How do I force a Selected Brush being used when Drawing with Pen or Pencil Tool?

[thomaso]

A. How can I draw with a selected (and highlighted) brush when using either Pen or Pencil Tool?

– Whereas it does work for Vector Brush Tool as expected, both Pen and Pencil Tool always draw with a 0.24 pt black line, regardless of my brush selection.
– Clicking the selected brush after drawing does assign it but does not make it being used for further drawing.
– Also using the "Synchronize defaults" button after assigning the highlighted brush to a drawing does not make that brush being used for further drawing.

B. I can't make the Vector Brush Tool to use the Variance Properties of a selected brush, f.i. the "64 Square Marker" in "Pens" – whereas its variances do occur, both in opacity & width, when assigning this brush after drawing with Pen Tool.

– Am I misusing the Vector Brush Tool or is it ignoring brush variance properties in general?

[Dan C]

Hi thomaso

22 hours ago, thomaso said:

Whereas it does work for Vector Brush Tool as expected, both Pen and Pencil Tool always draw with a 0.24 pt black line, regardless of my brush selection

This is expected behaviour, the Pen/Pencil tool is designed to work with "flat" brushes, as in a real pen/pencil. You can change the stroke, but it would be individually for each stroke. If you want to keep the brushes selected, you would have to use the vector brush tool. 

22 hours ago, thomaso said:

I can't make the Vector Brush Tool to use the Variance Properties of a selected brush

By default these brushes are set to Pressure as the controller for the variance properties. Do you by chance have a pressure profile set against your Pen curve before applying the stroke? Are you drawing the Vector Brush line using an input device that supports pressure?

To test this, I drew a line using the pen tool and assigned the 64 Square Marker brush to this. I then drew a second line using the Vector Brush tool using the same brush - both of which do not have any pressure applied and the strokes look visually similar.

I then selected the Pen tool again, drew a new curve and set a pressure profile to this curve through the Stroke settings and applied the same brush to it, this time the pressure is used and variance in the stroke occurs. After this I went back to the Vector Brush tool and drew a new stroke - then applied the same pressure profile to this through the stroke studio, and therefore variance in the stroke can be observed. 

I've attached a screen recording of this process below- I hope this helps!

[thomaso]

@Dan, thank you for the instructions. It's good to know now that the Pen Tool is drawing that way without any brush at first.
Unfortunately I seem to have some fundamental not- or misunderstanding and try to make that obvious in my screen recording:

1. I am not able to make a selected brush being used when drawing with Vector Brush Tool. What am I doing wrong?

2. I can't understand the use of the two different "pressure" editor fields. Which is influencing what and when?
The Pencil Tool records my pen pressure while drawing, okay. But I need to assign the brush after drawing (is as you wrote) – whereas with Vector Brush seems to use a preset pressure curve, whereas there are two places to define the pressure property: in Stroke panel next to the property button AND 'under' the property button. Which is which?

3. Does Vector Brush Tool never respect my pressure when drawing but only (afterwards ?) with a manually set curve?

 

 

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response thomaso. 

On 8/24/2019 at 2:53 PM, thomaso said:

1. I am not able to make a selected brush being used when drawing with Vector Brush Tool. What am I doing wrong?

As far as I can see in your recording, the correct brush is being used but pressure is not being applied/recorded. This is due to your context toolbar option, as the controller is set to none. Setting this to either Brush Defaults or Pressure should allow you to draw using this tool with pressure.

On 8/24/2019 at 2:53 PM, thomaso said:

I can't understand the use of the two different "pressure" editor fields. Which is influencing what and when?

The curve within the brush manager controls to what degree the brush variance is applied, and the ramping (be that up or down) speed of this - which is by default pressure dependant. You can see this by editing the curve here, this changes - for example - how shortly after beginning the stroke the opacity or size variance begins, whereas the sliders above control the degree of variation.

The pressure panel in the Stroke Studio controls the pressure that is applied to the stoke, and this then applies the variances of the brush according to this profile, using the ramping speed set in the brush editor.

I've included a screen recording below showing how the profile from within the brush editor can affect a stroke with the same pressure profile in the Stroke Studio -

On 8/24/2019 at 2:53 PM, thomaso said:

Does Vector Brush Tool never respect my pressure when drawing but only (afterwards ?) with a manually set curve?

Please see answer to question 1, you simply need to set the controller on the context toolbar for the Vector Brush Tool to use pressure whilst drawing

[thomaso]

Glad, it works! Thank you very much for your detailed instructions! They enabled me to draw with a selected Vector brush & pressure simultaneously as I wanted.

Please excuse my not caring sufficiently for the involved and relevant UI options, specially the obvious "Controller". Strange stupid kind of mental blindness during my trials, which even prevented me to read the available help articles! Sorry!

p.s.: in the Help on mac the "Controller" is mentioned under the headline "Pixel Persona" / subheading "Setting". (but no excuse for my previous ignorance)

 

[Dan C]

No problem at all - happy to help!