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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
Wing It!
2023
Charge
2022
Sprite Fright
2021
Spring
2019
Project Highlights
Project DogWalk
Interactive
Gold
Showcase
BCON24 Identity
Showcase
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
Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes Author
  • Free
Download English Subtitles
Download .mp4   619.9 MB
License CC-BY
Report Problem
Quick Start Guide

Get Started Using Brushstroke Tools

Quick-start guide on the basics for installing and using the Brushstroke Tools extension.

Check out the demo file with the painterly fishing hut scene here:

[Join Blender Studio to download this file]

Join to leave a comment.

22 comments
Mathieu Quiblier
Mathieu Quiblier
Jan. 13th, 2025

Fantastic tool, thanks for that and the workshop!

L-L
L-L
Dec. 1st, 2024

Hey Simon, I was wondering if it was as simple to bake the result of the brushstrokes into textures as it would be with any procedural shader, or if it requires a particular setup/workflow to do it?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Dec. 4th, 2024

@L-L The brushstrokes are on separate objects, so you need to consider that when baking. You also need to consider that this technique relies generally on blending different transparent layers of brushstrokes in the rendering, so that cannot be achieved when baking them into a texture set. If you are baking the brushstrokes into a combined render that should be fine though.

I've only tried it once in the beginning of RnD for Project Gold, but I haven't had a good experience trying to bake this effect into texture maps.

L-L
L-L
Dec. 4th, 2024

@Simon Thommes Good to know, yeah I asked because I saw it was using curves to render. Hadn't even noticed the different layers of transparent brushstrokes but yeah it makes it all the more challenging. I guess the layers could actually be baked to reproduce the effect in another engine but then it might just turn out to mean recreating the whole system itself to make it work as intended.

Motion Bones
Motion Bones
Nov. 25th, 2024

Is there a way to select specific edges to create strokes on a stroke layer? (like one can use edges to indicate flow on a fill layer with the CTRL+ALT+F menu)

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 26th, 2024

@Motion Bones Not as built-in functionality. But you can use all of Blender's existing functionality to achieve this by isolating a duplicate of the edges and merging it into the stroke object.

Motion Bones
Motion Bones
Nov. 26th, 2024

@Simon Thommes - this little addon is incredible. Amazing stuff man. Thank you.

Oboh Michael
Oboh Michael
Nov. 23rd, 2024

I use a Vector GP77 13VG with 32gb ram and NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 4070 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6. I put the scene on on viewport shading rendered view and it still the scene still lags. Is the specs I'm working with not good enough for the file? How can I make it load faster?

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 25th, 2024

@Oboh Michael Please refer to the FAQ on the extension website https://extensions.blender.org/add-ons/brushstroke-tools/

Wayne Keenan
Wayne Keenan
Nov. 19th, 2024

Sorry for such a simple question, but how can I export a simple cube with a brushstroke fill and then import into unity? It's just that the cube is just plain.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 25th, 2024

@Wayne Keenan This extension currently does not provide a preset pipeline for game engine export. You can export the generated mesh data and the necessary attribute (UV etc.) data with a format of your choosing, but the shader will need to be re-built in the DCC you're targeting.

Wayne Keenan
Wayne Keenan
Feb. 16th, 2025

@Simon Thommes Thanks for letting me know, sorry I missed this reply

Wayne Keenan
Wayne Keenan
Nov. 16th, 2024

Thank you for this, it's amazing and just what I was looking for.

Thea Leverton Rose
Thea Leverton Rose
Nov. 11th, 2024

Thank you this is really helpful and very nicely explained!

Francisco Luque
Francisco Luque
Nov. 11th, 2024

Thanks!

Francisco Luque
Francisco Luque
Nov. 12th, 2024

Hi @Simon Thommes! Nice to meet you. I would like to ask you if your time and disposition allow it. Would it be possible to have a section where Brushstroke Tools (BST) users could tell you about their experiences with BST without being directly related to the workshop? I have been working with BST for three days and I have some questions and suggestions that I will not mention until you say if you would be interested in knowing about these experiences. Thank you very much again, you share an excellent tool which I have been hoping would exist in some form for a long time.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 13th, 2024

Hey @Francisco Luque ,
feedback is definitely welcome, though I do already have a long list of improvements that I want to eventually make myself. We've been talking about setting up a place where people can give input and share their experience with the addon prior to the release, but haven't concluded what the best place would be yet.

The development of the addon is happening on our tools repository and I already made a list of planned changes/additions for the next version. Maybe some of your input is also overlapping with that: https://projects.blender.org/studio/blender-studio-tools/issues/337

For now you can maybe make a comment there and I'll see what I can take in on the todo list, until we have a better place to do that.

Francisco Luque
Francisco Luque
Nov. 16th, 2024

Hi @Simon Thommes! Sorry for the somewhat late reply, but I'll tell you the truth, I was a little embarrassed to talk to you about the tool you created as if it were at your level in the field. I'm an animator and I have a lot of respect for developers and the work of developers. I think the value of my opinions in this case are those of BST users, so I hope a space can be implemented for contributions and experiences like that. For the rest, I had to take care of work these days, so I couldn't go into depth about the use of BST. The only thing I'll allow myself to contribute in this regard is brushes and brush configuration, but I'll save anything else for when there's the appropriate space. For the rest, thank you very much for your kind response and for BST again. Greetings and have a good weekend! Be well.

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 19th, 2024

@Francisco Luque This tool is designed to be as accessible as possible while still granting a lot of flexibility and power for customization. So feedback on any experience level is very much welcome!
Adding better options for presets and saving configurations is high up on my list of planned changes, so that will hopefully make it easier also for others to contribute.

Florian Fiegl
Florian Fiegl
Nov. 10th, 2024

pls add subtitles for hearing impaired people

Simon Thommes
Simon Thommes
Nov. 11th, 2024

@Florian Fiegl I added automatic transcription to all videos. I'll go through them to clean them up more the coming days, for now I've just done it for this video.

Florian Fiegl
Florian Fiegl
Nov. 11th, 2024

@Simon Thommes thx a lot

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