Brushstroke Tools ​

Set of tools for a painterly brushstroke stylization workflow of 3D assets developed by the Blender Studio

You can find a guided workshop on how to use the tools to create a painterly scene go here: https://studio.blender.org/training/stylized-rendering-with-brushstrokes/

Fundamental Concept ​

The Brushstroke Tools add-on provides a convenient interface, as well as different operators to create, manage and modify 3D brushstroke geometry that is based on the procedural generation of textured mesh strips based on curve geometry using Geometry Nodes.

All brushstroke layers created with the add-on are associated to a surface mesh object.

There are two types of brushstroke layers to provide different modes of interaction:

  • Fill
  • Draw

One key paradigm of its implementation is that the surface object does not have to be local data for it to work.

User Interface ​

The user interface for the addon can be found in the properties panel on the right side of the 3D viewport in the Brushstroke Tools category.

Context Brushstroke Layers ​

All associated brushstroke layers that belong to the same brushstroke object show up in a list based on the active context. There are different operators to make changes the active brushstroke layer to the right of the list.

Brushstroke Layer Properties ​

Below the list of context brushstroke layers you can find the properties of the active brushstroke layer. The properties are split up into three tabs: Shape, material and settings.

In the header of the Brushstroke Settings panel there is a toggle to enable UI options. This temporarily reveals more functionality of the properties and allows to modify the interface.

Shape ​

The shape panel presents you with a simplified version of the modifier interface of the active brushstroke layer. Here you can adjust procedural parameters of the setup on a brushstroke layer level.

Material ​

The material panel presents you with a simplified user interface for the brushstroke material. You can select and edit the material that the active brushstroke layer uses and modify it from here.

Material Properties ​

These are the base settings of the material to define different PBR properties.

Brush Style ​

The brush style defines which texture is mapped to the individual brushstrokes. There is a selection of oil painting brushes based on real-life scans. The Default brush style is a procedural texture that comes with a set of input settings to modify its look.

The available brush styles are stored in the user preferences and can be reloaded with the refresh button.

Below the brush style selection is a curve to map the texture to the brush opacity for more control.

Effects ​

Adding more effects is a matter of inserting more nodes in the node-tree and the interface adjusts dynamically.

Settings ​

The settings panel provides a list of additional settings for the active brushstroke layer.

Deforming Surface ​

Controls the stable deformation functionality of the Brushstroke Tools add-on for the brushstroke layer.
This toggle can also be used when the surface is linked data. Keep in mind that the add_rest_position_attribute flag needs to be set on the object for this to work.

Animated Strokes (experimental) ​

Enables the fuctionality to animated the drawn brushstrokes based on the frame they were drawn(similar to Grease Pencil). Turn on auto-keying for this to take effect.

Shadow Visibility ​

Controls the shadow visibility of the brushstrokes layer.

User Preferences ​

In the user preferences for the Brushstroke Tools addon you can modify the way resource assets are loaded into the file. Be catious of linking to the default directory though, since links can easily break when moving the file, or sharing it with others.
When changing the resource directory path, you need to provide the resource files in the directory. Use the operator to do so and copy the resource files from the add-on directory to your custom directory.

Brush Styles ​

Here you see a list of all the available brush styles that have been loaded by the add-on.

Add-on Customization ​

When choosing an external path for the add-on resources in the user preferences all resources can be customized in place. Currently there are no mechanisms in place to make customization more convenient, so do this at your own risk.

Additional Brush Styles ​

There will be more brush style packs available to achieve different styles in the future. Adding more brush styles is a matter of duplicating the node-group asset that defines one in the resource directory and changing its referenced texture and parameters.
Brush styles can be spread out over multiple files in the resource directory. They are identified via the node-group name.

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