colorus - coloring book application for kids

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This is beta version of coloring book, you can try it here.

I’ve already collected some opinion on another network, and tried to fix most critical things.
On this moment in technical side, I want to create pages in picture chooser window, add help menu, release it to facebook, and port to moblie platform. On art side we want to add new pictures with cars, animals, dolls, etc…

I’ve started work on it, in august of 2012, and shifted to another project and back several times, but 3 month ago, we decided to polish it and release to social network and to mobile platforms.
here is a git commit history.

While I’ve been working on this project, I created own sprite manager and atlas editor (it available on asset store), and some staf on my git repository.
about 4 month ago, i decided to add undo redo functionality, so i’ve created 10 layers one above another, and before copy new lines to final picture it move from top layer to back, and only then copy to actual picture.
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this video shows the same from whole editor window, but with previous old and cumbersome interface.

After that I decided to create zooming, and adjusted separated camera to walk through the picture.
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For drawing I implemented custom line renderer which first draw meshes outside the layer, and then take all points interpolate them by Catmul Rom interpolation, and then copy to layer.

For flood filling, I use this algorithm to find a region, and then copy to layer, and then use specific shader which make radial animation.

So, please let me know what I missed something interesting for application of this type (this is my first experience in unity3d),
And if you have any questions i’ll be happy to answer them.

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and latest news. Glad to share the source code with community
https://github.com/nicloay/colorus

Good luck! =)

2 Likes
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Hi Nicloay,

Very interesting project. When do you think to release the first official version ?

Do you have an idea of the price ? Does it work on tablets (android) or only on desktop ?

Thank you for this very good job !

Neoxeo

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Hello neoxeo, thanks for feedback.
As I said before, first of all i need to polish this app, so my wife is drawing new pictures (next album will be “big cars”) and i’m making some coding staff,

last thing which i made is (object cache, and resource loading for pictures), so now this app use not 600 mb of memory as before and just ~150,
And right now is possible to compile this project for ios. I’ve just commented uncompiled parts of code by directives, and didn’t make any additional coding special for ios, and here you are

In next 1-2 month i hope to finish web part, and integrate this app with Russian social networks, after that start to work on ios optimisation and so on. and if everything will be ok (and it must be ok =) ), we will release it on ios in 3 month, after that will start to work for android.

About price, one thing what i know is that “ru folk” album will be free for ever (this is a first album which we made), so i think will be beter to create free version without any advertisement and with full free album and with one or 2 pictures from another categories (pets, dolls, animals, cars, … ) and full version with price 0.99$ or 2.99.

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my younger kids would like this. I like the approach you took for layering. I would not have thought of that and probably would have taken the difficult route to accomplish the same thing.

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Thank you Nicloay for your answer.

I like your approach and your philosophy. I’m waiting for news and I continue to follow your work progress.

When Colorus will be available, I want to be one the first to buy it for my kids.

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Today I updated online version at http://colorus.nicloay.com/online.html ,
new in this release:

  • New album “Cars” with 25 pictures
  • New album “Babies” with 40 pictures
  • Internal flood fill algorithm optimization
  • Fixed color history item width
  • Can open player with specific picture, selected on html page
  • and probably something more, what i don’t remember =)

In this release I experienced myself in a new language Ruby. It’s quite easy to work in it with YAML (unity native .assets files). So now, I can acess to all information about pictures in PostprocessBuildPlayer script.
So result is a html pictures gallery, it’s available here http://colorus.nicloay.com/gallery.html , sorry for the non english language. but anyway you can find download and play buttons there for all pictures.

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I really like this and think it looks great. Kids will love it.

Many years ago I wrote a similar program for my kids, but this was back in the days of 256 color mode, so it was a lot easier to change colors and calculate where they clicked just by looking at the pixel color palette index. I didn’t take it as far as you have and yours looks a lot more professional. My kids are older now, but I know they would have liked this a few years ago.

I think your price point is a good idea as well, free with paid picture packs. This should generate a lot more downloads than if you just stuck a price on it, which will hopefully turn into more sales in the end.

Good luck with this, it’s looking great, I hope it does well on the app store.

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wow, so much technical…love it.

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Hello from Ryazan! :slight_smile:

Like your idea and agree with the other guys - children will love it. That’s what I have (am I crazy? :))) ) :

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But I don’t like the result after saving. The lines are terrible, and it was looking a lot better while I was drawing it.

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Thanks everyone for feedback, just these thing motivate me to work on this app =).

Maklaud Nice to see countryman here =) and you’re not crazy, I think you just used default random colors as me =). I’m not a painter, so all my pictures looks not better than yours.
about saving, i’ve just tried to save picture, and it looks exactly the same as in the app. Could you provide me some info, about your system and browser, i’ll try to reproduce it here. Also, maybe it related to the size of the picture, it hardcoded to 1024x768, or maybe you’re talking just about missed bilinear filtration.

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I have 2 types of lines, First one (on the left screen shot) is lines from outline layer, they contains some black color to alpha interpolation, because its drawn in 3d party editor and this pixels doesn’t used in region calculation on flood fill.
And 2d one is lines drawn by users, and unfortunately i can’t use nice half transparent pixels there because it’s quite hard to predict how to flood fill region inside this lines. Even in photoshop or Gimp you have sensitivity settings on Magic Wand tool or so on to tell editor which pixels include in result region. Initially i have this settings, but result was much worse than what we have in current version.

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I use Win 7 x64, Opera 12.16.
Maybe the problem is in image format. I started the default everything, so just went your link. Colored the image and press the Save button on the bottom-left. The dialog appeared and the name was “default” without any particular file type. I added “.png” and saved. And the lines are strange somewhere in the result picture.

And the problem is not in the 2nd type of lines, because first I added some figures, but then filled them with colors. The problem is in the 1st type of lines, maybe because somewhere they are thick (and it looks well) and somewhere they are thin (and they look bad).

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Thanks a lot, i will try to find win machine and reproduce that. Anyway in the future, i’ll try to make normal saving through server, not through java script as right now.

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After i spent a couple of weeks for implementing russian social network integration.
I decided to move to native OnGUI system because my current one (own sprite manager) is not so scalable and quite complex for dynamic interfaces. I’ve made some simple tests and found that gui is very fast (compare to previous unity3d version).
So right now, i’ve done main buttons, and created simple logic.

1 Like
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Really clever Nicloay - I just had fun “painting” a picture :slight_smile:

I see that there is a Save functionality. Can final results be printed out to nicely fill a 8"x11" page?

When my kids were growing up they liked to hang their artwork on the fridge door - I’m sure kids today like to show off too.

cheers, gryff :slight_smile:

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Hi gryff , thanks for advice, I’ll think about it, currently all pictures is 1024x768, so it’s not possible to fill all the space in 8x11 format.
8x11 is available only as a source images here http://colorus.nicloay.com/gallery.html

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Nicloay - it was not meant to be advice - just really a question. My daughters have left home and I’m still trying to get their stuff out of the house. Toys and artwork that goes back years - and I’m not allowed to throw it out :wink:

What makes a memory is an odd thing.

You app though is really cute - just coloured another picture :wink:

cheers, gryff :slight_smile:

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Sorry for the long delay.
About 2 month ago i’ve been started to make colloring book for one company. It was only for mobile devices, and it was simplest than mine.
So then i’ve done it (in about 80 hours, i didn’t use all modules, and optimized reused ones), i found that mine app works slowest than their , and after that i started new wave of optimization.
I get rid more than 2k rows of code. and now it almost done.
Take a look at my 3 years old beta testers.

I hope to finish it on this weak, on next week send it to my friends. and after that, release it on iOs.
So if someone have kids who like drawing and iPad, you can join this closed beta test on next week, just send me PM.

I decided to make 2 version, one free and one full, with no ads or IAP in both of them.

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Hi, I love your coloring app. Are you considering selling it? Template, source code … so, to be able to use it with my own coloring pages. Please let me know. Thank you.

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Hi iemzm, thanks for reply.

I thought about asset store, but it required to many power to clear the code and to make the good documentation. so i think I won’t publish it as separated asset because it’s to risky, spent one month and get just 100$ anually.

But I’ve done couple of coloring books for several companies as a freelancer.
E.g. this app took about 70 - 80 hours of clean programming time and 3-4 weeks.

  • customer just give me the all sprites, images, sfx and all another stuff is done by me
  • I’ve been reused several components from my coloring book). Right now i have more advanced features for coloring book, which utilize renderTexture, but unfortunatly they hasn’t released yet.

Development is very transparent for customers (daily git commit + access to agile board, 2-3 sprints per project)
Before start I’ll provide rough estimates (usually i spent not more than 30% of that time, because clients request new features =))
If you are interesting in it, my comfort rate is 30$/h +(100-200)$ per component (like floodfill, or line interpolation).
just send me pm or reach me by email: nicloay@gmail.com

Good luck with all of your projects,
//Nikolay

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After couple of commercial coloring book projects. I’m thinking to open the sources of this coloring book.

Go here to vote!