The following two images above were generated with a feature in the Studio Artist paint synthesizer, called the Stretch2 Brush Type. The Stretch2 Brush Type lets you stretch warp an image or movie brush onto the complete paint path when painting. So think of the image as being like a rubber sheet that stretches, twists, and turns to match the continuously changing path direction when painting. Note how each individual paint stroke is composed of a colorized chain link image that bends to match the paint stroke movement and positioning.
The image gallery below will run you through the various steps required to hand edit a Stretch2 Source Brush paint preset. To start off, I used the paint synthesizer macro edits (in the integrated help browser) and pressed the Reinitialize macro edit active link command (as shown in the 1st gallery image).
Reinitializing the paint synthesizer resets all of it’s 500 adjustable parameters to generic standard settings, which leads to a rather boring solid color paint stroke. Since I wanted to build an image source brush, I used the File : Paint Synthesizer : New Image Brush menu command (as shown in the 2nd gallery image above) to select an image to use as my image brush. I selected the chain-linkSmall.tiff image in the Studio Artist Brush folder for this particular example (3rd gallery image above). The 4th gallery image shows the Brush Source control panel after selecting my new image brush. Note that the image brush size is 212 horizontal by 64 vertical pixels.
The 5th gallery image above shows what you get if you draw with this image brush using the current reinitialized paint synthesizer settings with the newly defined image brush. The top part of the canvas shows a few individual brush nibs (note that they look like colored pieces of a chain link). The lower part of the canvas shows a single paint path composed of multiple brush nibs overlaid on top of the path.
So this canvas image is being drawn with the conventional paint synthesizer approach of laying down a series of colored paint nibs defined by the current brush source (the chain link image brush in this particular case). not a very beautiful paint preset so far. But we’re going to change the way the source brush is used, so that rather than laid down as a series of individual paint nibs spaced along the paint path, the source brush image will be warped like it was a rubber sheet along the entire paint path.
I love this technique John but can’t seem to find a way to get the Stretch2 Source Brush to respect the brush image’s alpha as in the source alpha brush.Is this a way to achieve this?
I should have added in my previous question that I refer to painting with the full color image brush image masked by alpha rather than using the brush images b/w image to drive the brush with paint fill apply – composite alpha 1 on
Yeah, i know exactly what you are talking about. I actually need to do some work to add a source alpha option to it. Like there’s Source Brush and the Source Brush Alpha Brush Types. I think it will just be an option within the Stretch2 Brush Type as opposed to a new brush type.
Thanks for the reply John – yes this further option for an alpha to knock out the image brush within the Stretch2 Brush option would be perfect.
The way to get around it now is to have your brush object(s) on a pure white background. Anything with pure 255 white pixels in a source brush is going to mask out.
Thanks John for that tip. Is it possible to set the images in the image brush to show unaltered rather than picking the color modes in paint source color i.e just to show the original full colored images in the brush when knocked out by Alpha 1 in paint fill apply?I wonder whether you’d consider adding an option to be able to paint on layer alphas with the stretch source like you can with the source alpha brush or will that be covered when you make the alterations in your comment “Yeah, i know exactly what you are talking about. I actually need to do some work to add a source alpha option to it. Like there’s Source Brush and the Source Brush Alpha Brush Types. I think it will just be an option within the Stretch2 Brush Type as opposed to a new brush type”?
You can already build paint presets that just affect the alpha channel and nothing else. Look at the alpha only erasers in the Eraser category for some examples.My guess is that what you think the Alpha1 option in paint fill apply does and what is really going on are probably a little different. I’ll try to put some tips or posts together here that get into both of those topics.