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Brush Properties

For each brush, Mari specifies several properties that you can view and change.

To view the properties of a brush, select a painting tool such as Paint, Blur, Vector Paint, Paint Through, Gradient, and Clone Stamp, then select a brush in the Shelf palette, and open the Tool Properties palette. The following properties display.

Property

Explanation

Example

Brush Settings

Noise

How much noise to add to each splat, to soften the appearance and reduce banding. Lower values give a harder brush, higher values a softer brush. (You can also add noise to the brush tip itself - under the Noise section below.)

Range: 0.00 to 100.00, Reset: 0

 

Spacing

The space between splats, as a proportion of the width of a splat. 1.00 = side-by-side (so if the tip is a circle, it would look like a string of beads.) .02 = .02 x the width of a splat.

Range: 0.02 to 5.00, Reset: 0.02

A stroke from the same brush with spacing set to .02, .25, .50, and 1.0:

Paint

Opacity

How dark a stroke can be (maximum alpha).

Range: 0.01 to 1.00, Reset: 1.00

A stroke from the same brush with opacity set to 1.00 and 0.50 with no jitter, and 1.00 with maximum jitter:

Flow

Mimics how quickly paint is applied, by setting the maximum opacity in a splat.

Range: 0.01 to 1.00, Reset: 1.00

A completely hard brush tip, full opacity, with spacing of 0.15 and flow at 1.00 and 0.30:

Jitter Opacity

Whether to randomly vary the opacity (to the degree specified in Jitter Opacity Max).

 

Jitter Opacity Max

How much to randomly vary the opacity (if JitterOpacity is enabled).

Range: 0.00 to 1.00, Reset: 0.00

 

Position

Jitter Position

Whether to randomly vary displacement from the line of the brush stroke (to the degree specified in Jitter Position Max).

 

Jitter Position Max

How many pixels at most to randomly vary displacement from the line of the brush stroke (if JitterPosition is enabled).

Range: 0 to 1000, Reset: 20

 

Pressure

Whether pressure on the graphics tablet affects properties of a splat (as calibrated for your tablet)

Colors

Whether more pressure increases the color strength.

 

Radius

Whether more pressure increases the radius.

 

Flow

Whether more pressure increases the flow.

 

Opacity

Whether more pressure increases the opacity.

 

Radius

Radius

How many pixels at most the radius of splat can be (if JitterRadius and/or RadiusPressure are enabled).

Range: 1 to 1200, Reset: 100

A stroke with and without radius jitter, where the jitter is equal to the whole radius of the brush:

Squish

How much to flatten the radius. If the brush tip is a circle, 1.0 is a circle, .5 is an oval half as tall as it is wide.

Range: 0.05 to 1.00, Reset: 1.00

Jitter Radius

Whether to randomly vary the radius (to the degree specified for the Radius and InnerRadius).

Inner Radius

How few pixels the radius of a splat can be (if JitterRadius and/or Radius Pressure are enabled).

Range: 1 to 1200, Reset: 1

Rotation

Rotation

The degree to which the brush rotates to match the direction you're painting (if Align to Stroke is enabled).

Range: 0.00 to 360.00, Reset: 0.00

 

Align to Stroke

Whether the brush tip rotates along with the direction you're painting. (With calligraphy, for example, the tip does not align.)

 

Jitter Rotation

Whether to randomly vary the rotation.

 

Jitter Rotation Max

How many degrees at most to randomly vary the rotation (if Jitter Rotation is enabled).

Range: 1 to 360, Reset: 360

 

Steady Stroke

Mode

Whether to use the Off, Distance, or Smoothing mode.

Reset: Distance

 

Delay

Defines how much delay is used for the brush stroke.

In Distance mode, the Delay uses the specified amount of screen pixels, keeping a fixed distance, to define the brush stroke.

In Smoothing mode, the Delay uses the moving average of the cursor movement to define the brush stroke.

Note:  When you move the mouse very fast, Mari gets fewer samples, so the delay looks longer.

Range: 0 to 200. Reset: 0.00

 

Tail

Whether to use the No Tail or Meet options for the finishing strokes.

Meet - The brush stroke catches up to the cursor's position when releasing the mouse or pen.

No Tail - The brush stroke stops as soon as the mouse or pen is released, with no catch-up.

Reset: No Tail

 

Tilt

Y Stretch Stretches the brush splat vertically (Y direction) based on tablet pen tilt.  
X Stretch Stretches the brush splat horizontally (X direction) based on tablet pen tilt.  
Brush Tip

Bitmap

Use Painting

Click to use the painting in the paint buffer as a brush tip. Mari prompts you to save it either as an .exr or a .tif file (which file format is used depends on the support in your graphics card).

Note:  EXR files are 16-bit - most other bitmaps are 8-bit.

 

Path

Type the path or click the button to select an existing bitmap to use as the brush tip.

 

Type

To use an image as the brush tip, you need to set Type to Bitmap.

 

Geometry

Vertical Shear

How much to distort the brush tip diagonally, top to bottom (as if pulling opposite corners up and down).

Range: -1.00 to 1.00, Reset: 0.00

 

Horizontal Shear

How much to distort the brush tip diagonally, right to left (as if pulling opposite corners right and left).

Range: -1.00 to 1.00, Reset: 0.00

 

Vertical Scale

How much to distort the brush tip vertically.

Range: 0.00 to 2.00, Reset: to .50

 

Horizontal Scale

How much to distort the brush tip horizontally.

Range: 0.00 to 2.00, Reset: to .50

 

Noise

Octaves

Number of applications of noise.

Range: 1 to 8, Reset: 4

The same brush with the default and maximum noise:

Frequency

How many spikes per octave.

Range: 0.00 to 100.00, reset to 1.00

Scale

How big the spikes are, as a proportion of the radius (1.00 = twice as big as the radius).

Range: 0.00 to 1.00, Reset: 0.00

Segments

Lines making up the brush outline, to which noise is applied (4=square, 360=circle).

Range: 4 to 360, Reset: 360

Profile

 

Profile

For rendered brushes (see Brush Properties above), alpha profile of the brush tip from center to edge - determines how “hard” or “soft” it is.

In the Curve Editor, to move values along a curve, you can drag any of the points on the curve in any direction, and see the effects in the preview bar below the curve.

Click to add a new point, and right-click to invert, select presets, and export and import settings. To remove a point, click on it while holding Ctrl/Cmd.

Hard and soft brush tip profiles:

Bit Depth

Byte (8-bit), Half (16-bit), or Float (32-bit) It is generally a good idea to use a brush with the same bit depth as the texture you're painting, to avoid stepping. Note that if you use an 8-bit bitmap, it still paints in 8-bit even if you set the bit depth to Half.

 
Resolution
Height Pixels Set the height resolution of the brush tip.  
Width Pixels Set the width resolution of the brush tip.  

Scratch pad - shows a squiggle painted with the selected brush. You can also paint directly in the scratch pad (the default squiggle disappears while you enter a stroke).

Note:  The texture properties vary from one painting tool to the other and some tools do not have texture properties. Only the tools containing texture properties are listed below.

Property

Explanation

Example

Texture

Blur Tool

Blur

Specifies the blur value.

 

Paint Through Tool

Description

Displays the tool function.

 

Name

Displays the tool name.

 

Image

Filename

Sets the filepath of the image file to project as a texture.

 

Info

Description

Displays the colorspace information of the image used to project as a texture.

 

Height

Displays the image height.

 

Width

Displays the image width.

 

Preview

Preview Alpha

Specifies the transparency of the image previewed over the canvas.

Range: 0.10 to 1.00

Image

Displays a preview of the image.

 

Transform

Image Scale

Sets the scale of the image on the x and y axes. This scales the image relative to the image's size.
The button locks the current Image Scale values so that any changes to scale are applied proportionately to both axes.

 

Pan Lock

Locks the image position relative to the model. If you pan the model, the image that you're painting through pans too.

 

Scale Lock

Locks the image size relative to the model. If you zoom the model in or out, the image that you're painting through zooms in or out too.

 

Reset Size

Resets to:

ToOriginalSize

RelativeToPaintBuffer

 

Auto Reset

Sets the Auto Reset option to:

Reset

DoNotReset

 

Reset

Resets any transformations applied to the image using the Image Scale, Rotation, Scale or Translation options.

This Reset option is dependent on what you set in the Reset Size and Auto Reset options.

 

Rotation

Sets the rotation of the image used by the Paint Through tool.

 

Scale

Sets the scale of the image on the x and y axes. This scales the image relative to the canvas size.

 

Translation

Sets the translated xy position of the image used by the Paint Through tool.

 

Gradient Tool

Type

Selects between Linear or Radial gradient.

 

Out Point

Specifies how far through the gradient the final color reaches.

0.00 to 1.00, higher values imply the end color is reached later.

In Point

Specifies how far through the gradient the start color lasts for (before it starts graduating into the end color).

0.00 to 1.00, higher values imply the start color finishes later.

End

Sets the final color for the gradient (color that the gradient ends up as).

 

Start

Sets the first color for the gradient (color the gradient starts out as).

 

Preview

 

 

Preview Alpha

Selects the alpha value displayed by the preview of the gradient floating over the main canvas.

Range: 0.10 to 1.00

Image

Displays a preview version of the gradient.

 

Transform

 

 

Pan Lock

Locks the image position relative to the model. If you pan the model, the gradient that you're painting pans too.

 

Scale Lock

Locks the image size relative to the model. If you zoom the model in or out, the gradient that you're painting zooms in or out too.

 

Reset Size

Resets to:

ToOriginalSize

RelativeToPaintBuffer

 

Auto Reset

Sets the Auto Reset option to:

Reset

DoNotReset

 

Reset

Resets any transformations applied to the image using the Image Scale, Rotation, Scale or Translation options.

This Reset option is dependent on what you set in the Reset Size and Auto Reset options.

 

Rotation

Sets the rotation of the image used by the Gradient tool's preview.

 

Scale

Sets the scale of the image used by the Gradient tool's preview.

 

Translation

Sets the translated xy position of the image used by the Gradient tool's preview.

 

Clone Stamp

Description

Displays the tool function.

 

Name

Displays the tool name.

 

Image

 

 

Relative

When enabled, clones from an offset point relative to the source point.

When disabled, clones from the source point position.

 

Clone From

Sets values (0 to 1) to clone from the image on the x and y axes.
The button locks the current Clone From values so that any changes to Clone From are applied proportionately to both axes.

 

Filename

Sets the filepath of the image file used for clone stamping.

 

Info

 

 

Description

Displays the bit depth and the image channels of the image used for clone stamping.

 

Height

Displays the image height.

 

Width

Displays the image width.

 

Preview

 

 

Onscreen Preview

When enabled, displays the image on the canvas.

 

Preview Alpha

Specifies the level of transparency of the image preview displayed over the canvas.

Range: 0.100 to 1.000

Image

Displays a preview of the image used for clone stamping.

 

Transform

 

 

Image Scale

Sets the scale of the image on the x and y axes. This scales the image relative to the image's size.

The button locks the current Image Scale values so that any changes to scale are applied proportionately to both axes.

 

Pan Lock

Locks the image position relative to the model. If you pan the model, the image that you're painting pans too.

 

Scale Lock

Locks the image size relative to the model. If you zoom the model in or out, the image that you're painting zooms in or out too.

 

Reset Size

Resets to:

ToOriginalSize

RelativeToPaintBuffer

 

Auto Reset

Sets the Auto Reset option to:

Reset

DoNotReset

 

Reset

Resets any transformations applied to the image using the Image Scale, Rotation, Scale or Translation options.

This Reset option is dependent on what you set in the Reset Size and Auto Reset options.

 

Rotation

Sets the rotation of the image used by the Clone Stamp tool's preview.

 

Scale

Sets the scale of the image on the x and y axes. This scales the image relative to the canvas size.

 

Translation

Sets the translated xy position of the image used by the Clone Stamp tool's preview.

 

Scratch pad - shows a squiggle painted with the selected brush. You can also paint directly in the scratch pad (the default squiggle disappears while you enter a stroke).