No straight lines required

[athena]

no straight lines required

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] ok the plan was and still is, to do a martian landscape. Or maybe some other cool planet. But before I start figuring out the colors and other details, I thought I'd start with a sketch for our Martian Lanscape.

One of the most fantastic things about drawing things in sceneries, is that for the most, part, natural things tend to not have many straight edges. . . of course there are always exceptions . . . [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

so this whole topic is geared to the people who have convinced themselves that they "can't draw" because they "can't even draw a straight line". [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] no excuses. . .we're doing squiggles here.

http://home.houston.rr.com/athenaswo...squiggles1.gif

now it didn't take long for me to run into a wee dilemma. After placing some major objects on our landscape in black and white, I knew that I was going to want to add color. I suspected that Painter Layers would be necessary to add the color (in my imagination this would be much the same way a cell animator draws the outline then adds the black and colored pigments on other layers).

But i wanted to do cool things like you do with pencil on paper -- like smudge the outline to help me create the illusion of depth by using the smudges to create shadows.

So far in MY painter explorations, the layers work for smudging as I want them to when i choose a white background for the canvas and the layer itself.

To use the smudge tool on a colored layer . . . seemed to invite disaster (like introducing a white smudge where my intent had been to smudge a black line that i had drawn on an orange background. . . .) so *sigh* i just work on white canvas and layer til i figure out the subtle nuances of these layers and compositing schemes.

Now before I go too much farther, let me clarify. Since rebuilding my PC I went to Corel and downloaded the latest version of Painter 6 patch which is actually 6.1 d62 (goto help, about painter to see if you have this version).

LOL! (laugh out loud) I had been waiting and waiting for the report on when the 6.1 patch was bug free . . . then i promptly forgot to get the upgrade. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

And truthfully, I can't remember if the non upgraded version of painter 6 had this special feature where it gives you a little yellow yield sign with an exclamation point on your layers control panel.

http://home.houston.rr.com/athenaswo...llowyield1.gif

I find this very helpful now that I am twiddling with layers and trying to make sense of the compositing rules of painter. If in fact, this is a new feature in Painter 6.1 d62. (you don't know how silly I'll feel if someone tells me that the yield sign has been there since the 6.0 version) The yield sign tells you that the brush you may have chosen for the layer and combine mode may not give the results you expect. You do have to click on the little yellow yield sign to get the info but it can be helpful.

Now as it turns out, the smudge brush in painter 6 is one of those persnickety brushes that does odd things on compositing methods other than default. *sigh* ok

So here was my new dilemma.

I had started out on a white canvas. when I selected the canvas and duplicated it to make a new layer, the new layer also was white, not transparent.

Ok so maybe I should have started a new layer as soon as I created the document. But I hadn't so. . . what to do? what to do?

How do I make what used to be a white layer, with black pencil marks look like it was actually a transparent layer? How do I make it seem as if they were on layers of cellophane? So far, given the finite amt. of time I've put into this, the answer is use

<ul> compositing methods that seem to help when you want to work on layers that started off white that are meant to be mostly transparent[*]Darken[*]Multiply[*]Gel[/list]

Is this the most efficient solution? probably not.
But it does allow you to recover if you, like me, did not instantly make a new layer and start drawing on the new layer. If I had drawn on the new layer instead of drawing on the white canvas, then I probably would not have to use Darken, Multiply, or Gel compositing methods on the layers to give me that clear cellophane layer effect I wanted.

Is this all I'm going to talk about? yes for this installment. I need to duplicate my starting scene on paper so I can let my imagination roam. . .the image is missing some stuff on the right . . . (oh yes .. and colors .. I have to add colors [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ) I don't know about y'all but i'm not very creative at the computer.

I like to work on my writing and sketching on paper first [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] . . . it's just what I'm most comfortable with doing. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] . But I also like to practice starting from scratch on the computer just to see how well I can do . . .I can always duplicate most of the strokes on to paper and vice versa.


Have the happiest of Holidays!! and spoil yourselves this holiday season [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

edit: changed from ubb brackets to html brackets on un ordered list


Athena
Our thoughts are bounded by words. The quality of those thoughts is largely determined by the words that compose them.

[This message was edited by T. Athena Hatton on December 23, 2001 at 17:56.]

[athena]

no straight lines required

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] ok the plan was and still is, to do a martian landscape. Or maybe some other cool planet. But before I start figuring out the colors and other details, I thought I'd start with a sketch for our Martian Lanscape.

One of the most fantastic things about drawing things in sceneries, is that for the most, part, natural things tend to not have many straight edges. . . of course there are always exceptions . . . [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

so this whole topic is geared to the people who have convinced themselves that they "can't draw" because they "can't even draw a straight line". [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] no excuses. . .we're doing squiggles here.

http://home.houston.rr.com/athenaswo...squiggles1.gif

now it didn't take long for me to run into a wee dilemma. After placing some major objects on our landscape in black and white, I knew that I was going to want to add color. I suspected that Painter Layers would be necessary to add the color (in my imagination this would be much the same way a cell animator draws the outline then adds the black and colored pigments on other layers).

But i wanted to do cool things like you do with pencil on paper -- like smudge the outline to help me create the illusion of depth by using the smudges to create shadows.

So far in MY painter explorations, the layers work for smudging as I want them to when i choose a white background for the canvas and the layer itself.

To use the smudge tool on a colored layer . . . seemed to invite disaster (like introducing a white smudge where my intent had been to smudge a black line that i had drawn on an orange background. . . .) so *sigh* i just work on white canvas and layer til i figure out the subtle nuances of these layers and compositing schemes.

Now before I go too much farther, let me clarify. Since rebuilding my PC I went to Corel and downloaded the latest version of Painter 6 patch which is actually 6.1 d62 (goto help, about painter to see if you have this version).

LOL! (laugh out loud) I had been waiting and waiting for the report on when the 6.1 patch was bug free . . . then i promptly forgot to get the upgrade. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

And truthfully, I can't remember if the non upgraded version of painter 6 had this special feature where it gives you a little yellow yield sign with an exclamation point on your layers control panel.

http://home.houston.rr.com/athenaswo...llowyield1.gif

I find this very helpful now that I am twiddling with layers and trying to make sense of the compositing rules of painter. If in fact, this is a new feature in Painter 6.1 d62. (you don't know how silly I'll feel if someone tells me that the yield sign has been there since the 6.0 version) The yield sign tells you that the brush you may have chosen for the layer and combine mode may not give the results you expect. You do have to click on the little yellow yield sign to get the info but it can be helpful.

Now as it turns out, the smudge brush in painter 6 is one of those persnickety brushes that does odd things on compositing methods other than default. *sigh* ok

So here was my new dilemma.

I had started out on a white canvas. when I selected the canvas and duplicated it to make a new layer, the new layer also was white, not transparent.

Ok so maybe I should have started a new layer as soon as I created the document. But I hadn't so. . . what to do? what to do?

How do I make what used to be a white layer, with black pencil marks look like it was actually a transparent layer? How do I make it seem as if they were on layers of cellophane? So far, given the finite amt. of time I've put into this, the answer is use

<ul> compositing methods that seem to help when you want to work on layers that started off white that are meant to be mostly transparent[*]Darken[*]Multiply[*]Gel[/list]

Is this the most efficient solution? probably not.
But it does allow you to recover if you, like me, did not instantly make a new layer and start drawing on the new layer. If I had drawn on the new layer instead of drawing on the white canvas, then I probably would not have to use Darken, Multiply, or Gel compositing methods on the layers to give me that clear cellophane layer effect I wanted.

Is this all I'm going to talk about? yes for this installment. I need to duplicate my starting scene on paper so I can let my imagination roam. . .the image is missing some stuff on the right . . . (oh yes .. and colors .. I have to add colors [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] ) I don't know about y'all but i'm not very creative at the computer.

I like to work on my writing and sketching on paper first [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] . . . it's just what I'm most comfortable with doing. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] . But I also like to practice starting from scratch on the computer just to see how well I can do . . .I can always duplicate most of the strokes on to paper and vice versa.


Have the happiest of Holidays!! and spoil yourselves this holiday season [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

edit: changed from ubb brackets to html brackets on un ordered list


Athena
Our thoughts are bounded by words. The quality of those thoughts is largely determined by the words that compose them.

[This message was edited by T. Athena Hatton on December 23, 2001 at 17:56.]

[Jinny Brown]

Athena,

The recommended Composite Methods for making line art with a white background transparent are Gel or Multiply. Darken has a different effect and may not be such a good choice as you develop the image and have other colors to deal with.

While beginning the drawing on a Layer is fine, if the Smudge (or Just Add Water) Variants are used on that Layer they may still produce white unless the Layer is set to Composite Method Gel or Multiply, or unless the brush is used only over existing paint. The blending brushes pick up color and drag it across the image. The Smudge variant, for instance, may begin by dragging existing black paint onto an unpainted area of the Layer but it gradually decreases in color intensity until it "blends" with the Layer. Where the Layer is transparent, the Smudge variant (or another blending variant) appears to interpret that as white so the dragged black is blended with white and if the stroke continues over unpainted areas of the Layer, it becomes less and less black and more and more white.

One of the characteristics of the blending brushes is that Resat is set to 0% or at a very low percentage. If you paint on a Layer set to Default Composite Method using a blending brush, all or part of the stroke will be white (as described above). If you move the Resat slider to 100% the stroke will be 100% black (or color) and won't function as a blending brush.

To control the degree of blending and the amount of color in the blending brush stroke, go to the Brush Controls palette's Well section and adjust the Resat slider.

To become more familiar with how each of three example blending variants work:

1. Open a large red Canvas.

2. Create a New Layer. This is Layer 1.

3. Set the Primary Color to black.

4. Hold down the Alt/Option key and in the Brushes palette's Variant menu, choose Restore Default Variant, then click the OK button to return all brush variants to their default state. (This will not cause you to lose any custom brush variants that you've saved using Brushes palette > Variant menu > Save Variant, only temporary setting adjustments you may have made.)

5. In the Brushes palette, choose the Brushes Category's Smeary Bristle Spray variant and make a single vertical stroke on Layer 1.

6. In the Brush Controls palette's Well section, note the Resat percentage.

7. Choose the Brushes Category's Smeary Flat variant and make another vertical stroke.

8. In the Brush Controls palette's Well section, note the Resat percentage.

9. Move the Resat slider to 20% and make a third vertical stroke.

10. Compare the three brush strokes.

NOTE: In the following three steps, you're going to paint brush strokes starting first from the upper right edge, next from the middle right edge, and then from the lower right edge of the brush stroke you made in Step 9.

11. Choose the Liquid Category's Smudge variant and paint horizontal strokes, beginning from the upper right edge of the brush stroke made in Step 9, out onto the transparent area of the Layer. Notice that the strokes become more white as they move away from the source of color (the brush stroke made in Step 9).

12. Move the Resat slider to 100% and paint horizontal strokes, beginning from the middle right edge of the brush stroke made in Step 9, out onto the transparent area of the Layer just as you did in Step 11. Notice that the strokes remain black no matter how far they go out onto the transparent area of the Layer.

13. Now move the Resat slider to 50% and repeat the step but now beginning from the lower right edge of the brush stroke you made in Step 9. Notice that the strokes never become white, but they do become less black (down to 50% black) as they move away from the original brush stroke made in Step 9.

http://www.pixelalley.com/painterfor...ush-sample.jpg

Like it or not, we seem to be stuck with the "white problem" unless we apply Composite Method Gel or Multiply to the Layer on which we use blending brush variants. We do have some control, though, over how much white we get.. and possibly at the cost of blending capability (see Step 12, where blending capability is completely eliminated because Resat is set to 100% and the brush paints 100% black).

If anyone has some technical expertise to add to this, feel free. It would be interesting to read a full explanation as to *why* these brushes appear to interpret transparent areas of a Layer set to Default Composite Method as white.

I don't know how else to describe this except in the way I have. Wish I knew (or could remember, if I've ever heard it), the really techie explanation that someone like John Derry would give us. Where are you, John? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Jinny Brown

PixelAlley's Section Links: http://www.pixelalley.com/pixelalley...ons-pages.html
(Painter 5 and 6 tutorials, Painter 7 info, tutorials, PDF downloads, brushes)
Contact: jinbrown@pixelalley.com or,
Painter Forum at In Depth Discussions: http://www.critical-depth.com/cgi-bin/idd/
______________________________________

[athena]

Jinny,

Thank you so much for all that information [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] I'll have to try those ideas.

LOL (laugh out loud)the only reason I can think of for this white smudge anomaly . . .is the way they write the rules for the natural media interaction . . . a part of me argued . . . do I want the program to emulate natural media or do I want the program to break all rules of nature? [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] who knows, maybe they'll come up with a genius solution some day [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

The reason I had wanted to duplicate the first layer was because I had observed that if i smudged a line .. it sometimes smudged the white of the canvas into the line. . . (I don't know if that description makes sense . . . but that's how I saw it ). . . and if I was smudging real carbon on paper, the white of the paper would stay stationary and only the carbon on the paper would move . . . if I tried to smudge my stroke. . .

And my use of the tablet isn't that precise so I figured I could smudge the layer above and leave the original outlines intact.

something else I found useful. . but I haven't gotten it distilled into something writeable yet .. was on the layer tab .. you could tell it to pick up the color from underneath .. that seemed to help .. but I don't recall under what circumstances it was working.

I like the demonstration you posted. Thanks again for taking the time to post it [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Merry Christmas, Jin [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Athena
Our thoughts are bounded by words. The quality of those thoughts is largely determined by the words that compose them.

[Jinny Brown]

Athena,

Yes, using a blending brush will drag color from wherever the brush stroke begins. If it begins on the blank Canvas (or if the brush dab covers any part of the blank Canvas) it picks up the blank Canvas color. This principle holds true wherever the brush stroke begins and/or over whatever part of the image it is made.

If you use the Brushes Category's Palette Knife Variant, for instance, and drag it diagonally downward over three equally spaced vertical brush strokes made with three different colors, it can pick up and drag color from whatever part of the Canvas (or Layer) and the three different colored brush strokes over which it is stroked.

In the image shown below, I used the Brushes' Round Camelhair Variant to make the three colored strokes. Then I switched to the Brushes' Palette Knife, changed the brush Size to 202.6, clicked at the top of the blue stroke and dragged down to the right.

http://www.pixelalley.com/painterfor...h-sample02.jpg

Merry Christmas! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Jinny Brown

PixelAlley's Section Links: http://www.pixelalley.com/pixelalley...ons-pages.html
(Painter 5 and 6 tutorials, Painter 7 info, tutorials, PDF downloads, brushes)
Contact: jinbrown@pixelalley.com or,
Painter Forum at In Depth Discussions: http://www.critical-depth.com/cgi-bin/idd/
______________________________________