Interesting that this is built on Godot. The Tesla Infotainment UI is also using Godot so it seem to be picking up steam in this sort of non-traditional application of game engines. Very cool!
I have used Milton for this for about a year or so. One thing I really like about Milton is the Grid tool, to create rows and columns. It’s great for sketching out ideas or calculations when learning. From what I can tell, Lorien just has Rectangles, so Grids would be a nice addition.
I think the Linux code for Milton had one or two issues when compiling on a modern Arch system, but I have a simple fix laying around if anybody else has trouble.
I saw Lorien a while ago, when I was looking to build a Godot program with an infinite canvas - some of the ways that the menus are things are setup are really, really clever.
If anyone is familiar with it, do you know where to look for good examples of such things for Godot? Maybe the author will bless this thread with presence and give us some tips or explain the thought processes when it comes to designing them in Godot.
Shoot your shot, right? Anyway, it's awesome to see it posted here!
Hey, just noticed Lorien got posted on here.
No, i don't really have a general advice for that..all depends on what you want to build. I'd say start simple but as it grows you have to make sure your architecture stays clean, otherwise the whole thing becomes unmanageable. If you want to look at other big open source applications done in Godot look at Pixelorama and MaterialMaker (this one even got an Epic Mega Grant). There is also this list with great apps/pluings etc: https://github.com/godotengine/awesome-godot
Godot's high level networking is so nice because it's easy to do either.
Since everything in Godot is nodes, you can assign "ownership" of nodes to peers. Every peer has full control over their nodes and then you sync the data via RPC.
That way, you can do authoritative by just giving all the ownerships to the server node, or p2p by sharing which nodes belong to who.
In the context of drawing though, yeah if you want people to mess with other people's strokes it becomes annoying.
I tried it but like most note taking apps like this, I feel like that drawing with vectors just doesn't feel that great: The stroke changes a bit after being jotted down, the curves sometimes end up jagged, the erase experience sometimes leaves to be desired. And selection/lasso are either missing or underpar.
Mischief was the last app with this kind of features that felt right to me. I don't know if it's the use of ADF (Adaptively Sampled Distance Fields[1], think SDF but defined as quadtrees[2]) or what. Honestly if it wasn't for the lack of a lasso tool (which I was always hoping it would come until it died) I would still just use that.
Dreams doesn’t quite use an octree SDF for its geometry representation.
It uses a tree of CSG edits (basically the raw stroke inputs) which is then stochastically sampled (as an SDF) to produce points on the surface that are splatted. Alex Evans’ talk on this is fantastic btw and I thoroughly recommend it.
I use https://concepts.app/en/ for all iPad drawing. It features an infinite canvas, and is tuned for beautiful architectural drawings. I use it for math notes and illustration.
Like my academic colleagues, I was forced onto an iPad (I love chalk and paper) in order to teach remotely. Most of us settled on Notability, too freaked out to learn more than necessary to barely cope. Some realized that one wants all the algorithmic reach one can master, in this new medium. Concepts has many frustrating limitations, but in my opinion it is currently best of field.
In the far future, people will look back on 20th century mathematical notation as a form of sadism (here, look at my crappy machine code, and guess my thoughts!), and they'll mark the pandemic as a turning point where more effective visual forms of explanation first emerged. Playing with Concepts is a glimpse into the future.
While Concepts isn't limited to what can be rendered in SVG or PDF as scalable vector art, one can impose this limit on oneself.
One might have many requirements, choosing an iPad drawing program. My first requirement is that my handwriting doesn't suggest I've suffered a stroke. Believe it or not, this eliminates most of the field. Concepts has a smoothing parameter that makes one's handwriting look better than it would on paper, if one selects 8% to 12%.
Muse is a bit like this. You can also infinitely nest white boards. It’s really nice, though admittedly I haven’t gotten as much use out of it as I had hoped.
