Digital Art Community Forum for Artists & Creators

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-12 22:17:26

At first I wasn't sure whether this was a bug, or a deliberate change in R8. But after a bit more testing, it does strike me as a bug. In Paint & Blend mode, even if the Blend (and Paint) curves are set to 0, brushes still blend colors together. I first noticed it in Pencils, but it also applies to Pastels, Markers, and Airbrushes. For Express Oils, Watercolors, and Inks, it applies to both Paint & Blend, and Paint & Mix (for both Texture and Bristle brushes). This is in contrast to R7, where having both curves at 0 prevents blending. Comparing the relative color pull between R7 and R8, and within R8 itself (by decreasing a flat Blend curve by one box at a time), it looks to me like R8's Paint & Blend color pull stops decreasing at approximately the halfway point of the curve. (Or, at least, the difference becomes relatively negligible, compared to the difference in R7.) For Paint & Mix, it does seem to continue to decrease a little, but still less in R8 than in R7. It's hard to be sure due to transparency/fading, but it appears to me as if the bottom half of the curve decreases less at every other box. (Which is to say, the bottom two boxes seem to have about the same color pull; the 3rd and 4th boxes have more pull than the previous pair, but about the same as each other; etc.) (For Oils and Acrylics, as well as Blend mode across all tools, brushes do also blend with the curves set to 0. But that applies to both R7 and R8, so there seems to be no change there that I can detect.)

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-17 02:19:24

I've set up a few visual examples for easier comparison of the differences of color pull between Rebelle versions. I set the Paint curve to 0, and each brush stroke shows the horizontal Blend (or Mix) curve shifted down from one grid line to the next, starting at the top and ending at the bottom. (Note that I did make a stroke at the very bottom of the R7 examples for thoroughness, though no color pull is visible.) The first set of tests was done with the Round Hard digital pencil, to compare Paint & Blend in R7 versus R8: [ATTACH type="full"]2337[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full"]2338[/ATTACH] (I also did a test of the regular Blend mode. It looks identical between versions, so on its own, it is behaving normally. However, I will note that it seems to have an identical color pull as the R8 Paint & Blend example above.) The second set was with the Liner express oil (to minimize variables), with Paint Pressure Threshold set to 0, Oiliness at 100, and size 50 for visibility, to compare Paint & Mix: [ATTACH type="full"]2339[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full"]2340[/ATTACH] Bear in mind there are a lot more variables involved with oil brushes and Paint and Mix, and I am not personally very experienced with them. Cheriekitten in the following thread would be better to consult for other potential factors that may have an effect during practical use (like oiliness, whether a brush stroke is used over paint versus in empty areas, etc.): [URL]https://www.escapemotions.com/community/forum/t/44709/oils-paint-and-mix-can-paint-and-mix-with-all-curves-set-to-0/[/URL]

Username: cheriekitten
Post Date: 2025-11-17 12:47:49

if you still have this .reb saved can you pull it up and hit the water button and see if they all appear as wet and how far that extends ? i think we are getting a lot of good data here. i like your testing.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-18 00:16:14

Honestly, thanks and kudos to Dreamkeeper for inspiring multiple elements of clarity and thoroughness in my testing! I've done okay on my own, but seeing their amazing tests and bug reporting made me realize a few ways I could improve for both my testing methods and sharing info. (Also a friend of mine who is similarly delightfully thorough, though they apply it to our favorite video game, haha.) As for the .reb files, I did save them, and Show Wet reveals that all of the brush strokes are completely dry. Granted, I [I]did[/I] start with the dry Fill tool in the above tests. So I also just did a quick test using the express oils Liner to apply an opaque wet base to work from. With Paint & Mix (or Blend) and the parameters I used above, the wet area still does not get pulled. However, that is only when the Paint curve is set to 0. If I increase the Paint curve at all, even by just 1 pixel, then it does result in a fully wet brush stroke...in Rebelle 8. In contrast, in Rebelle 7, the Paint curve needs to be moved about 4-5 pixels up before it will start applying water/appear wet--though it's somewhat irregular, being more likely to happen with slow brush strokes than fast ones. Around 8 pixels up (almost halfway to the first line) for the Paint curve, it will start applying water regularly, regardless of speed. So, it looks like water is only created via newly-applied paint, not when color is pulled with pure Mix or Blend. And it looks like Rebelle 8 starts applying water sooner, but that could partially be a matter of the changed grid size (with 1 pixel in R8 being the equivalent of a few in R7, though it still starts at well before the halfway point). In any case, this difference happens so low that it'll only have an effect if you have the Paint part of the curve below half a box, but not at 0, for a noticable range of pen pressure.

Username: cheriekitten
Post Date: 2025-11-18 00:32:00

[QUOTE="Melampode, post: 30441, member: 123697"] Honestly, thanks and kudos to Dreamkeeper for inspiring multiple elements of clarity and thoroughness in my testing! I've done okay on my own, but seeing their amazing tests and bug reporting made me realize a few ways I could improve for both my testing methods and sharing info. (Also a friend of mine who is similarly delightfully thorough, though they apply it to our favorite video game, haha.) As for the .reb files, I did save them, and Show Wet reveals that all of the brush strokes are completely dry. Granted, I [I]did[/I] start with the dry Fill tool in the above tests. So I also just did a quick test using the express oils Liner to apply an opaque wet base to work from. With Paint & Mix (or Blend) and the parameters I used above, the wet area still does not get pulled. However, that is only when the Paint curve is set to 0. If I increase the Paint curve at all, even by just 1 pixel, then it does result in a fully wet brush stroke...in Rebelle 8. In contrast, in Rebelle 7, the Paint curve needs to be moved about 4-5 pixels up before it will start applying water/appear wet--though it's somewhat irregular, being more likely to happen with slow brush strokes than fast ones. Around 8 pixels up (almost halfway to the first line) for the Paint curve, it will start applying water regularly, regardless of speed. So, it looks like water is only created via newly-applied paint, not when color is pulled with pure Mix or Blend. And it looks like Rebelle 8 starts applying water sooner, but that could partially be a matter of the changed grid size (with 1 pixel in R8 being the equivalent of a few in R7, though it still starts at well before the halfway point). In any case, this difference happens so low that it'll only have an effect if you have the Paint part of the curve below half a box, but not at 0, for a noticable range of pen pressure. [/QUOTE] aww credit where credit is due for sure❤️ so yeah the wet is causing a huge issue its sounding like. i didnt know they changed 1 pixels definition from 7 - 8 either. on regular oils water is anywhere that the brush went. express oils im not sure, i dont play with them too much because they do the fake blend vs the normal oils. seems like the parameters are set incorrectly for the curves.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-18 02:25:18

I don't think it's 1 pixel to 8--I'm bad at math, but it's more like...I think about .8 (or 4/5th) of a pixel in R7 are equivalent to 1 pixel in R8? So they're almost the same, but you have a [I]tiny[/I] bit more control in R7, because the grid is bigger. It's just that at the very, very bottom of the curve, water starts being applied sooner in R8 for express oils. These are the relative points in the grids where water starts being applied, in R7 versus R8. So you can see that it really is a very tiny section of the curve that behaves differently, as far as applying water. (The color pull is a [I]much[/I] bigger difference, and applies to about half the curve's grid.) [ATTACH type="full" alt="Wet applied in R7 at 7 px.png"]2353[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Wet applied in R8 at 1 px.png"]2354[/ATTACH] But you also made a good point, I should double-check with regular oils, too. (And copy the Liner brush from R7 to R8 with the curve at around 4 pixels up, just to be sure. I confirmed that, at 4 pixels up in R7, the curve was 3 pixels up in R8--and did not apply water with a fast brush stroke in R7, but did in R8.) To check oils, I used Round Soft, turning the Oiliness and Loading down to 1, Max Impasto Height/Smudge to 0, and toggling off Thick Impasto, to try to minimize potential influences. (Interestingly, its Paint Pressure Threshold was at 0 in R7, and 10 in R8, so I had to turn it down in the latter. The Mix curve was also set to a higher max point in R8.) In R7, for regular oils it looks like the amount of water applied corresponds with how much paint/pigment is present, even when pulling from a dry area of color with Paint curve on 0. Water appears where I start the brush stroke, and continues into the tapered area where color gets pulled, but stops when the brush becomes transparent. It's not until the Paint curve is very high, near the top, when a faint amount of paint starts to be (barely) visibly applied, along with a correspondingly faint amount of water. This is in contrast to express oils, which have the "default" amount of water, even in faintly transparent areas. However, in R8, water is applied to the transparent areas of the brush stroke, even with Paint at 0. So indeed, while express oils are behaving overall similarly (minus a tiny difference at the bottom of the curve), there is [I]much[/I] more water being applied by regular oils in R8 than in R7, with most sliders set to minimum. (This applies to all three blending modes--they seem to work correctly in R7, but are applying too much water in R8.) [S]I'm not sure what all effect this can have on oil brushes and how they behave, but if you check your R8 files, you may find more water in more places than you'd normally expect.[/S] (I just reread your post and realized you're already aware, and said as much! My bad.) My examples have three tests of Paint & Mix at the top, with the Paint curve first set to 0, then the maximum, then one line below max (and I made the paint black, for better pigment versus water visibility), then one test each of Paint & Blend and Blend, to be thorough: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Oil wet blending R7.png"]2357[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Oil wet blending R8.png"]2358[/ATTACH]

Username: cheriekitten
Post Date: 2025-11-18 15:49:31

[QUOTE="Melampode, post: 30445, member: 123697"] I don't think it's 1 pixel to 8--I'm bad at math, but it's more like...I think about .8 (or 4/5th) of a pixel in R7 are equivalent to 1 pixel in R8? So they're almost the same, but you have a [I]tiny[/I] bit more control in R7, because the grid is bigger. It's just that at the very, very bottom of the curve, water starts being applied sooner in R8 for express oils. These are the relative points in the grids where water starts being applied, in R7 versus R8. So you can see that it really is a very tiny section of the curve that behaves differently, as far as applying water. (The color pull is a [I]much[/I] bigger difference, and applies to about half the curve's grid.) [ATTACH=full]2353[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]2354[/ATTACH] But you also made a good point, I should double-check with regular oils, too. (And copy the Liner brush from R7 to R8 with the curve at around 4 pixels up, just to be sure. I confirmed that, at 4 pixels up in R7, the curve was 3 pixels up in R8--and did not apply water with a fast brush stroke in R7, but did in R8.) To check oils, I used Round Soft, turning the Oiliness and Loading down to 1, Max Impasto Height/Smudge to 0, and toggling off Thick Impasto, to try to minimize potential influences. (Interestingly, its Paint Pressure Threshold was at 0 in R7, and 10 in R8, so I had to turn it down in the latter. The Mix curve was also set to a higher max point in R8.) In R7, for regular oils it looks like the amount of water applied corresponds with how much paint/pigment is present, even when pulling from a dry area of color with Paint curve on 0. Water appears where I start the brush stroke, and continues into the tapered area where color gets pulled, but stops when the brush becomes transparent. It's not until the Paint curve is very high, near the top, when a faint amount of paint starts to be (barely) visibly applied, along with a correspondingly faint amount of water. This is in contrast to express oils, which have the "default" amount of water, even in faintly transparent areas. However, in R8, water is applied to the transparent areas of the brush stroke, even with Paint at 0. So indeed, while express oils are behaving overall similarly (minus a tiny difference at the bottom of the curve), there is [I]much[/I] more water being applied by regular oils in R8 than in R7, with most sliders set to minimum. (This applies to all three blending modes--they seem to work correctly in R7, but are applying too much water in R8.) [S]I'm not sure what all effect this can have on oil brushes and how they behave, but if you check your R8 files, you may find more water in more places than you'd normally expect.[/S] (I just reread your post and realized you're already aware, and said as much! My bad.) My examples have three tests of Paint & Mix at the top, with the Paint curve first set to 0, then the maximum, then one line below max (and I made the paint black, for better pigment versus water visibility), then one test each of Paint & Blend and Blend, to be thorough: [ATTACH=full]2357[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=full]2358[/ATTACH] [/QUOTE] since the color is really close to the hue used for water i cant tell, is this showing water like when you click the water button? or just paint itself? if you can show the water location as well as a screenshot. and im curious if the same brush from 7's express oils and regular oils will act differently on default and how much water they show on 8. for me 7's brushes in 8 made huge aliased water amounts. ive heard repeatedly that oils dont use water but then why are we seeing the water effect from oils and the pull being different around water? i would assume watercolors engine was made first and oils was based off of it but certain things changed. so paint is not just paint parameter its also applying water. mix is not?

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-11-18 16:46:33

Apologies for the confusion. The above examples were with Show Wet on. Here's what the R7 example looks like with Show Wet off (which the R8 test looks almost identical to--the primary difference is the extra water in the transparent areas, which is only visible with Show Wet on): [ATTACH type="full"]2362[/ATTACH] (If it is still unclear, just let me know. I can maybe switch the background to black, and the pigment to white, if its the blue of the water that you are having trouble seeing in the previous examples?) And yes, the huge extra areas of water that you saw in R8 is the same as what I had happen with my R8 test, where water was being applied in fully transparent areas, instead of only where there is pigment. So it gets applied all the way to the edge of your shape, in the default medium water amount, instead of only very faintly (with the amount controlled by how transparent the paint is). As far as oils not using water, yes and no. On their own, they don't use the water [I]physics[/I], like diffusion and drips. But they [I]are[/I] wet tools, and the water they apply allows for watercolors to diffuse through areas with oil paint. (including being directed by streaky areas of impasto. It's neat.) For example, if you paint one brush stroke with an oil brush, and another next to it with a dry brush (pencil/pastel/etc.), then paint a watercolor stroke across them both? The watercolor will diffuse into the oil brush stroke, but not the dry one. I saw your test in the other thread showing what Oiliness and Loading do, but I still need to go test them in both versions of Rebelle to get a better feel for them, and what effect water has. I'll report my findings there, once I do. (Though, looking at [URL='https://www.escapemotions.com/products/rebelle/manual/latest/interface/panel-properties/oil/']the manual[/URL] to double-check what the various oil settings are supposed to do, it calls Oiliness "smudgy." So that might explain why it was pushing pigment so far in your test, it was "smudging" the paint? I'll need to see what effect it has on oil versus dry brush strokes, too.) And correct. Only paint actively applies water, Mixing and Blending do not. (Or, [I]should[/I] not, outside of where they specifically pull color. Thus the R8 behavior of water being applied in transparent areas appearing to be a bug.) In other words, with oils, water should only appear where there is pigment.

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-12-02 11:54:29

Hi, sorry for this delayed response. In R7 and previous versions blending of paint applied by the current stroke was significantly stronger then the blending of paint from previous strokes for Paint & Mix and Paint & Blend modes for all tools with the exception of Oils. This complicates tuning and was a result of an old bug we didn't know about until now so we've fixed it to be more consistent across the board in R8.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-12-02 14:45:51

No worries, thank you for the info! Interesting to learn that it was actually a bug, and certainly understandable to have fixed it. However, would it be possible to make it so Paint & Blend (and possibly Paint & Mix, for consistency) does not blend when that part of the curve is set to 0? (I've set up my "colored pencil" brush so it doesn't start blending until using at least medium pressure with P&B. I can work with how the rest of the corrected curve functions in R8, but not being able to prevent blending makes it behave unnaturally at lower pressure. If it's not viable, though, I can swap brushes/modes as necessary.)

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-12-02 16:30:23

[QUOTE="Melampode, post: 30742, member: 123697"] not blend when that part of the curve is set to 0 [/QUOTE] That sounds reasonable, we are considering it.

Username: Pavol Escape Motions
Post Date: 2025-12-02 17:05:46

Thinking about it a bit more, if your brush does not need to paint bellow the pressure at which you want it to start blending you can lower Opacity curve to zero, that will disable blending completely.

Username: Melampode
Post Date: 2025-12-02 17:23:40

Ooh, good to know! Unfortunately, for my colored pencil brush, that tip won't work. It's got generally inverted curves relative to most(/all?) default brushes for Paint & Blend: the Paint curve is high on low pressure, and decreases some at medium pressure, while Blend is 0 at low pressure and starts increasing at medium pressure. (So it only applies pigment at low pressure, and doesn't start actively/noticeably blending until you're "pressing down" into previous layers and catching the pigment below, to imitate physical colored pencils.)