Why don't presets work in their active form when imported

[Otto Laske]

Hello, I reached a point where I just have to ask for help. It is for me a source of endless frustration that paint presents I import do not work in their active form, and I don't see why not. I checked to see that Alpha is "full off", so that can't be the reason. (I am running Windows 7 Ultimate).  

For instance, when in order to import a preset I go to "CD_hand_drawn media", specifically to the folder "dry-media_charcoal" to import "cd_charcoal_alt02", I would expect this preset to work in FREE STYLE but in its active form it comes up as interactive pen. So I say to myself, "that's too bad that it does not work in free style and then try it in its active form which is interactive pen.

To my utter astonishment, is does not work when set to "interactive pen" either. Now I am really upset because that is its active form! So why would this be the active form of this preset if it does not work, i.e., show up on the canvas? (As said, I have checked that Alpha is off).

So I try to find another Pen Mode in which the imported preset might work, going through the list. (Of course, the preset is now "edited"). I find that "FreeStyleAutoDraw" works but that is not what I want. I also find that Autodraw Interactive works but that is also not what I am looking for. Nor is Bezier curve for which it also works, and Autodraw Multipen.

So this is what I am concluding and invite comments on:

1. In its active form, without any editing, an imported preset may not work.

2. A preset seems to be specific to a particular pen mode but the particular pen mode it works in is not necessarily its active form.

3. What pen mode actually works is not predictable when opening a preset in its active form, and has to be found by trial and error.

I FIND ALL THESE CONCLUSIONS TOTALLY ABSURD.

Can somebody help me out, or am I hallucinating?

 

Otto (Laske)

[Synthetik]

cd_charcoal_alt02 works fine in our testing here. Both when you load it in and use it with interactive pen, or if you edit it and use it with freestyle pen mode. So i don't believe there is an issue associated with presets like this not loading correctly, we'd be inundated with tech support email on the subject if there was a problem like that.


It is possible to setup the studio artist interface so that a paint preset might appear to not be drawing. For example, you could have multiple layers in the layer palette, have your layer view set to view all, and be drawing in a layer that is hidden by another layer later in the layer stack.

Another potential problem would be to have alpha enable for view menu flag turned on. If alpha view is enabled and you don't have the paint synth alpha enable menu flag on, then your drawing would not be occurring into the layer's alpha channel.

The alpha set to menu commands set the current layer's alpha channel to the appropriate thing. And the alpha initialize menu flags determine what a new layers alpha channel is initialized to. Neither turn on or off alpha view. that's the canvas : alpha : enable for view menu flag.


Some paint presets may be pressure sensitive. So you might need a wacom pen for them to draw ideally. Typically they default to 50% pressure modulation if you use the mouse as opposed to the pen.

I have seen a case in the past where someone was drawing with a defective wacom tablet that always output 0 pressure. If you ever do suspect that your wacom tablet is having a problem, you can use the wacom driver utility app to display diagnostic information like the interactive pressure, position, and tilt the pen is sending back to the driver.

[Synthetik]

One thing about windows, if you are using a mouse and you accidentally right click down when you try to draw with the mouse then studio artist isn't going to draw.

[Otto Laske]

John, thank you so much for enumerating all of the interface issues that could prevent a presnt from workingf. I will keep your remarks regarding layers, alpha, and pen within reach. My pen works fine and I did not use layers, so it was the Alpha that needed to be set to on.
I found that enabling alpha view alone made the preset work but, following your remark, added PS Alpha enable.
I don't really understand what the latter adds to the former.
I have done some really nice oil and water color paintings and hope now to replicate these in SA. I am also continuing learning animation techniques.
Best regards to you and thanks for your assistance,
Otto

[Synthetik]

Alpha: Paint Synth Alpha Enable determines whether the paint synthesizer draws into the layer alpha buffer or not. If Alpha : Enable for View is turned off, then it doesn't really matter what it is set to. But if Alpha : Enable for View is turned on, then if Alpha : Paint Synth Alpha Enable is turned off, the paint synthesizer will not be drawing into the alpha channel. So if the layer's alpha channel was initialized to full off, you would not see any drawing taking place. If the layer's alpha channel was full on, then you would see drawing taking place, but you'd also be defeating the purpose of enabling alpha view and working with the alpha channel for masking across multiple layers.

In general, for normal painting in Studio Artist i would leave Alpha : Enable for View turned off. It's easy to get into trouble when it's on, and for most generic painting workflows you really don't need to use it.

[Dennis Miller]

Otto - feel free to call me.
Best,
Dennis