BrushTalk

A major problem with sharing Painter brushes with other users is that the associated xml files are not backward compatible with earlier versions. Developments in the brush engine mean that in some cases, an equivalent variant cannot be recreated in an earlier Painter version (RealBristle brush variants for example). In many cases however, it is possible to successfully recreate the variant by manually inputting the brush settings from a screen shot or recipe in a previous version, or by direct editing of the variant xml file.

To this end, I recorded an Apple script in BBEdit which will automatically convert applicable Painter X variant xml files to a format which can be successfully read in all Painter versions from 7 upwards. After using this method to convert custom inking brushes created by Ryan Cole in Painter X, some users reported that the stroke appearance of one of the original variants in Painter X was very different to the equivalent converted variant when used in Painter IX. The converted library may be downloaded here.

My first thought that there was an error in my script, or maybe I had changed the original prior to conversion. There was only one thing for it, I checked the brush settings in the original Painter X version against that of the converted variant in Painter IX. All applicable settings were identical, although there was a small difference in the stroke characteristics; nothing like the difference in the example I had been shown however. It was possible that there were differences between the Mac and Windows versions of the application, but there is one set of variables which could account for the stroke differences - the Brush Tracking preference settings specific to the user. Sure enough, this turned out to be the culprit;

In the above image, the three brush strokes on the left were created in Painter IX using the same variant and brush settings as those on the right. However, the Brush Tracking settings used for the two sets of brush strokes were different;

Brush Tracking settings for the left / right hand strokes;

Velocity Scale: 35.67 / 35.67
Velocity Power: 0.60 / 0.60
Pressure Scale: 0.21 / 0.97
Pressure Power: -3.10 / 1.50

I recently stumbled upon another blog (link now lost), where the author described a method of moving/resizing their browser window by the use of Java script. In addition, as space is limited in bookmarks bar, link text was substituted with a bullet symbol (usually created by Option + 8 keystroke combination).

As I have a wide screen monitor display, this idea has been further developed, so that options are available to move/resize the browser window to the left, centre or right of screen. Other Java scripts have also been incorporated to perform various tasks, with symbols assigned to represent these by editing the Bookmark name field text. My example demonstrates this in the Mac Safari browser, but I believe these scripts would work in other browsers too.

In the screenshot (click on above thumbnail image), the three bullet symbols move/resize the browser window to different locations on the screen. Using the left and right ‘bullet’ scripts in combination, allows me to have two windows displayed side by side, whilst the central script displays a wider window. These are editable as follows;

self.resizeTo(*the window width required*,…). The browser window will resize to the maximum available height.

self.moveTo(*pixel x,y coordinates for the top left corner of the browser window*).

Using the Safari browser, I found I needed to change the order of the resize and move commands for the right of screen move. Left, centre and right scripts are currently as follows;

javascript:self.moveTo(0,0);self.resizeTo(800,screen.availHeight);

javascript:self.moveTo(350,0);self.resizeTo(1000,screen.availHeight);

javascript:self.resizeTo(800,screen.availHeight);self.moveTo(800,0);

Other, occasionally useful scripts were added to highlight specific text on a web page, zap images (remove all images from a page), zap plug-ins (remove all embedded content) and create a Tiny URL (to subsequently link back to the current page).
In Safari, you can use the Edit menu> Special Characters to assign symbols to represent the Java Script bookmarklets.

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Certainly from Painter 6 onwards (maybe in earlier versions too), there has been an option to randomly move the paper grain texture with each brush stroke made.

Randomizing the brush stroke grain can yield some interesting and useful textures in combination with a suitable variant and a paper with a medium to high level of contrast.

The above option can be activated for any grainy variant by checking the Random Brush Stroke Grain check box in the Random section of the Brush Controls.

My demo image shows brush strokes using the same paper grain/settings without and with the Random Brush Stroke Grain option checked. I have used the Etched paper from the Relief Textures library (which I believe came from the Painter IX Extras> Paper Textures folder), in conjunction with the HTex Random BS Grain custom variant.

The above variant, which can be used in Painter 7 and above, incorporates the checked Random Brush Stroke Grain option and is available by clicking the following link;

randomBSG.zip (4 KB)

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If you have not attempted masking in Painter, here there is a demo movie tutorial on this lynda.com page…click on the Layer Masks link in the Getting Started section.

As an aid to editing the Layer mask, I have put together a script library containing macro scripts to set the main and additional colors in the Colors palette to black and white, or white and black respectively.

The macro scripts may be run via a custom palette as shown. Once the main and additional colors have been set using one of the scripts, the artist then has a choice of swapping the main/additional color via the respective custom palette script icon, using the Shift + X or Shift + S (depending on your Painter version) keystroke shortcut combination, or clicking the Color Swap icon in the bottom left of the Colors palette, or the same icon in the Tools palette. Wow! I count five alternative options to swap the main and additional colors in Painter IX.

The above scripts are now available for download, with full instructions included in the download folder;

black_white_pc.zip (12 kb) for PC platform.

black_white_mac.dmg.gz (8 kb) for Mac platform.

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I’ve just been dabbling with the Auto-Painting palette in Painter IX.5. After a little experimenting, I came up with some potentially useful auto-painted cross hatching and other textures in conjunction with the default Nervous Pen variant at 0% brush size (set in the Auto-Painting palette).

For the pencil-like hatching/cross-hatching, I unchecked the Randomness- Rotation check box, allowing me to adjust stroke angle manually via. the Auto-Painting palette’s Rotation slider.

The main down side for me, is the lightning fast speed at which the individual strokes accumulate (especially within the confines of small selections), and there is currently no method of slowing down the speed. I found the best approach was to use a mouse to actuate the Auto-Painting Play button, and click the button again to terminate the rendering. Check it out for yourself, and experiment with different variants and Auto-Painting stroke types/settings.

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