Digital Art Community Forum for Artists & Creators

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-10-28 11:35:35

I've been building a brush in Rebelle 7, and have noticed a few things behaving differently when I transfer it to Rebelle 8. One of the easiest-to-pinpoint differences I've found is that [B]if a shape is set to any Alpha Blending mode besides Normal, Overlay, or Exclusion[/B], then Background textures stop applying correctly to the interior of the brush stroke during Blend/Paint and Blend modes. Here is an example with a test brush that has a spotty Background set to Multiply, comparing how it looks with its shape set to Normal vs. Lighten, with Blend mode (horizontal) and Paint and Blend mode (vertical). I also included tests of the regular brush I'm working on, with its third shape set to Normal vs. Subtract (note that its Paint curve in Paint and Blend is set to medium at maximum pressure, which is why the stroke is semi-transparent): [ATTACH type="full"]2212[/ATTACH] As you can see, there are also transparent pixelated artifacts for the test brush's strokes--though I've not observed them with my brush, and am uncertain what caused them. (Incidentally, there's also a single pixel's width of solid black along the bottom, which appeared while I was working on this test sometime during the undoing and remaking of test strokes. It goes away when I turn off Realshader.) Also, this is the test brush I set up for the above example, as well as the regular brush I originally discovered the issue with: [ATTACH type="full"]2213[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full"]2214[/ATTACH]

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-10-31 11:37:36

Thanks for the report and presets! A fix will be included in the next version. [QUOTE="Melampode, post: 30137, member: 123697"] transparent pixelated artifacts for the test brush's strokes--though I've not observed them with my brush, and am uncertain what caused them [/QUOTE] Actually these "artifacts" were places where all worked correctly and they were crucial in diagnosing the issue. They did not appear in the second preset because it uses different background texture parameters so the resulting texture has smaller gaps in it.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-01 04:43:33

Awesome, thank you! Also fascinating to hear that the odd lines were where things worked right, but I'm glad it helped to figure out what was going wrong!

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-14 06:02:56

One aspect of this bug has certainly been fixed, thank you! Unfortunately, there's still something not working quite right when using shapes set to anything other than Normal/Overlay/Exclusion. Here's a visual example, using my custom brush and a simpler brush for a few different comparisons: [ATTACH type="full"]2329[/ATTACH] I increased the size of my custom brush to 60 so the effect would be easier to see, comparing Shape 3 set to Exclusion in the first line, then Subtract in the second, both with the brush on Blend mode. The textured effect in the first line is what I expect to happen, regardless of what Alpha Blending Mode the Shapes are set to while blending. For the third and fourth lines I set the Shape to Exclusion (so it has the intended Blend appearance), to compare how it looks with only Background 1 enabled vs only Background 2. This was to confirm that it's the latter being most affected by the bug (at least in my custom brush), since that brush stroke largely looks the way it should. (Bonus bug: I noticed that, when toggling the Backgrounds on and off, Shape 3 seemed to switch from Exclusion to Normal mode. The same happened when I set it to Overlay. So there also seems to be an error that's resetting those two modes back to Normal, when Backgrounds are toggled. Changing other brush settings did not appear to trigger this reset, and all other Alpha Blending Modes stay as they should.) For a simpler comparison with less going on visually and in settings, I added the default "splats" as a Background to the Round Hard digital pencil brush, set to Multiply (though any mode can show the aliasing effect). Its first line is with the Shape set to Exclusion (for consistency, though Normal/Overlay also work), and the second line set to Subtract. As you can see, the edges of the splats in second line are much more aliased. I also used the simpler brush to compare Paint & Blend mode. This time the top line is set to Exclusion, the second to Difference (though many modes work similarly), and the third to Subtract. I think the light-and-dark effect from Subtract seems to be behaving as it should (compared to Rebelle 7), but Paint & Blend suffers from the same aliasing effect that Blend mode does. Here's my (updated) custom brush, and the Round Hard brush with the Background added, for convenience: [ATTACH type="full"]2330[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full"]2331[/ATTACH]

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-17 04:51:45

[USER=2990]@Pavol Escape Motions[/USER] I was replying to [URL='https://www.escapemotions.com/community/forum/t/44709/oils-paint-and-mix-can-paint-and-mix-with-all-curves-set-to-0/']Cheriekitten's thread[/URL] about Paint & Mix issues, and in the process of explaining this bug, something occurred to me. In my previous reply, I hadn't been entirely sure whether one singular issue could be causing the differences for [I]both[/I] my custom brush and the test brush. But if it's that [B]most Shape modes are making areas of semi-transparency/alpha channels of the Backgrounds not be processed correctly[/B], causing them to fill in more opaque/solid than they should be...that could cause both the aliasing on the test brush, [I]and[/I] the relatively "filled in" look of my custom brush (between the first and second example brush strokes above). So I tested setting my custom brush to size 60 with spacing increased to 50 (for visibility), changing all the brush Shapes to regular round ones, making the Grains solid white, and turning off Background 1, Dual Brush, and Random Offset for Background 2 (to limit other influences on the texture). [S]Though I did forget to decrease Angle Jitter.[/S] The first two Shapes indeed worked normally, with Background 2 applying its texture fully. Then the third Shape splat appeared entirely opaque, without any apparent influence from the Background. Then I changed Shape 3 to Exclusion mode, and got a normal, fully-textured Blend brush stroke. This also made it easier to see that Background 2 does, indeed, have a very slight amount of transparent color applied between the more opaque parts of the texture. It took a bit more testing, but I eventually realized it was the Depth curve being half a box below maximum that was causing the very slight transparency (and not a matter of brightness/contrast, etc.). Once I maximized the Depth curve for Background 2, I was able to get the same pixelation on Shape 3 that I got from the test brush in the bottom few brush strokes: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Rebelle 8 color pull example - ShBg bug.png"]2345[/ATTACH]

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-11-20 08:56:07

[QUOTE="Melampode, post: 30357, member: 123697"] Bonus bug: I noticed that, when toggling the Backgrounds on and off, Shape 3 seemed to switch from Exclusion to Normal mode [/QUOTE] Didn't have time to to properly investigate the other issues but it turns out that Exclusion mode was not working at all, you could select it in the UI but Normal mode would be used instead.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-20 11:59:06

Oh, you meant [I]imminently![/I] XD I just went to re-open Rebelle 8 to test something else, and saw the 8.1.4 update popup. No worries on not being able to get to any of the other fiddly things I found before the update, I figure they'll take some digging and wrangling to get sorted. But it's cool you were able to get that little error fixed, thank you!

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-12-04 13:03:14

A little update, I believe I've fixed this issue: [QUOTE="Melampode, post: 30416, member: 123697"] [IMG alt="Rebelle 8 color pull example - ShBg bug.png"]https://escapemotions1.b-cdn.net/xenforo2/data//attachments/2/2352-448aa3ab279956b7dbf68b11bfe99eb2.jpg[/IMG] [/QUOTE] It will be included in the next update, which will hopefully come out later this month.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-12-04 15:10:01

Thank you so much for helping sort out all the odd little bugs I've run across! After the next update, and checking whether any adjustments need to be made to my colored pencil brush for R8, I think I'll be ready to share it. (Unless I get caught up again in more little tweaks that occur to me, haha. I keep realizing this or that setting can give small improvements, like for the texture it creates on maximum pressure.) Also, bonus thanks for the broad timeframe on when you expect to have the update ready! Take as long as you need, of course, but I appreciate having a general idea of when it might be.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-12-14 16:05:08

I can confirm this is fixed in version 8.2, thank you! As an aside, I did notice that my custom brush had its third shape set to Difference instead of Subtract, [I]without[/I] having "Reset Brush Changes" active, which I suspect may have been a consequence of this fix? (I also just double-checked by copying the brush from R7 to R8 via Copy/Paste Brush Preset, and confirmed that what should've been Subtract was instead set to Difference.) So this may be a general note that, if anyone else has made a custom brush using an Alpha Blending Mode other than Normal--particularly Subtract, maybe also other things, and/or if it's been copied from R7 to R8--to double-check whether they may have changed.

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-12-15 09:49:21

[QUOTE="Melampode, post: 31020, member: 123697"] my custom brush had its third shape set to Difference instead of Subtract [/QUOTE] Seems like this has happened in 8.1.4 where I fixed the issue with Exclusion mode which could not be properly selected. Now I see that prior to this version Subtract mode was incorrectly stored as Difference in brush presets...

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-12-15 14:50:35

It looks like a number of them may have some incorrect storing, even still? (Though I will admit I did not double-check with a clean install of 8.2, to ensure this isn't a holdover from 8.1.4.) I just tested copying a default brush from R7 to R8 (Digital pencil Round Hard), changing the Shape Alpha Blending mode to see if any others were behaving oddly. It looks like a couple of them are (or were) linked to Normal mode, and that resulted in an offset of others after them. Normal, Darken, Multiply, Color Burn, Linear Burn, and Lighten transfer fine. The following modes switch from one to the other, when copied from R7 to R8: Color Dodge -> Normal Linear Dodge -> Color Dodge Overlay -> Normal Hard Light -> Overlay Vivid Light -> Normal Linear Light -> Hard Light Pin Light -> Vivid Light Hard Mix -> Linear Light Difference -> Hard Mix Exclusion -> Normal Subtract -> Difference Unless this is a matter of something more like things behaving normally within R7, and becoming bugged when transferred to R8 because of the incorrect storing now being corrected...which, actually, it might be. I didn't do as thorough a test, but copying the same brush from R6 to R7 and R8, the couple of Alpha Blending Modes I tried changed in weird ways in R7, but were correct in R8. ...In so doing, I also realized that Screen and Soft Light are present in R6, but not in R7 or R8. Were they removed deliberately? If not, I could see that being (part of) why/when things have gone weird. Screen was just before Color Dodge, and that's where the offset starts.

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-12-15 15:48:30

Oh wow, you are right! They were removed but sadly the only message I've left with the change provides no reason for it. My only guess is that they were too similar to other modes. I've checked all modes in R8.2.0 and they are stored correctly now,

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-12-15 17:44:27

Since the shapes only affect each other in a greyscale manner, yeah, I can see how there might be some overlap with the removed modes for Shape Alpha Blending, versus other places where color is involved. (This seems supported by the fact that Background Textures and Dual Brush also lack Screen and Soft Light. Those [I]do[/I] have a few extra modes at the top of their list, but I suppose that might be similar to how Paint and Layer Blending have extra modes at the bottom of their lists, if the options only/primarily make a difference where they're available.) So yeah, it sounds like R7 is the odd one out on Shape Alpha Blending, but it only comes up if brushes that use those modes are copied between different versions of Rebelle. (EDIT: on that note, would you like me to make a thread in the R7 support section for it? That'll also let this thread be firmly tagged as fixed.)

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-12-16 15:08:38

Had another look at this and went through our default presets that make use of Alpha Blending. It looks like the actual mode that was used for painting has luckily remained the same since R6, so for these it is "just" an display error in R7 (and R8 prior to 8.1.4). However couple of these modes are remapped to Normal mode when imported into R7, which naturally will change an appearance of custom brushes. If/ when we make an update for R7 I'll include a fix, you don't have to make a new thread.