Splines as a path?

[geronimo66]

Can you create a spline and use it as a path for your brush to follow?

[Jin]

Hi,

If you're referring to painting a brushstroke that follows a vector based bezier curve in any version of Corel Painter, the answer is no.

We can, however, use one of the vector based Shape tools to create an open or closed Shape, convert it to a selection, then stroke the selection.

Depending on the brush variant used, the effect will vary and with some brush variants it doesn't work so well. With others, it can work very well.

At the lower left corner of the image window, you'll see a brown or blue icon (depending on the Painter version). Click that icon and a display of three icons pops up. Click the left icon to paint both inside and outside the selection. Click the middle icon to paint only outside the selection. Click the right icon to paint only inside the selection.

To do this with an open Shape:

1. Working above a blank, white Canvas, with black as your Primary Color, use the Pen tool or Quick Curve tool to create the Shape you want.

2. In the Shapes menu, choose Set Shape Attributes and change the Stroke Width to 5.0.

3. In the Layers palette menu, choose Drop and Select to drop the Shape to the Canvas and select it.

4. In the Select menu, choose Save Selection and in the Name: field, type "Stroke 1", then click the OK button.

5. Highlight Canvas in the Layers list and use Ctrl/Command+A to select the entire Canvas, then use Ctrl/Command+X to clear the Canvas (you don't need the black stroke anymore).

6. Create a New Layer and with that Layer highlighted in the Layers list, from the Select menu, choose Load Selection, choose the "Stroke 1" from the drop down list and click the OK button.

7. Choose a brush variant and pick a color from the Colors palette.

8. At the bottom left corner of the image window, click the brown or blue icon, then click the left icon in the popup display, the Draw Anywhere icon. This will tell Painter to paint both inside and outside the selection.

NOTE: In the following step, if the Stroke Selection option is greyed out, first choose Transform Selection, then choose Stroke Selection.

9. In the Select menu, choose Stroke Selection.


Closed Shapes are easily converted to selections using Shape > Convert to Selection, then stroked as described above.

You can also create your closed selections directly, using the Rectangular Selection tool, Oval Selection tool, or Lasso tool.

Experiment to determine what Stroke Width to use (in the Shapes > Set Shape Attributes dialog box), which brush variants work best, and what brush Size is best for a given project.


While this may seem terribly cumbersome, the advantage of doing this in Painter is its huge array of brush variants including those we can create ourselves to get just the look we want.


Have fun, and Happy Holidays! :)