pixel vs vector bushes and their seperation.

[My1]

is there some kind of reasons why we need to seperate those brushes and not make them all available in both pixel and vector personas?

 

I mean the only difference I can see is their application. pixel brushes get applied directly to a pixel layer while vector brushes stay as a path object making them editable and stuff, but aside from that I cant find much difference.

[MEB]

Raster based brushes can only be applied through the Paint Brush Tool which is only available in Pixel Persona and a similar situation also happens for vector brushes  which can only be applied using tools available in Draw Persona only. There's no point in mixing them because they are different in nature and you will have to change Personas any way. Their differences should  become more obvious as we move forward with the development since currently the vector brush engine is less developed than the raster based one.

[My1]

but why is it that one set of brushes work in one persona and the others only in the others I mean they are all brushes and the pixel brushes also have to be vector based or otherwise the brush would have to get really pixeled up when you set the brush tip to be really large.

[R C-R]

but why is it that one set of brushes work in one persona and the others only in the others I mean they are all brushes and the pixel brushes also have to be vector based or otherwise the brush would have to get really pixeled up when you set the brush tip to be really large.

Pixel brushes are not vector-based; they are texture-based. Try drawing a 1 px line in the Draw Persona & a 1 px brushed line in the Pixel Persona. Zoom in until you can see individual pixels & compare the two.

[My1]

well that is what I meant above with how they get applied in the OP, pixel brushes become pixelated as soon as you have placed it on the document and zoom in. but aside from that...

[MEB]

Hi My1,

Vector brushes and Pixel brushes are different in nature. What's causing you confusion is the fact the Vector brushes can also use raster images (stretching or repeating them along a path - depends on brush settings) to paint/stroke a path. But If you zoom them enough (vector brushes that use raster images) you will see that they also become blurry when zoomed-in.

 

A "true" vector brush remains sharp no matter the zoom level because it's built from vector objects - currently Affinity Designer vector brush engine doesn't support this - you can't built a brush from a vector object(s). Hopefully this should come later with further development.

[My1]

well from both vector and pixel brushes I actually never saw a pixelation even when I set the brush tip to like 4096px or so in a quick test.

 

after applying the brush to the document and the zooming in, the pixel brush gets ugly pixelation and the vector doesnt.

[MEB]

That's because the raster images used in vector brushes are being smoothed out to look better thus the "blurred" effect when you zoom in. But they are not vector. Using high resolution Images for the tip helps because it gives the perception of high detailed textures when the project is viewed at regular zoom levels - but if you zoom in enough, the texture detail starts becoming blurred when viewed above its 1:1 scale.

[My1]

but honestly why even make brushes as pixel elements instead of using vectors which stay sharp no matter how far it is zoomed. especially for things like brushes that will be resized all the time, vectors look better, also for pixel brushes, when I take for example the simple 8px brush and resize it up to 100px, it becomes a circle which kinda shows that these also kinda arent normal pixel graphics because an 8px circle would never scale up so well

[MEB]

Despite vector brushes keep their sharpness no matter the zoom level, they are not that good depicting all types of textures - specially organic -. Complex vector textures also imply a huge number of nodes/shapes which end up affecting rendering/computing performance, so they are not a solution for all cases. That's why the vector rendering engine should be able to cope with both raster based and pure vector based brushes, so you have the best of both worlds.

[My1]

okay, but then if vector brushes support a pixel based texture and stuff, why not also make them unsable in the vector persona and letting them scale better if one wants it.

[R C-R]

okay, but then if vector brushes support a pixel based texture and stuff, why not also make them unsable in the vector persona and letting them scale better if one wants it.

I do not understand what you mean by this. Is "unsable" supposed to be "usable" or "unusable"? Either way doesn't make much sense to me -- vector brushes are of course usable in Draw Persona & it would be weird if they were not.

[My1]

I mean vector brushes can be made with pixel textures and stuff, so far so correct, but then why cant we use pixel brushes (like for example frankentoon's texturizer) directly the same way as pixel based vector brushes in the draw persona.

[R C-R]

I mean vector brushes can be made with pixel textures and stuff, so far so correct, but then why cant we use pixel brushes (like for example frankentoon's texturizer) directly the same way as pixel based vector brushes in the draw persona.

One reason is because pixel brushes cannot be applied to vector objects, & vector brushes cannot be applied to raster objects. It does not matter if the vector brush uses textures or not; the two types of brushes operate on fundamentally different kinds of layers that are made of fundamentally different kinds of "stuff" (geometrically defined paths vs. pixel image maps).

 

Consider that you can change the brush properties of a vector object at any time. It is a non-destructive process. You don't "paint" with a vector brush, you select a vector object & choose whatever vector brush you want to apply to it. But when you paint with a pixel brush you change (or add to) the actual pixels of the pixel layer & you cannot change those pixels later except by painting them with a different brush.

[My1]

well the pixel brush technically also follows some kind of path (the one your draw with your mouse or tablet, with the only difference seemingly being that pixel brushes get immediately rasterized on a pixel layer, while for vector brushes you get the path as an object for editing. doesnt seem to be a too hard thing to make the pixel brushes follow vector paths and stuff.

[MEB]

My1,

This is not a technical issue. The point is we have different Personas to deal with different types of actions/workflows. Draw Persona deals with vector tools, while Pixel Persona deals with raster based tools.

The fact that the Vector Brush Tool is also able to use raster images as textures doesn't qualify it as a raster based tool. The underlaying engine is based on vector paths. Although i understand your point in making the Paint Brush Tool from Pixel Persona accessible from Draw Persona it defeats the purpose of having Personas to streamline workspaces/workflows. Otherwise why not joining all vector and pixel based tools under a single Persona? We could do it but it would make the program feel bloated and less accessible. The idea is to continue expanding it with new tools and funcionality as we move forward. There's no path when painting with pixel brushes - you are simply changing the pixel data in the Pixel layer directly.

[R C-R]

well the pixel brush technically also follows some kind of path (the one your draw with your mouse or tablet, with the only difference seemingly being that pixel brushes get immediately rasterized on a pixel layer, while for vector brushes you get the path as an object for editing. doesnt seem to be a too hard thing to make the pixel brushes follow vector paths and stuff.

Technically, with a pixel brush the path is not drawn first & then rasterized. The rasterized pixel pattern is created on-the-fly as you draw -- the path itself is created by applying that specific pixel pattern to a new or existing pixel layer, not the other way around. Without the pixels, there is no path.

 

For vector objects, the path exists independently of any stroke or brush type applied to it. That is why you can change those path properties whenever you want. It is also why it does not matter if the chosen vector brush includes a raster based image or not. Either way, it is just an editable property of the path & not the path itself.

 

Consequently, you cannot make a pixel brush follow the path of a vector layer object & have it remain an independent, editable property of it. Pixel brushes just create (duh!) pixels, which are created on, contained by, & become inherent parts of pixel layers.