3.   Pen

1.      Let’s try drawing on an object. Point the cursor onto the pen icon:

 

 

2.  Choose a pen you like from the list of pens. This is a list of standard 3d coat pens. You can add your own pens in TGA or ABR format (the pen format used in Adobe Photoshop). Press on the "Folder" icon to add a pen. The pen added will appear in the list of pens available. You can use a 3D-model as a pen. A pen can be coloured, provided the image contains alpha-channel. In this case the alpha-channel will be used as a mask for depth. Use ''CTRL'' or ''SHIFT'' to select several pens that will be used randomly. In this case you will see several pens on the preview:

 

3.  In the pen selection mode you can adjust the pen for further use.

 

4.  In order to change pen radius use key "[" and "]" or mouse wheel (provided the correspondent adjustments were made in the Options menu); to change depth press "-" and "+" or mouse wheel (provided the correspondent adjustments were made in the Options menu). You can do the same using sliders in the top pen panel.

5.  Choose a pen, set radius ''20'' and try drawing on an object.

 

6.  Increase radius, choose another pen shape and draw a bit more. Use ''T'' key quick access the pen menu.

 

7.  Press "SHIFT" and draw again. You will see the surface getting smoothed. Change the smoothing intensity using the "Smoothing" slider.

 

8.  Click "CTRL" and draw – instead of convexities dents are being drawn.

 

9.  You can change the pen rotation angle with the help of "Rotation" slider. Parameters of rotation range from 1 to 360 degrees. You can also use hot keys "(" and ") or the mouse wheel (under correspondent settings in the "Options" menu) to rotate the pen counter clockwise or clockwise accordingly. You can see the red line rotating on the pen cursor when "(" or ")" is pressed. If you choose an asymmetrical pen shape then this rotation shows the pen orientation:

 

 

10.  With the help of ''Focal shift'' slider you can specify additional radial gamma correction of the pen shape.

 

11.  ''Soft stroke''. In this mode strokes will be more accurate because of additional smoothing of trajectory.

 

12.  Open up the pen pressure dependence on color list. Here a choice of 12 components is provided:

-Pressure does not depend on color (when using this option the surface color does not impact the pen pressure. This is a default option)

-More on RED channel (The pen pressure depends on the value of red surface color channel by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*(RedColor – AverageColor)/128")

When choosing this command (or one of the below listed ones) you will see a slider in which the average color value can be specified:

This value is used in case the application of pressure dependence on surface color is selected. In order to obtain this value from the model surface use "Pick" function, i.e. point the cursor onto the necessary place and press "V" key.

-Less pressure on RED channel (The pressure depends on red channel by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*(AverageColor – RedChannel)/128")

-More pressure on GREEN channel (The pressure depends on green channel by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*(GreenChannel – AverageColor)/128")

-Less pressure on GREEN channel (The pressure depends on green channel by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*(AverageColor – GreenChannel)/128")

-More pressure on BLUE channel (The pressure depends on blue channel by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*(BlueChannel – AverageColor)/128")

-Less pressure on BLUE channel (The pressure depends on blue channel by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*(AverageColor – BlueChannel)/128")

-More pressure on BRIGHT channel (The pressure depends on pixel brightness by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*(AverageColor – (Red+Green+Blue)/3)/128")

-Less pressure on BRIGHT channel (The pressure depends on pixel brightness by formula "Pressure=Pressure0*((Red+Green+Blue)/3 – AverageColor)/128")

-More pressure on CURRENT channel (The closer the surface color is to the current color, the higher is the pressure. The "color distance" determines the preciseness of measuring)

-Less pressure on CURRENT channel (The closer the surface color is to the current color, the lower is the pressure. The "color distance" determines the preciseness of measuring)

-Pressure depends on mask (In this mode the pressure is less in areas where something is already drawn)

 

13. All the listed modes are useful, if there is no map of depth and/or map of specular under your texture. Hence, as an example of a different usage, let’s make a map of depth and/or a map of specular for a square-shaped texture. To do this, just click “import image plane” in the file menu, click to select a image for the Color texture. You will be offered the choice as follows:

Click Ok:

 

 

Then in the "Pen" window choose the command:

and draw with the pen. You will see depth changing in accordance with blue color:

Using all these options you can easily create a map of depth and/or specular for a ready-made texture.

 

14.  Using the drop-box "Parameters of the current pen" menu you can specify:

−Rotation amplitude. The amplitude of addition random pen rotation.

−Depth modulator. It is needed to specify the standard depth for each pen in use.

−Radius variation. The degree of random pen radius variation (in percent).

−Depth variation. The degree of random pen depth variation in percentage.

−Draw by spots. By this option a moving pen will draw with separate spots, as opposed to stretching lines.

−Jitter. Jitter of the pen.

−Jitter depends on pressure. Jitter depends on pen pressure.

−Random flip X.  Flip pen randomly along x-axis.

−Random flip Y.  Flip pen randomly along y-axis.

−Rotate along motion direction. If this option is used, the pen slopes in the direction of motion. If you rotate the pen manually, the angle of rotation will be added to the incline angle as a result of pen motion.

−Use spacing. In case this option is used, drawing with pen movement will be done with patches placed at equal intervals from each other.

−Spacing.

 

15. By pressing the right mouse button on any of non-standard pens you will see the advanced menu as follows:

You can:

-Delete the pen.

-Save to PSD... (Save the pen to multilayered PSD file). Read about layers structure below.

-Load from PSD... (Load a pen from multilayered PSD file. An example of such a file can be found in Samples folder). In case PSD file has no structure as described below, it will simply be unrecognized by the program.

- Edit in Adobe Photoshop. 3d-coat saves the pen as PSD file and opens it in Adobe Photoshop. As soon as you save the file, 3d-coat automatically catches up the pen. In Adobe Photoshop pen has the structure as follows:

A pen includes four layers – Color, Height Map, Specular Map (Specular), Erase Map (EraseMask). Let’s see to these layers individually:

uColor – contains pen color and transparency mask. The transparency mask affects specular channel as well (Specular).

u Height Map – contains pen height map. Grey color RGB(127,127,127) corresponds to zero height. Darker colors correspond to cavities, lighter colors – to convexities.

uSpecular Map (Specular). While color corresponds to maximum specular, black one – to absence of specular. Keep in mind, the color map transparency mask gets applied onto the specular map too.

uErase Map (EraseMask). This mask allows erasing the layer contents on mask before pen drawing. This may be used to create pens which would not be colliding with each other when drawing. An effective application would be interstice, chaps on skin, fabric. Keep in mind the erase mask affects the lowest layer.

 

-Copy pen to another folder previously created by you (--> sign means copying).

 

16.  Additionally, ''Radius'', ''Focal shift'' sliders (and some other ones described below) are located on the top panel and can be minimized as follows:

17.  Also there are two locks icons on the top panel. Using lock icon near the radius slider you can lock visible on screen radius of the pen. It is convenient when you want to change radius of pen simply moving the model back and forward. The lock icon near depth slider allows you variety pen radius without variation of absolute pen depth. In standard mode radius and depth are proportional. You can look the lock icons on screenshot below:

 

18.  Use the drop-box list “[command]”,you can add, rename or delete a folder:

Add existing folder: Add pictures from folder with pictures. New pens/strips folder with the same name will be created. You should select at least one file in the folder and all files from the folder will be add to list.

 

19.   Using the drop-box list "default", you can save in separate folders your set of pens (and strips in ''Strip'' menu, materials - ''Material'' one):

20.  Press on "Folder" icon to add a new pen. Pen can be created from a picture or a 3D model. In case you use BMP file as a pen, the pen depth and transparency will be taken from green channel of the picture. In case the source file has TGA extension, the color of picture will be used in the pen color channel, while alpha channel – as depth map and transparency mask. The upper left pixel on the image will determine zero height. If OBJ file is used as a pen, you will see the dialogue as follows:

 

 

In this dialogue a model can be rotated and scaled. Rotate the model by pressing left mouse button, move the model while holding spacebar, scale it with right mouse button, rotate within the screen frame by using the combination of ALT+left mouse button. You can choose texture size and the image proportions. The use of non-square pens is especially handy when creating strips as described below. Using slider in the right lower corner you can adjust the level of model dipping into the background plane which determines the zero pen level.