Solstice 0.2.0 beta 2

The second beta of Solstice, a desktop painting application derived from Krita 6, with a Vulkan GPU engine and workflows familiar from Clip Studio Paint.

What's new since 0.2.0-beta

• Python plugins are back. The 0.2.0-beta package was built without them, so the Python Plugin Manager and the bundled Python plugins (Batch Exporter, Scripter, Ten Brushes, Comics Project Management Tools and others) were missing. This build includes them again.
• New Puppet Warp and Brush Stroke Layer images in the guides.
• Website: https://solstice.tidalboxstudio.com. For the basics of using the application, see the Krita User Manual.

If you use 0.2.0-beta, replace it with this package; your settings in %APPDATA%\Solstice are kept.

Download

Windows x64: download Solstice-0.2.0-beta.2-windows-x64-9224a5d1187f.zip, extract it anywhere and start Solstice.exe. No installation is needed.

• The package is not signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may warn; choose More info → Run anyway.
• Settings and resources are kept in %APPDATA%\Solstice, separate from Krita. On the first start Solstice can import an existing Krita profile.
• To show .kra/.krz thumbnails in Explorer, run shellex\register-thumbnails.cmd (details).
• The -dbg.zip holds debug symbols and is only needed for crash reports.

Highlights

• GPU brush and Vulkan engine: on by default; pixel brushes on RGBA 32-bit and 16-bit float layers composite nearly every blend mode on the GPU. Input to display took about 5 ms in a hand-drawn comparison, against 18–22 ms with the CPU brush.
• Brush Stroke Layer: a paint layer that remembers its strokes and redraws them when scaled, so small line art enlarges without blurring.
• Brush Presets: stroke previews, engine and bundle filters, and grouping.
• Brush options in Tool Options: mark a Brush Editor setting with an eye to show it in Tool Options.
• Puppet Warp: pose and reshape artwork with movable, rotatable pins in the Transform Tool.
• Native workflow tools: Quick Access Manager, Asset Library, Rest Note, Lazy Tools, Vision ML and Photoshop brush import.

All user guides: docs.

Supported environment

• Tested on Windows 11, 64-bit.
• The GPU engine targets NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs (GeForce RTX 50 series, RTX PRO Blackwell) with Vulkan 1.3 and desktop OpenGL; other GPU architectures are not supported by this experimental engine. See the GPU Engine guide for requirements and fallback behavior.
• Linux and macOS are not validated. Android is not supported.

Beta notes

This is a beta: features and behavior may still change, and files you care about should be backed up. Please report problems in Issues.

Solstice saves .kra files that Krita can open. It is an independent project, not affiliated with, endorsed or supported by the Krita project or KDE; please report Solstice problems here, not to Krita.

Build

• Commit 9224a5d1187f50c334f25e0489ba79528aa76a76, built by GitHub Actions run 38488980328.
• SHA-256 (also in SHA256SUMS.txt):
  • Solstice-0.2.0-beta.2-windows-x64-9224a5d1187f.zip: e35a64165aeb14f3f544e81a8dde8dc8cfe3b674bb512bca3f4f387724e66bb1
• Dependency versions and sources: windows-dependencies.lock.json.