Projects and "Artboards". No, scratch that: Tabs.

I'm still experimenting with the notion of a project in Filter Forge, and here's my another attempt at that. This is just a brain dump and a mockup. So:

1. A Project is a collection of multiple "Artboards", for the lack of a better term.

2. Each artboard is a combination of a single filter, its settings, and an input image (or maybe multiple input images and also a selection image). Therefore, each artboard has a specific resolution, and when you export / render the entire project (or just that artboard separately), it will be rendered in that exact resolution.

3. Artboards are independent from each other. They can have different resolutions, different input images, and different filters with different settings.

4. Stuff on the left, where you see the filter properties etc, pertains to the currently selected artboard (marked with yellow frame).

5. A project can have any number of artboards. They are placed on an infinitely pannable canvas, similar to the canvas of the Filter Editor. Zooming zooms in and out the entire canvas with all artboards, not just one artboard separately.

6. There will be an option for quick / convenient render & export of all or selected artboards. Probably also with an option to change the base name of all exported files, and other export convenience features.

7. When rendering, only one artboard is rendered at a time. You can pause the rendering, of force-start the rendering of another artboard.

8. The entire project can be saved to a single file (or probably a folder with dependencies like images or filters, this is an open question).

9. The default state of Filter Forge (one image which you apply filters to), when viewed through the 'lens' of projects, is just a project with a single artboard.

The remaining open question is how to organize these projects on the level of a file system. How self-contained it should be? Should we have an option to embed dependencies as files, or link them via references?

Will there be loop functionality in the artboard realm? The need arises sometimes to run a filter 20+ times (output to input) for speed considerations. Being able to add blurs etc. in between would be choice.

Yet is music to my ears. I blocked out "Artboards are independent from each other", when I read "only one artboard is rendered at a time", thinking about animation and loops, oops. Nonetheless glad to hear progress is happening, especially the other news about acceleration plans.

I think I'll settle on Tabs instead of Artboards:

Heh Export is exactly what's giving me a headache right now:

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Skybase wrote: Tabs isn't a bad idea at all! I'd personally request (which I'm sure you've thought of) an ability to export all tabs in one go.

Your wish has been granted:

Thank you What's more, the channels (Diffuse / Bump / Normal) are now rendered simultaneously with the final image and can be previewed independently, via sub-tabs at the bottom of each tab. The simultaneous rendering doesn't take extra time: rendering an image without channels takes the same time as rendering the same image with multiple channels.

Keith, no, this is not yet available - we're planning this for the next release. It's currently in development. The progress is a bit unsatisfactory though, as we're still dealing with high-dpi monitor UI stuff.

Would it be possible to drag one tab into another to add the contents the first tab into the second. I'm thinking snippets could be easily dropped into an existing filter with out the need to copy and paste?

Here's the final mock-up of the project interface:

So then Artboards are also included in Ultraforge in the same way as in Filter Forge or they will be a different kind of artboards in a different way?

As FF works in different way as Ultraforge so maybe the name is the same but not how you work and use them

Also in the name of this thread is told "Artboards" no scratch that -->Tabs

So Ultraforge will include some kind of "tabs" instead of the artboards that are available in FF

And how different will be the ones in UF from the ones in FF?
What can you do with each one?

I am very sorry that I still could not learn and find out how to use artboards in Filter Forge