't the only one that was imagining that the tone was off ;)

Or as my friend would say: " The 'best before' date has expired!' :p

[fraser_paice]

This still does not sort out my furball problem!

[Doug B]

I will be praying for you and your fibromyalgia. I also have something similar though I am not sure if it is the same thing, the doctor will not confirm it as they do not believe in such a thing, so they want to blame it on everything from hormones to 'the change'.. I think they are full of it, but I just keep pressing on. I ask God to heal me and just try to stay positive through the day... my kids are counting on it.

...Hope you feel better!!

Thanks, Rose, and good health to you too!

If you feel like talking about 'something similar' to fibromyalgia, feel free to send me a message here and I'll do likewise. If been going through this medical crud for over a year now, maybe I can help with a few tips, pointers about dealing with the doctors, etc.



It will be done when it's done. Kind of like you can't rush water to boil any faster or the grass to grow any faster... it's what it is. One foot after another, one day at a time.


"We will serve no ArtRage before it's time!"
"A watched ArtRage never let's the paint dry!"
And like that...! ;)

Cheers

Doug

"I knew Tycho when he was a little fur ball! " :cool:

[furio]

Everyone is. It's just a point view.

Yeah but they're not helpful as proven in this thread. This blind following is just embarrassing.

[Doug B]

This still does not sort out my furball problem!

A good single malt whiskey should work wonders for that furball. If not, another two or three single malts will at least make you forget all about it! :p

Cheers

Doug

[Someonesane]

Yeah but they're not helpful as proven in this thread. This blind following is just embarrassing.

Everyone who has posted seems to have stated a reason (or stated they agreed upon a reason given by another) as to why they believed, or did not believe, it was best for the AR team to hold to their decision. By having a reason, one sees a basis for opinion and therefor cannot be blindly following, but rather conscientiously deciding to agree.

[PICASO41]

Now if that's not coming from a mouth of a lawyer i dont know what is. LOL

<joking> :)

mb

[Someonesane]

Now if that's not coming from a mouth of a lawyer i dont know what is. LOL


LOL Picaso... I thought the same thing... hm, Someonesane.. ARE you a lawyer?? ;)


LOL, I'm afraid not... I can't imagine I'd be very good at it really. Not much a of public speaker. :o

[PWQuack]

By having a reason, one sees a basis for opinion and therefor cannot be blindly following, but rather conscientiously deciding to agree.

Someonesane...I'm confused, if I conscientiously decide to agree with you, does that mean I'm blindly following ambiguity? lol

It doesn't matter really, I love AR 2.5. I'll use it until 3 comes out... even if there were no new version on the way I'd still use AR 2.5.