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Custom Tools: by Ramón Miranda
Custom Tools: by Ramón Miranda
by Ramón Miranda
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
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© 2009 by Ramón Miranda. This document may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from
the author. Feel free to use this manual for any and all educational applications. I enjoy emails from other
painters and SAI users, so please let me know about you. greets
Inquiries and comments can be directed to mirandagraphic@gmail.com
SAI custom brushes.
My name is Ramon Miranda. Thanks for download this tutorial and files . Enjoy them.
Well, in this first tutorial . I´m going to show you, how can we make custom brushes in a
simple way. We need to understand some basic concepts but they are “easy” if we take
them “one by one “so, what we can see when we open the SAI folder?
Please Look at this screen capture. You will see 3 different colored boxes .We have a
red box, a blue box, and a green box ok? These are the folders and the files that we are
going to use. Easy uh?
Red colored box. These are the folders where SAI stores the textures and
elevationmaps(we´ll see them later) that we use.
Blue colored box. These are the folders where SAI stores all the tools that we create
(pencil, rubber, pen. Brush etc...)
Green colored box. These are the files that we are going to modify to tell SAI where are
the textures,and elemaps that he has to load to use inside the SAI program.
Red colored box. (explanation in depth)
We have 4 folders:Blotmap, Elemap, BrushTex, PaperTex.
Blotmap Here is where we put the images that SAI uses to define the type of blot of
mask (is something like that) that produces the brushstroke .It´s based in
grayscales ( 8bpp) and sizes in 2 exponential. Like 128 ,256, 512 . It´s usefull to
make not rounded brushes.
Elemap here is where we put the images that SAI uses to define the brush tips.
we´ll see more in depth later.
They are just images that have white zones and black zones. They define the
shape of the brush-tip. If we make an elemap with the “star Shape” we get this
when we paint ok?
We will use the binary tool to alter or modify thi type of files because binary it does
not have any type of antialiasing which is exactly what we need. NO antialias.
Brushtex Here is where we put the images that we use to give a textured look to
our brushes. For example.
From 0% to 100%
Papertex. Stores images that simulates diferent surfaces like paper, Canvas,
watercolor paper etc...
If you open the “Toolnrm” folder you will see a few small files.So what can i do with these
tiny files?
Each one of these small files have a lot of information about our tools. For example let
see...Ok, this will be ok. Do you see the file called 00?
if you look to the right you will see his content .a lot of parameters with
numbers.intimidating? (Well, not too much when we understand what these values
means.) But look at the begining, at the 3rd line. Name= Pencil. (the user gives this name
to the tool.) Ok, this name it is the name for a tool. Also we can see the id. id is a number
that tells SAI which too is used to build the tool, in this example the tool is built from
“brush”,we see also de color mode in this case drawmode=2 this means the tool works in
multiply mode . You get the idea? This information is relative to our tools. We are not
going to change manually but of course we can do it. the program save the tools
automatically when we modify some parameter.
The numbers of these files(in this case 00.conf) are referring to their position in the
toolbox. So this tool is the first to appear at the left corner of the tool box grid.It´s a good
idea have a back up of this files if we are going to manipulate them, ok?.
Papertex.conf
It is a text file that stores the paths of image files that we use to simulate diferent paint
surfaces like paper, Canvas, watercolor paper etc...
Brushform.conf
It is a text file that stores the paths of image files that we use to tell SAI.
Brushtex.conf
It is a text file that stores the paths of images files that we use to simulate diferent effects
in the brushstroke. When we are painting.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 1
These are the basic tools. Box selection, lasso, magic wand, move, zoom, rotate the
canvas, hand(panning) and color-dropper.
Here is where we find all our tools. By default there is a simple pack but very usefull to
make manga style.extremely powerfull tools; but if we want to make more classic tools.
Well there we go.
These all are my own tools. Not marvelous but nice with a wide range of painting styles.
So let´s see what we have here .... expand this pannel to see all these tools.
You will love this panel. Simple but efective if you know how to manipulate it. We explain
better later. There are lot of parameters to play with.
GOOD! You can now make your own tools. Let´s make one.
Then ,Double Click in the new tool and we see something like this.
Now we have to set up the parameters and this is the most important thing to do.
Are you ready for lot of fun experimenting stuff? Here we go.
1 Color mode
there are 4 modes. I usually select the “normal” mode or the “multiply” mode for some
texturing tecniques.
2 Edge shape
Determines how much soft or hard is the brush edge, represented by an image.
3 Size
4 Min Size
5 Density.
You know also this parameter as “Opacity”
6 Dens
7 Tex.
8 Color blending
How much color the brush picks up and blends with it´s own.Adjust blending with drawing
and canvas color. Large values means much color blending.
(We need another tutorial to see what this does exactly but experimenting is the key.)
9 Opacity Mix
Matches your brush opacity with the color´s opacity that you are painting on. Also called
Dilution. Opacity gain in painting . Large values means low gain.
(We need another tutorial to see what this does exactly but experimenting is the key.)
10 Color spread
Also called Persistence. Persistence of blended color.Large values means long
persistence.How much the brush will smear a color 0% none -100% until you stop
dragging with your stylus.
(We need another tutorial to see what this does exactly but experimenting is the key.)
Keep opacity: (I don´t know really what this does but... )don´t decay opacity when brush
move to un-painted region.
The ticks of Pressure parameter: “density” “size” and “Clr” determines if this parameter is
controlled by the pressure of the stylus or not.
Ok? that´s all to make basic brushes in Sai. The following are my own that i build to paint
“Mongul the Conqueror” .you can see in the forum. Post link
Here i put the image of mongul the conqueror as example of what we can paint. Finished.
Tool Presets
Drawing or “sketching” tools
This tools are used to sketching or blocking the image. The last one is the eraser. Yes! We
have to erase sometimes , :P
Paint Tools
I like a lot this tools. Quite digital feeling but basic tools if you want to do something with
colours.
Smudge Tools
In one word “FUNNY”. I allways look for this kind of “blendings” like real brush
.;easy,fast,and with no spots in your t-shirt XDDD.The are usefull to blending colors in a
diferent ways. You have to prove each one and choose the most apropiate.
Oils Tools
Well, i spend 8 years painting Traditionally with olils (nowadays i paint with oils too)
They try to imitate that feel.
Like other smudgers you have to see in action to decide wich one is the best for each task.
But they are very intuitive and you´ll catch the point in the second try.
Chalks Tools
Probably one of the most accurate feels of pencil drawing or chalks in a digital world.
Blends very well with the paper and his texture. I use a lot just for fun, and to learn more of
Shading and values. They are great to do “loose Sketches” but they are very good to draw
details too ,so prove them and the forest will thank you..
the 2nd for the end are erasers over black area.
I hope you have enjoyed this brief tutorial. You will find all this tools in the .rar file
included with this help pack. If not ,send me an e-mail to :mirandagraphic@gmail.com