What are animated brushes?

[OurJud]

Can someone please explain what is meant by 'animated' brushes, as opposed to regular brushes?

[Blighty]

A regular brush is just one image.
An animated brush consists of more than one image. These can be set to display in sequence or randomly.

[Espermaschine]

The Gimp manual is really good. You should have a look !

https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-brush-dialog.html
https://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-using-anim...ushes.html
https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Custom_Brushes/

[rich2005]

(02-26-2017, 06:31 PM)OurJud Wrote: Can someone please explain what is meant by 'animated' brushes, as opposed to regular brushes?

It stands for Gimp Image Hose, and it is a brush made up of several layers, which can be painted in sequence or randomly depending on how it is set up. 

see: https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Custom_Brushes/

there are gih brushes in the standard gimp brush set, look for the tiny red corner in the brush preview.

   

[shellyhoward]

I see all the info about animated brushes except how to make the animated brushes be able to change color when you paint with them. I have tried looking up videos, but none of the seem to work when I try it in Gimp.  I don't see that info anywhere else either, not even in the manual.  Anyone? Thanks.

[Ofnuts]

Same as plain brushes:

• if the brush is grayscale (Image>Mode>Grayscale) then it is used as a mask, the white is transparent and the black assumes the current paint color,
  
• if the brush is RGB (Image>Mode>RGB) then it is used as is, the shape of the brush being determined by the transparent pixels
  

   

[shellyhoward]

(01-02-2019, 10:56 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: Same as plain brushes:

• if the brush is grayscale (Image>Mode>Grayscale) then it is used as a mask, the white is transparent and the black assumes the current paint color,
  
• if the brush is RGB (Image>Mode>RGB) then it is used as is, the shape of the brush being determined by the transparent pixels
  

When I create a New Image then, I should choose Grayscale?  And what about the Fill With section on Advanced Options?  Do I put Background Color or Transparency or what?  

Also, when I make the new layers for this animated brush, do I copy the previous layer, or just add a new layer? Or does it matter which I do?

[shellyhoward]

To go into a little more detail about how I've gone about trying to make an animated brush:

This is what I have tried:

In File>New> I go to Advanced Options Then In Color space I choose Grayscale, 
and in Fill with I choose Tansparancy. I have also tried Fill with< Background color.

The image that I start with is drawn in black.

 I have tried adding new layers to draw my brush images on. I have also tried 
copying the background layer for as many layers as I need and then adding my brush 
images onto there. 

Then I Export as a GIH. 

Results so far:   Every time there is no color to my brush image, or there is a gray background and still no color to my brush image.

If anyone could please explain the process of what you do step by step, it would be so appreciated. Thanks.

[Blighty]

(01-03-2019, 01:09 AM)shellyhoward Wrote: In File>New> I go to Advanced Options Then In Color space I choose Grayscale, 
and in Fill with I choose Tansparancy. I have also tried Fill with< Background color.

Results so far:   Every time there is no color to my brush image, or there is a gray background and still no color to my brush image.

To create a new brush:
1) In File>New> I go to Advanced Options Then In Color space I choose Grayscale,
(or use the default RGB and then do Image > Mode > Grayscale)

2) The background must WHITE. (White will be transparent)

3) Draw in black or gray (black will take the foreground colour, gray will be semi-transparent foreground colour)

4) To create a new layer: Use WHITE for the background, draw with black/gray. Create as may layers as needed.

5) Save as .xcf ; Export as .gih

6) Put the gih in your profile brushes folder, refresh the brushes in Gimp

To use the brush:
1) Create a new image, this time it must be RGB

2) Select the brush

3) Set the foreground colour

4) (Most often: draw on a new transparent layer - make editing easier)

5) Draw

NOTE: If your brush is RGB it will not take foreground colour. No colours are changed, the brush is used as created.

[Ofnuts]

Here is  sample brush pipe file. Load in Gimp, export as a GIH:

• Spacing: 100
  
• Cells: 3
  
• Dimension 1
  
• Ranks: 3, incremental
  

  BrushPipe.xcf (Size: 2.35 KB / Downloads: 246)

PS: rereading your post, it is possible that in addition to being gayscale, the layers should have no alpha channel. There should be no transparency if you want a "cameleon" brush, tranparency is determined by the white.