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Training Highlights
Stylized Rendering with Brushstrokes
Geometry Nodes from Scratch
Procedural Shading Fundamentals
Stylized Character Workflow

Training types
Course Documentation Production Lesson Workshop

Training categories
Animation Geometry Nodes Lighting Rendering Rigging Shading
Film Highlights
Singularity
In production
Wing It!
2023
Charge
2022
Sprite Fright
2021
Project Highlights
Project DogWalk
Interactive
Gold
Showcase
BCON24 Identity
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Fighting with Grease Pencil
Article
Workshop
Stylized Rendering with Brushstrokes
Quick Start Guide
  1. 01

    Get Started Using Brushstroke Tools

    Free
Workflow Guide
  1. 01

    Basic Fill Layers

  2. 02

    Basic Draw Layer

  3. 03

    Fill Layer Control

  4. 04

    Brushstroke Grooming

  5. 05

    Animated River

  6. 06

    Painted Hut

  7. 07

    Deformable Wall and Polish

Demo Files
  1. Painterly Fishing Hut
  2. Fishing Hut - Base Model

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Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes Author
License CC-BY
Report Problem
Workflow Guide

Animated River

Let's round up the natural environment with the small stream running through the scene. This lesson combines the previously shown techniques and adds to it by showing how the result can be animated.

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23 comments
charlotte
charlotte
March 4th, 2025

Hello, I'm desperate to know how to get the brushstroketool in my rendering pass! Is it possible? on Evee of course

brad Peterson
brad Peterson
Feb. 24th, 2025

when I animate my scene I get a flickering on the brush strokes. any idea why this would be happening?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Feb. 25th, 2025

@brad Peterson Check out part 7. There I talk about deformation of the underlying mesh.

charlotte
charlotte
Dec. 6th, 2024

Hello ! Is there a video that explains how to animate the tool in draw mode? I'm having trouble getting the hang of the tool at this level, but it's incredible!

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Dec. 9th, 2024

@charlotte That is more of an experimental feature at this point. Additionally it will be redundant once the addon is compatible with Grease Pencil (missing node tool execution support right now). But you can find some basic information in the documentation of the addon: https://studio.blender.org/tools/addons/brushstroke_tools#animated-strokes-experimental

charlotte
charlotte
Feb. 3rd, 2025

@Simon Thommes thanks a lot !!

Elena Felici
Elena Felici
Jan. 27th, 2025

@Simon Thommes  What do you mean by 'this addon is not compatible with Grease Pencil'? And what's the plan to integrate the two?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Jan. 28th, 2025

@Elena Felici The draw tool works by executing a node-tool. This is not supported by Grease Pencil yet. This is planned, but it's not clear for which release. When using the built-in draw operator instead it should work fine.

Elena Felici
Elena Felici
Jan. 28th, 2025

@Simon Thommes Understood, it would be interesting seeing a combination of Grease Pencil and Brushstrokes Tool in a piece. Guess it's not going to be long until someone figures it out! Thanks!

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Jan. 28th, 2025

@Elena Felici Well, as I said, it should already work with limitations. That's what we used in some shots on the Gold project. And to have it fully compatible we just need node tool execution on GP which is on the roadmap for Blender development.

You can see that work here, for example: https://www.blender.org/download/releases/4-3 in the GEO NODES MEETS GREASE PENCIL section

Elena Felici
Elena Felici
Jan. 28th, 2025

@Simon Thommes Super interesting! I wonder though.. since the two tools do have overlapping functionalities, when do you find yourself using one vs. the other?

For example, in the 'GEO NODES MEETS GREASE PENCIL' paragraph of the article you shared, I can see you've used the Grease Pencil tool for the water splashes. That could have been done with the Brushstrokes Tool too, right? Why choosing one rather than the other?

Thanks in advance!

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Jan. 28th, 2025

@Elena Felici We used grease pencil for the animation capabilities. One tool doesn't overtake the other, they should be used in combination.

Elena Felici
Elena Felici
Jan. 28th, 2025

@Simon Thommes Ok! All clear! Thank you for dedicating the time to answering all of my stupid questions haha I'll keep on following the updates of both GP and the brushstrokes tool. You guys rock!

charlotte
charlotte
Dec. 11th, 2024

@Simon Thommes Merci !!

Yuri GPON
Yuri GPON
Nov. 16th, 2024

The ability to animate with auto ceed change and keyframes of other parameters is really fantastic!!! I also understood that you can slow down the ceed animation by /2 value, right?

Yuri GPON
Yuri GPON
Nov. 15th, 2024

Simon, could you please advise how to open brush flow - mark on Mac? It doesn't work when I use ctrl-opt-f on Mac.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 19th, 2024

@Yuri GPON Hm, on my MacOS machine it works fine. Could it be that the shortcut is colliding with your system keymap in some way?
In any case, you can change the shortcut to be whatever you like in the user preferences. Simply go to the Keymap tab and search for Mark Brushstroke Data.

Jelle Boekhout
Jelle Boekhout
Nov. 10th, 2024

Every time I add a new draw layer on top of for example 2 fill layers it bugs to a black texture. Is there a way to fix this? So for example the draw in foam layer on top of the stream foam and stream surface fills.

cgdgiorgos
cgdgiorgos
Nov. 11th, 2024

@Jelle Boekhout From my experience, this usually happens when you forget to name the previous material.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 13th, 2024

@cgdgiorgos @Jelle Boekhout I haven't been able to reproduce the issue please make a report on https://projects.blender.org/studio/blender-studio-pipeline , as mentioned on the extension page on how to reproduce the issue, so it can be fixed.

Laura Gingrich
Laura Gingrich
Nov. 8th, 2024

Stuff I adjusted in my Fishing Hut - I checked "dappling" when painting the foam. Looks cool.

I also tweaked the river animation, instead of shuffling the seed, I added a noise modifier to the shape noise keys, then duplicated the layer with an adjusted phase in the modifier (done on both foam and surface). Laaaazy river now.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 11th, 2024

@Laura Gingrich Great solution! I was thinking about making the river more calm, but I didn't want to over-complicate the setup for the course. Using dappled strokes for the painted foam is a great idea too, I should have probably done that to also explain that feature in the process!

chaz mcclaine
chaz mcclaine
Nov. 13th, 2024

@Simon Thommes i slowed down the river by dividing the seed by 4

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