Solstice 0.2.0 beta 6

The sixth beta of Solstice, a desktop painting application derived from Krita 6, adds illustration filters, a bundled CPU G'MIC runtime and Layer Comps.

What's new since 0.2.0-beta.5

• Effects & Color: Film Grain, Chromatic Aberration, Film, Crystal, Pencil, Sharpness, Color Filter, Glow, Drop Shadow and Line Art Extraction. Lens Blur gains aperture Roundness and Highlight enhancement. These effects run on the CPU and support editable filter masks and layers.
• Color Reference: recolor from a reference image or gradient, with Amount and Keep brightness controls. Drag one or several image files into the reference grid, or use Load Image. Saved filter masks and layers retain the applied colors independently of the reference file.
• Layer Comps: save and switch named layer visibility variations, restore the last custom visibility state, reorder and update multiple comps, and select which comps to export. New layers can be shown in all comps. The docker's action buttons stay compact when resized.
• G'MIC-Qt 3.7.4.1: the Windows package now includes the CPU runtime, offline filter catalog and four standard data packs. The host bridge has faster native RGB transfers and improved layer synchronization. The exact runtime source, patches and build script are included under share/gmic/source.
• Guides and screenshots: updated README and user-guide index, with illustrated Effects & Color and Layer Comps pages on the website.

Download

Windows x64: download Solstice-0.2.0-beta.6-windows-x64-b7ee343e81fe.zip, extract it and start Solstice.exe. No installer is needed.

• This is an unsigned beta package. Settings and resources remain in %APPDATA%\Solstice, separate from Krita.
• The -dbg.zip contains debug symbols for crash reports; it is not the application download.
• SHA256SUMS.txt contains checksums for both ZIP files.
• Explorer .kra/.krz thumbnails can be registered with shellex\register-thumbnails.cmd (guide).

Scope and known limitations

• Color Reference maps brightness to reference colors; different original hues of equal brightness can converge at full Amount. Reduce Amount to retain more of the original colors. .clip and camera/photo-library import are not supported.
• Line Art Extraction works best on dark marks on light paper. Strong shadows and broad shaded regions may remain.
• Layer Comps stores visibility and group expansion, not opacity, blend modes, positions or pixels. Comp list edits are not undoable; PNG export cannot be canceled. PSD layer-comp import/export is not supported.
• New effects and G'MIC process on the CPU, even when the GPU canvas is enabled. Large images and blur radii can take longer to preview. Some G'MIC filters require additional data or external programs.
• Color Reference and Line Art Extraction have automated coverage, but their full interactive regression checklists remain pending. This release is a prerelease.

Supported environment

• Tested locally on Windows 11, 64-bit; the downloadable package is built on GitHub's Windows runner.
• The Vulkan engine targets NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs and is tested on an RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell. Other GPUs are untested; see the GPU Engine guide for requirements and fallback behavior.
• Linux and macOS are not validated. Android is not supported.

Please report problems in Solstice Issues. Solstice is independent of the Krita project and KDE. All user guides are in docs.

Build

• Commit: b7ee343e81fe79b6fff257f6ae8b34af8ece7363.
• GitHub Actions run 38833086246.
• Application ZIP SHA-256: 2b309276bbb58d3decdd9a65a8371a465520bce49972971a37f257a8e8dd8be2.
• Dependency versions and sources: windows-dependencies.lock.json; build details: BUILD-INFO.txt.
• Local regression checks cover the eleven new effects suites, Lens Blur, Layer Comps and G'MIC. Both ZIPs passed checksum and integrity checks, and the packaged version command passed locally with an isolated profile. Cloud CI verifies compilation and packaging; it does not run interactive painting or GPU runtime tests.