Digital Art Community Forum for Artists & Creators

Username: KingR17
Post Date: 2022-07-27 21:14:05

Hello, I'm new to using Rebelle 5. I enjoy the natural spread and flow of ink as it bleeds into the page, however I've noticed that when using inks, particularly lighter tones (though it does happen on darker tones, it's just less noticable due to the contrast difference), the ink will quickly darken to black when you overlap lines or shade over regions you've already shaded. This becomes an issue especially on more complex projects that need consistent shading across large sections. I don't want to have to switch off of ink to a medium that doesn't darken if I'm already working with ink brushes. I've used plenty of ink pens IRL that don't have this darkening effect. If you add too much ink, it pools, and spreads out more, but the tone doesn't shift to black when coloring with a red pen for example. You can get an even layer of ink to set on a page, particularly with opaque inks. This has been making using the ink pens very inconvenient if I'm trying to get an even tone for a shaded section. The problem is particularly bad when I use the paint and mix setting for the pen, as it will pull a darker and darker color every time I start shading and catch the edge of the band I shaded the pass before. I did an example where I simply shaded lines next to one another with slight overlap using the exact same bright red starting color for every band (photo attached, example is the lower of the two shaded sections). You can see that every band I shaded would pull into a darker and darker ink for every line, even though my base ink was bright red. Compared to the lines overlapping above it, not using mix, you can still see it's a much bigger issue. However even with normal "paint" it's still drastically darkening the overlapping sections if there's even the slightest overlap. I'm curious as none of the other mediums aside from Ink and Marker seem to have this effect, so I'm a bit confused about why it's present, when the medium in reality doesn't have the same physics, nor do the other mediums in the program. Apologies for taking a while to get to my question, but is there a way to bypass this darkening effect while still using "paint & mix" to have a bit of spread and blending when working near other inks? (After further testing while drafting this message, I notice that the only option that seems to fix this issue is enabling color pigments, which is fine, I guess. Though I'd like to know why the base tool works like that as well. I also don't seem to be able to enable pigment mixing by default either, so if that's the only solution, then I'd like to find a way to enable that on all of my projects without me needing to remember to turn it on.) Thank you for your time reading over my questions, any help is appreciated .o/ -KingR17 [img]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/uploads/posts/2022/07/14/2022-07-27_21-07:23_Screenshot (374).png[/img]

Username: Arthu
Post Date: 2022-07-27 23:45:56

made a [url=https://www.escapemotions.com/community/forum/t/18506/ink-brush-hue-and-value-build-up-seems-odd]similar post[/url] a couple of days ago but in rebelle 4. i'm curious what it looks like if you layer several ink strokes in rebelle 5 with pigments turned on. this is what it looks like layering ink in rebelle 4 (left real life comparison, right side Rebelle 4:.[img]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/uploads/posts/2022/07/18894/2022-07-27_23-07:32_ink brush build up comparison.png[/img]

Username: KingR17
Post Date: 2022-07-28 05:08:46

I don't see a comparable default brush with that same dry brush texture, so I can't give you an exact comparison; but using the default "Brush" pen with water set to the minimum, I tried to replicate the strokes in your example. I also included one non-Color Pigment example above of a rough overlapped lines without color pigments, as well as one with shown at the top of the page. If you want a direct comparison, I would need the brush name/info/properties. From what I can tell, using color pigments doesn't appear to build up any excess value beyond the initial tone of the ink, which is a bit more realistic. It's workable, though again, I don't really see a way to enable color pigment by default (though I may just be blind). Knowing my ADHD mind, I'll probably forget to turn it on if I don't have the lever permanently flipped. [img]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/uploads/posts/2022/07/18894/2022-07-28_05-07:16_Normal Vs Color Pigments.png[/img]

Username: Alzbeta Escape Motions
Post Date: 2022-07-28 11:21:13

Hello [USER=98268]@KingR17[/USER] and [USER=41320]@Arthu[/USER], thank you for your questions regarding the Ink tool. Both, Inks and Markers will leave darker tones as more strokes are applied to the same spot. The possibility to reduce it, as you have already mentioned, is to turn on the Pigment mixing in the Layers Panel when painting in Rebelle 5 Pro. We are constantly working on improving each painting tool and will consider your ideas and suggestions for future developments. Best, Alzbeta Escape Motions

Username: Arthu
Post Date: 2022-07-28 16:54:00

Thanks for the reply Alzbeta Escape Motions and for the ink pigments mixing example KingR17. I think what it currently does is filling any transparent pixels that haven't been 100% covered by the previous strokes. Although it's unpractical you can get similar behaviour in rebelle 4 without the pigment mixing feature simply by making a new layer for each additional stroke. The strong darkening without pigments remindes me a bit of sumi-e ink and i can see cases where the current pigment ink mixing behaviour can be usefull but if the goal is the real thing i think inks still need a bit of tweaking, what do you think? [img]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/uploads/posts/2022/07/1/2022-07-28_16-07:05_new layer each stroke.png[/img]

Username: KingR17
Post Date: 2022-07-28 18:46:55

Well, I would point out that even when using things like copics, there's still a limit to the saturation of the ink, and it doesn't exceed the tone of the original ink. It might be able to be built up with layers depending on how thin your layers are, but you can layer strokes next to one another without getting any drastic darkening, and any bleed or ink spread (considering how the water function works in Rebelle) would spread and dissipate, or even out as the paint dries, rather than darkening like a pool of water spreading across the prior inked areas. It would take an extremely diluted almost watercolor level like ink wash to have the tone build up like that as you're working. If people are used to even something as simple as your average ink pen, calligraphy pen, or ballpoint pen, the inks used don't build to black or exceed the tone of the original ink. Going back to something like Copics, you can definitely darken up a tone to get it closer to full ink saturation by waiting for an initial layer to dry then moving on to the next layer, but anything you draw for a significant period of time (during the initial pass before drying) won't have a significant impact on that saturation or pull toward the ink's tone. Even if we pause the drying process in Rebelle, it doesn't prevent instantaneous darkening of color on the brush stroke immediately after your initial pass. That to me is a problem, as most markers and inks I personally have experience with [i]don't[/i] build like the inks in Rebelle are programmed. So a potential solution would be to allow some build and interaction over time, but don't make it instantaneous. Similar to how the watercolors dry over time, still let the ink dry a bit lighter, letting the second pass build up the ink between time periods, but if we pause the drying process, then the ink should have an even application on that layer. The more complicated solution would be to extend the drying time for ink, so it's not as fast drying. While it goes on quickly and doesn't smear as easily, it still normally takes some time to lighten up and sink into the paper, even using copics. That being said, it still shouldn't be able to exceed the tone of the pure ink. (As a side question, [i]is[/i] there a way to permanently turn on Color Pigments @Alzbeta? I haven't found any way to do so yet.)

Username: Arthu
Post Date: 2022-07-29 01:11:26

i don't have rebelle 5 but if i had to guess i'd check 'Edit' -> 'Preferences' maybe under the color tab? if nothing is there i'd try 'Help' -> 'Show Library Folder' then brows to the 'Data' folder and look in the settings.ini if you can find anything related to pigments there.

Username: KingR17
Post Date: 2022-08-01 22:25:35

There are a few entries under "mixbox" which is the name of the pigment mixing's pure code, but I don't see anything about permanently enabling it unfortunately. Even just in the past few days, I've already mistakenly had it off when starting or opening projects, then noticed after a significant amount of work that it was off. I had to either undo and redraw with it turned on, or just re-color those areas to even the ink out (depending on how much I had to undo for each situation). I'm sure I'll remember it eventually, but it would still be nice to just enable it by default somehow.

Username: Vevo
Post Date: 2022-09-05 12:27:09

Hi [USER=98268]@KingR17[/USER], there is no option to turn the Pigment color mixing ON by default, you need to do it manually. We will consider adding such option to Rebelle! The reason why it is not active by default is that it is a quite compute-intensive feature and on older computers this might cause a lot of lag.