AuthorTopic: Pressure/opacity in pixel art  (Read 2985 times)

Offline homeworld

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Pressure/opacity in pixel art

on: November 29, 2010, 01:29:01 pm
Hey guys, first time poster here, and i apologize in advance if this was debated, but it's a pretty hard thing to put through a search filter. I'm looking for a way to use wacom pressure sensitivity on a picture with limited palette. I use photoshop, and when i try to paint with either the brush or the pencil on an indexed color document, the software either puts nothing down (for values between 0% and 49% opacity), or the full 100% value that i have selected in the color picker. Naturally i'm not expecting transparency, since i only have one transparent value in my color palette, but being able to 'gradient' from one value to the other, through all similar values would be a godsend. I realise that I can of course fake this, by changing to rgb, painting with blended colors, and then reindexing with the same color palette as before, but it's a gigantic chore that i don't understand why i'm put in the position of doing (am i doing something wrong?).

I'm a digital artist who recently got into pixel art, and i'm really hurting because of the limitation of having to manually put down gradients instead of them automatically happening like before.

Do you guys know if there's any way to use pressure/opacity to gradient through these different palette colors, or some other software that can?

Offline ptoing

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Re: Pressure/opacity in pixel art

Reply #1 on: November 29, 2010, 02:01:23 pm
To my knowledge there is no such program. Then again, why would you need this for pixelart?
If you work with a low or lowish amount of colours and have a tool that can quickly cycle through the palette with shortcuts (like promotion or grafx2) then you don't really need it.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Elk

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Re: Pressure/opacity in pixel art

Reply #2 on: November 29, 2010, 05:33:52 pm
Do the usual things, same as when youre painting digital...blockout, then detail o.O
simple as that...you can add shades as you progress...
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Offline Indigo

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Re: Pressure/opacity in pixel art

Reply #3 on: November 29, 2010, 07:55:43 pm
I define my palette in the very same way you're describing, homeworld.  I work in photoshop and use opacity to create buffer shades as I paint.   Usually this is only needed for the early stages of the piece, after which the image can be indexed and you can just work from there - keeping your finger on the alt key to pick colors in the canvas.

In pro motion, there is a paint mode called "multi-shade" that acts similar to how you're wanting.  You first define a gradient in your palette that you wish to cycle through, check the "multi-shade" checkbox for that gradient, set multi-shade mode on in the mode menu, and then paint with any color in that gradient.  If you paint with left click, it will step up a color, and if you paint with right click, it will setp down a color.

Offline homeworld

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Re: Pressure/opacity in pixel art

Reply #4 on: November 30, 2010, 11:31:47 am
Thanks guys, i've downloaded protools and i'm having a great time messing around with all the brush modes that work in a palette environment (as opposed to photoshop which is useless at it) I'm really hurting for pressure sensitivity though, and while i haven't quite found something like what i'm looking for, some of these tools (particularly blend, brightness and tint) prove my suspicion that the thing i'm looking for is definitely possible within palette constraints.

indigo: it's not the actual making of the index palette that kills me, like you said, that's cake; it's the fact that after that, to make a 10 value gradient, i have to set each layer by hand by picking out the corresponding value from the grid; i'm looking for a tool that works like the rgb brush, where i can quickly go through steps; this would be tremendously helpful, especially since i don't like very limited palettes; here's a drawing of mine to better show what i mean by going through steps: http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b66/homeworld4/blamekillycibo.jpg ; indexing this would give me pretty good results, but i'd like to get to that result by working in pixels (which would be a massive needless chore) alone and not having to paint an entire illustration beforehand; multishade is pretty close, but the lack of pressure sensitivity really hurts me, but i'll mess with it some more anyway!

ptoing: bummer, cycling through the palette is too far away from my goal, but i'll try grafx2 anyway and see if i can find something of use, thanks!