Presets Questions

[Philip Savage]

I'm breaking into amending presets and have a couple of questions in the classic collection:

1. How do I make a paint preset less wet?

2. Some paint presets have more edge detail than others, where is the parameter that effects this?

Thanks

[Synthetik]

There are a few different things you can do to make a wet paint preset less wet. Depending on how the wetness if programmed in the paint synthesizer.

Many wet paint presets are using dual fill option for the Fill Algorithm in the Paint Fill Apply control panel. The first fill applies colored paint to the canvas, while the second Alg2 fill algorithm is what creates the wet flow. Cutting down the Alg2 Blend% parameter value will reduce the influence of the second fill algorithm, so that will cut down the wetness.

Switching the Fill Algorithm to Apply will entirely get rid of the second fill option, so the wetness will go entirely away.

Reducing the Alg2 Mix Ratio 2-1 parameter can also reduce the apparent wetness, since reducing it will introduce more of the first Apply fill algorithm, adding more paint color while reducing the amount of the second fill algorithm that is generating the perception of wetness.

Something like a water simulation would use a wet fill algorithm without using any fill apply of color. So those typically won't be dual fill options. By adding some Transparency you could reduce the perceived wetness of the clear liquid.

You can also build a wet paint preset based on using a spatially offset Canvas Image as the Fill From parameter option in the Paint Fill Setup control panel. Any offset for the Fill From input is specified in the Paint Source Offset control panel. So by reducing the Offset Amount in that control panel you could also reduce the apparent wetness of the paint preset.

...

Here's a Studio Artist effects blog post on working with macroedit commands to make a paint preset wet or not wet. This might help you get a feel for how to interact with paint synthesizer settings that introduce perceived wetness in digital paint. There are other effects blog posts that discuss different ways to program wet paint effects.

[Synthetik]

Regarding paint presets and edge detail:

The Path Start control panel in the paint synthesizer controls where paint strokes start painting. The Path End control panel controls where paint strokes prematurely stop painting. So you can use parameters in those control panels to only start paint strokes on source edge areas of the canvas, or stop painting a paint strokes if it moves off of a source image edge area.

The Paint Fill Apply control panel has a Nib Masking control that can be used to tighten up a paint preset (if set to Local Image Range). This auto-masks the individual paint nibs (as opposed to masking the paint paths, which is what the Path Start and Path End control panel settings do).

There are specific Paint Synthesizer Macro Edit commands in the integrated Help browser that can be used to edge focus, color area focus, remove edge focus, or turn paint nib auto-masking on or off.

The 2 blog posts below discuss all of this in much more detail.

Here's a Studio Artist effects blog post on Tightening up a Paint Effect.

Here's a Studio Artist Tips post on Controlling Where Automatic paint Strokes are Drawn.

[Philip Savage]

Thanks for the fast reply - I'll try the changes tomorrow.

[Synthetik]

Here's a Studio Artist News blog article on Abstraction vs Realism in Paintings. It discusses some of the paint synthesizer editing options described above.