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1. Brush effects are somewhat advanced, which is why they are hidden by default. The brush effects are exposed to allow for creation of new brushes by any user of TwistedBrush.
2. Every brush stroke begins when the brush touches the paper (a mouse click). This starts with a single "dab."
A dab is the basic internal unit of paint that could be applied to the paper. What a dab will look like is determined by the brush category and variety selected--for example, Pastel | Regular.
Dabs themselves, even without brush effects, can be somewhat complex, but this complexity is not exposed or adjustable--with the exception of using the size, density, and opacity sliders.
3. Before the dab is applied to the paper, it is passed through the "Brush Effects System." The brush effects system works in layers. There are twelve (12) layers possible. Any effect can be applied at any layer.
4. Some combinations of effects make more sense then others. In addition, the ordering of when an effect is applied is important. For example, applying a "Hue Rnd" before a "Matrix 5" will give different results then doing the "Hue Rnd" after the "Matrix 5." Read on to see why.
5. There are a number of different "types of effects." Some add new dabs (matrix, for example). Some reposition the dabs (jitter, for example). Some adjust the colors of the dabs (hue, for example). Some remove dabs (drop out). Some are immediate effects (3d and hilite, for example). And some adjust the basic brush attributes (density, for example).
6. "The effect" for each level is selected in the first column.
The fourth column is the "strength of the effect."
The second column is "the envelope," which determines "how the strength varies
over time."
The third column is "the rate at which the envelope is applied."
(Keep in mind that these are just general rules and are sometimes broken depending on the effect or the envelope.)
7. In columns 3 and 4, "H" just represents the highest value (showing a value of "10" didn't fit on the narrow columns).
8. A concrete example of a single effect is" jitter." If jitter is selected as the effect for layer one, then when a dab is passed through the effects system it will be repositioned. How much it is repositioned is determined by the other three columns.
A "flat" envelope means the strength will not vary over time, so every dab will be randomly repositioned by the same amount--determined by the strength (fourth column).
If the "saw1" envelope is selected, then the percentage of the strength will vary for each dab like a saw tooth, slow raising and then dropping back down to repeat. This means the strength of the jitter will start small slowly, increase until it hits a peak, and then drop back to a small amount and cycle back around.
(This concept of "envelopes" is borrowed from audio synthesis.)
9. This last part of the overview is HOW MULTIPLE EFFECTS INTERACT.
10. When an effect adds new dabs, these new dabs continue to be processed through the rest of the effects layers. In this way, complex effects can be created.
11. Going back to the ordering example mentioned earlier of "Hue Rnd" and "Matrix 5," if "Hue Rnd" is applied as the first effect, the single starting dab will be recolored to the result of the "Hue Rnd" effect.
Now when the "Matrix 5" effect is encounted as the second effect the newly color dab will be duplicated 25 times (a matrix or 5 by 5).
If we reverse the order of these effects, the results will be different. If the "Matrix 5" is first, we duplicate the starting dab 25 times. Then we process the second effect, "Hue Rnd," which will recolor each of these 25 dabs to different colors.
So . . . in the first case, we have 25 dabs all colored the same. In the second case, we have 25 dabs all with different colors.
12. For effect envelopes with the "i" prefix, the "i" indicates internal dabs. This means the strength will not vary over time, but will vary within the total number of dabs in one pass through the effects system. The "i" envelopes don't work directly with the dab-duplicating effects like "Matrix X", "Row X" or "Column X" because it doesn't make sense to change the width of a matrix for a single dab.
This means you'll need at least two effects: The first effect has to create an amount of dabs (Matrix, Row, Column...). The following effect can use the envelopes with the "i" prefix, which will vary the single dabs.
13. For example, take a basic brush (size:20; opacity:100; density:100) with "Row 20" (flat, 1, 4) as the first effect, and select "Hue" (isaw1, 9, H) as the second effect.
(This is a very basic overview. Note that there are special cases. All effects don't expect a strength. Some envelopes, such as combo, combine the third and fourth.)
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