Painting with pure water in P7

[Jo Ann Snover]

I spent some time yesterday trying to create a watercolor variant brush
that would make a nice pure water brush - something to add no color, but
dilute and move around the color already on a layer.

I have read John Derry's PDF file on the water color brushes which Jinny
kindly posted (and its examples are useful, versus those in the P7
manual which are not), but I'm still not able to get what I'm looking
for.

The main problem I have is avoiding hard edges on the strokes while
getting a nice wet color blending in the middle. I want to be able to
paint multiple strokes across an area and have the whole thing blend
smoothly without creating the clearly visible edges (sometimes it's nice
to have the edge of the puddle look, but...)

I'm hoping that someone else might have other insights on this (or
perhaps John Derry will take pity on us and explain whether what I'm
trying to do is possible with P7, and if so how) :-)

I started with the Wash Camel variant and made changes. I used pure
white as the color (varied the opacity on that which affected how the
middle of the stroke looked, but not the edges.). I've listed the xml
below for the details, but a couple of notes about why I did things.

-Turned Grain soak in and Cap Factor to 0 - I didn't want to confuse
grain effects with the effects of the water on paint I was playing with

-If diffusion gets too high - above 70 or 75%, it appears that you get
"fuzzier" effects in the middle of the stroke rather than just diffusing
further

-I first started out with Wetness at 1000, but found that high wetness
increased the hard edge when I had a low Evap Thresh (5%). When I
dropped wetness to lower numbers and boosted Evap Thresh to 85% or so,
then the edges get softer. This was counter intuitive - I thought I
wanted more wetness and just to move it out further and more gradually.

-On a blank canvas and with no other paint on the water color layer,
changing the pickup value from 0% to 100% produces a very different
result - you get a lighter, smoother-edged and slighly larger result
with higher pickup values. Clearly pickup does something other than
picking up dye from another stroke you're painting over.

-Likewise with Accurate diffusion on vs. off, I found that my final
stroke was about twice as big and much lighter with accurate diffusion
off. I thought it just changed the quality of the diffusion within a
given area (better results with it on).

-The xml reveals a parameter wet-fringe="0.432" which I don't see in the
UI any more. I tried changing the value in a text editor (to .9 and .1)
but didn't see if or how this made a difference.

The brush:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!-- Painter 7.0 Brush Definition -->
<painter-brush-definition>
<format-control-parameters
version-number="7"
variant-name="Quick Dry Brush">
</format-control-parameters>
<brush-type-parameters
dab-type="WaterColorCamelHair"
dab-flags="NewFormat|SaveRestoreDamping|SaveRestoreMouseParams"
brush-source="Color"
stroke-type="Single"
pen-type="GrainWetSubtractive"
liquid-ink-type="InkPlusColor"
behavior-flags="Grain|BleedInvert"
pen-control-flags="">
</brush-type-parameters>
<physical-brush-parameters
radius="36.75"
min-radius-fraction="0.4"
radius-log="1.05"
base-angle="89.0"
delta-angle="360.0"
min-angle="19.4"
thinness="1.0"
spread="0.7"
feature-size="3.3"
min-feature-size="1.0"
profile="Cubic"
wet-fringe="0.432"
factor="0.25"
rand-rad="0.5"
speckle-scale="5.0"
scale-size="0.0"
random-size="0.3"
bristle-fraction="0.42"
bristle-random-size="0.7">
</physical-brush-parameters>
<dab-application-parameters
opacity="0.698"
grain="0.0"
z-drawing-type="Pen"
z-drawing-mask="DrawColor"
depth="1.0"
smoothing="1.0"
plow="0.0"
wet="True"
post-diffuse="6"
smoothness="1.42"
volume="1.2"
min-volume="1.0"
random-volume="0.3"
bristle-random-volume="0.6"
wetness="265.8"
pickup="0.152"
dry-rate="0.127"
evaporation-threshold="0.987"
diffusion-amount="0.75"
capillary-factor="0.0"
grain-soak-in="0.0"
diffuse-direction="270.0"
diffuse-direction-amount="0.0"
diffuse-accurate="True">
</dab-application-parameters>
<stroke-path-parameters
advance="0.243"
min-advance="1.0"
direction="0.0"
continuous-time-deposition="False"
flow="400.0"
min-flow="0.0"
jitter="0.0"
damping="0.5"
ncubicintermediates="0"
jitter-strokes="False"
njitter="5"
pressure-radius="False"
contact-angle="0.0"
bristle-scale="0.0"
turn="0.0">
</stroke-path-parameters>
<color-parameters
color-variability-type="HSV"
h-jitter="0.0"
s-jitter="0.0"
v-jitter="0.0"
foreground-color="(0,0,28)"
background-color="(30,141,140)">
</color-parameters>
<cloning-parameters
clone-sample="False"
clone-jitter-amount="0"
clone-jitter-time-threshold="0"
clone-type="NoOffsetClone0"
clone-flags="">
</cloning-parameters>
<well-parameters
resat="1.0"
bleed="0.0"
resat-taper-dist="0.0"
tapering-resat="False">
</well-parameters>
<realtime-expression-parameters
radius-animator="Pressure"
angle-animator="Bearing"
feature-size-animator="None"
flow-animator="None"
jitter-animator="None"
opacity-animator="Pressure"
grain-animator="Pressure"
graduation-animator="None"
bleed-animator="Pressure"
resat-animator="Pressure"
depth-animator="None"
rank1-animator="None"
rank2-animator="None"
rank3-animator="None"
volume-animator="None"
mouse-pressure="1.0"
mouse-tilt="0.0"
mouse-bearing="0.0"
mouse-wheel="1.0">
</realtime-expression-parameters>
<plugin-parameters
pf-identifier=""
pf-res-type=" "

pf-private-data="0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
identifier=""
res-type=" "

private-data="0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000">
</plugin-parameters>
<interface-customization-parameters
brush-control-flags=""
brush-control-flags2="">
</interface-customization-parameters>
</painter-brush-definition>

[ron cavedaschi]

Just a thought doesn't the old 'just add water' brush from the 5.5 brushes
set ( might need to dry water colours first) do what you want?

"Jo Ann Snover" <jo.s...@gte.net> wrote in message
news:3B9285EA...@gte.net...

[Jinny Brown]

Ron,

The problem with using Just Add Water (still available in Painter 7) is
that it smooths out any texture in the Water Color brush strokes. Since
that's one of the features of Painter 7 brushes.. that they interact
with the Paper.. and are also "bristly" and "textured" on their own..
one might as well paint with dry brushes to begin with... or so it would
seem at this point when we're still so new at learning Painter 7
brushes.

To understand the Painter 7 Water Color brushes better, see the
information from John Derry, Corel Painter 7 Developer at:

http://www.pixelalley.com/tutorials/jderry-guide-pdf-downloads.html

You'll see a link to John Derry's "A Visual Guide to Corel Painter 7™
Water Color" with a message from him that gives additional explanations,
and is well worth reading, just below it on a green background.

Jinny Brown
http://www.pixelalley.com
_________________________

[Jo Ann Snover]

ron cavedaschi wrote:
>
> Just a thought doesn't the old 'just add water' brush from the 5.5 brushes
> set ( might need to dry water colours first) do what you want?

As you noted, it doesn't work on the water color layers, only on regular
layers. I want to be able to do this with wet paint - if I can. If I
can't, perhaps I'll resort to that.

Jo Ann

[ron cavedaschi]

These Painter 7 water colour brushes sound cool. Is it time to buy yet or
wait for the first round of fixes?

Ron C

"Jo Ann Snover" <jo.s...@gte.net> wrote in message

news:3B95562E...@gte.net...