Have you ever had the problem with FireAlpaca not being able to apply the decimal separator (depending on where you live, it's the dot or comma in a number such as 13,5) when *typing* it to the brush size window? Probably not but I still have the good news: I found the solution to this! Oh, and feel free to skip the lenghty backround story, which is below, I just thought that including the really cumbersome process behind it may be interesting to read. It should be colapsed on your Dashboard view anyway.
Solution
Go to your regional settings (I have that in Polish but it should read “Formats”) and change your region to one of these countries which uses dots (although, if you read the story below, it may work for some European countries as well). I changed to Canada because it uses both "," and "." for separators, just in case. Then go to the additional settings and be sure to choose the dot in the first entry!
Your date/time format may change after that, so if that bothers you, change that as well (remember to keep your current Location, so it can show you the correct time!). Note, some programs may change the language, so keep an eye on that.
PS. I already reported this on FireAlpaca website. And if you are curious, you can try doing the test by your own. It’s simple and here’re the instructions: https://www.deviantart.com/comments/62/16712505/4708682605
PPS. I remember Medibang had a similar issue, but I haven’t used the program for a long time! This fix should work for it too!
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I am known from notoriously using old, outdated versions of my art programs. It may look like a personal vendetta or something, but I have my reasons to keep them untouched. Let's talk about FireAlpaca's case.
FireAlpaca in my mind is a simple but very easy to use program, which makes it great. While I use other graphic softwares (GIMP, Clip Studio Paint, SAI, to name a few), I find it remarkably on spot to do what I need: development of my video game called Zniw Adventure. Almost all backrounds were made only with FireAlpaca, as well as the animations, 14k sprites and other assets. Zniw Adventure is kept in 90′s adventure game style with the resolution of 640x480. This forces the assets to be small but sharp at the same time. Especially if the player wants to upscale the game to fit their screen. Therefore, I'm really glad for FireAlpaca's quick access to disabling the antialiasing. All the sprites are made in, what I call, "hard pixel" mode which makes them look similar to pixelart (although most of them aren't really pixelart, that's why I prefer "hard pixel" to not confuse real pixelart artists over there).
If the game assets are tiny, then you can imagine that I need precision when dealing with brush sizes. FireAlpaca offers a slider, as well as (in the newer versions at least) a brush table. These are quick to access and work perfectly fine when drawing and painting, but the tradeoff is the... accuracy, which I much need for the tiny stuff! Afterall, difference in brush size between 2.4 and 2.5 is huge, not to mention between 2.4 and 2.6! Fiddling with the slider just to get that sweet spot just wastes time!
Thankfully FireAlpaca comes with little window where you can simply type the size you want! That’s *the* selling point for me! And it worked perfectly until I updated the program: it stopped applying the input correctly!
The horror! No more precision! The slider is unbearable! I can't work like that! What's worse, nobody seems to have experiening this issue besides me, and as of 2nd March 2019, there is still no information about it at all! No wonder though, as the issue is really niche and obscure; most people may not realize it at all, even if they have it. And that was the reason I stuck to ver. 1.4.1. for about 4 years (if not more!)...
A few days ago I became really tired of this, especially since I have been asked "why don't I update my FireAlpaca!" few times already. Discouraged, I shared the problem with a USA person (known as Moco13) and he said the program works fine for him. Suprised by this fact, I figured out that something is off here. And that English speaking countries (at least these countries which use dots as decimal separator) does not have this problem. I didn't realized fully the solution yet, so I thought: I need a test. I need a bunch of European people (most Europe use commas, just as I do), from countries different than mine (as I already tested it on myself and my peers). I needed to see how big this is and who is affected.
The respond was rather limited and slow. But here is when @harukasartnebula enters. She did the test quickly and her results were suprising! It worked fine for her, even if her OS is Portuguese!
With just this unexpected reply alone we got on the right track - and @crashpl figured it out: FireAlpaca reads the computer's regional settings, and for some reason it ignores the decimal separator for the Polish profile!
And thus, I changed my regional settings to Canada, corrected the date & time format to more familiar and voila! I can use 2.1.14. version of FireAlpaca! And boy, this is great!
The only dowside so far is my old GIMP - it changed to English. I have been using it in Polish for like 9 years so it looks really odd haha!
And there it is, the solution to an overly obscure and niche problem nobody probably experienced, with a lenghty, but I hope interesting, backstory of it! Hope you enjoyed the reading!
Hello, I recently downloaded the latest version of fire alpaca. However, I noticed that when you select a brush, there isn't a selection around it to indicate its size like in most drawing programs. Can you please tell me how I can get it?
View menu, Brush Size.
Shows a circle for the size of the brush if you are using a mouse.
If you are using a pressure-sensitive pen, it shows the size at maximum pressure.
hi! is there a way to change the cursor shape in firealpaca? i find circle shaped cursors to be easier to draw with. i saw someone else ask this and you told them to check the faq, but i checked and found nothing of the sort. help?
If you use View menu, Brush Size, it will show a circle at the tip of the brush cursor, equivalent to the size of the brush at maximum pen pressure, or the size it would be when using a mouse.
You can create one or more copies of the brush (using the Duplicate Brush button at the bottom of the brush list) and set the default brush size to different sizes if you tend to work at specific sizes or want to preserve a specific size.
I think the the point/arrow that shows where I'm drawing has gone missing on my firealapaca ( I draw with a mouse if that narrows it down) . And I forgot where in the environment settings do I go to make it appear again. What should I do?
Hmm try toggling the brush size under View at the top (if it’s on, turn it off, and vice versa). See if that solves anything.
