# Painting

Contains flecks, and strokes (lines of flecks), for rendering only.

Does not cast shadows. Cannot be detected by Trigger Zone gadgets.

A painting made up of strokes, containing data for each fleck making up that stroke. These flecks are then rendered into the scene. There is a limit to how many strokes each painting object can contain.

Gizmo: An arrow setting the direction the Wind effect will travel.

Wired power affects: the opacity of the painting.

# Memory: Costs 0.0061% of the things limit per painting instance.

A unique painting costs fleck count of the paint limit. (Ls)

There is a limit to how many strokes can be contained within a single painting object.

# Stroke Settings: Each stroke has a Surface Snap setting, set when the stroke was created. Ruffle will rotate surface-snapped flecks differently to non-suface-snapped flecks.

Note, however, that for most purposes the oldest stroke in the painting will behave as though it was not surface-snapped even if it was created with surface-snap enabled.

The stroke’s first and last points cannot be removed apart from deleting the stroke. However, fleck points can be skipped for rendering by using the painting’s Fleck Density, Stroke Start, and Stroke End settings.

# Fleck Settings: Each fleck stores its own settings:

• Transform: The position, rotation, and scale (or looseness) for rendering the fleck relative to the painting object.
• Impasto: The thickness of the fleck.
• Opacity: How opaque the fleck is rendered.
• Finish - Shinyness/Roughness, Waxyness/Metalness: How the fleck reacts to light.
• Glow: How much the fleck glows. Can be negative when set using the Glow tool, which will render the fleck as black.
• Fade: The higher the fade, the more extra flecks are rendered, at a lower opacity the farther they are from the original fleck. Each extra fleck has a random rotation offset, and position offset on a 2D plane around the original fleck. Similar to using Blend on a sculpt shape edit. (Pk)
• Scatter: Similar to fade, but produces fully-opaque flecks in 3D positions around the original fleck. (Pk)

If a fleck has fade and scatter settings applied, the higher of the two will decide how many extra flecks are rendered.

# Merge Paintings: Use this context menu button to flatten the flecks of the paintings and merge them paintings into one painting object.

This button is shown when the one of the following is selected:

• More than one painting is selected.
• One group containing more than one painting and nothing else.
• Multiple groups only containing paintings.

Displays the number of selected paintings next to the button.

The button is disabled if the total number of strokes would be too many to be contained by a single painting object.

The origin point of the new painting will be the average of the origin points of the paintings that were combined, and will be oriented “up” according to the scene’s origin grid.

The flattening process converts all edits into basic normal strokes, and the resulting painting object will have no rendering settings. (Pk) This includes the following:

• Strokes with the kaleidoscope setting become multiple strokes without the kaleidoscope setting.
• Strokes with the mirror setting become multiple strokes without the mirror setting.
• Strokes that are trimmed with the Stroke Length settings will become strokes that are that length.
• Strokes rendered multiple times by settings in the Duplicates tab will become multiple normal strokes.

Note that this creates a new unique painting. But the new single painting will only cost 1 “thing.”

Note, this can be undone with the Undo feature, but there is no “unmerge” button.

The order of the strokes will be preserved, with the strokes of paintings created later added after the strokes of paintings created earlier.

# Edit Painting: Use this context menu button to edit the single painting that is selected, in Paint Mode.

Or use the scope-in shortcut to begin editing the painting.

# Coat Properties

Tint Colour, Tint Amount, Original Saturation, Hue Cycle, Shinyness/Roughness, Shinyness/Metalness

# Opacity

How opaque the flecks are. Lower means more see-through or transparent. (Pk)

# Finish

How much the finish of the edits within the painting will be overridden by the tweak menu finish settings.

# Glow, Emit Light from Glow

Glows from he centre of each fleck. (Tg)

It can even be used to add a “bounce light” effect to a scene. (Cg)

# Fleck Properties

# Ruffle

Applies ruffle to the paint flecks within the painting.

Negative ruffle will take ruffle away from individual flecks that have ruffle applied to them using the Ruffle tool.

# Impasto

Each fleck has a special impasto map included. Upping the impasto uses this map to offset the height of the fleck along its surface (its Z axis), making it “fatter”—and in some cases multi-layered. (Tg)

At 0% impasto, the fleck is at whatever impasto it has stored with the fleck itself, as it was drawn, or affected by the Impasto tool in Volume Brush mode.

Negative impasto ignores that stored impasto of the fleck, flattening those flecks too.

Each fleck can have a maximum of 300% impasto. Plus the painting setting of 300% impasto, for a maximum appearance of 600% impasto. (Jl)

# Looseness

As looseness is increased, each fleck in the painting is scaled up.

At 100% looseness a fleck is approximately twice the size: double the width and double the height.

Each fleck has its own stored scale, however, which has no limit. This can be affected after creating the fleck using the Looseness tool in Volume Brush mode.

# Stretch

Stretches each fleck in the direction it’s facing.

# Stroke Tab

Settings for how flecks are to be rendered based on the start and end of each individual stroke. (Pk)

Note that this is affected by the Animate in Sequence setting. (Tg) (Tg)

# Start Point, End Point

How far along each stroke in the painting the flecks will start rendering. (Tg) (Tg) Start Point measures from the start of the stroke, End Point measures from the end of the stroke.

Start Point or End Point can be changed over time to show more flecks as if they were being drawn in real-time. (Tg)

# Fleck Density

How dense the flecks are packed into the stroke. A low density will leave gaps between each successive fleck, whereas a high density will close those gaps. Fleck settings (eg. colour) are taken from the nearest original fleck.

This can be used to make each stroke a dashed line. (Mm)

# Stroke Fade In, Stroke Fade Out

When on, the flecks from the start/end of a stroke roughly one third from that end are affected.

The closer they are to the corresponding end, the more transparent and smaller they become. The first fleck is approximately half its normal size (half width and half height), and at 5% normal opacity.

Note, this is done on a stroke by stroke basis.

# Duplicates Tab

Renders the painting’s strokes more than once, relative to the origin of the painting. Rendering duplicates with these settings does not add to the graphics thermometer.

This means that only the original strokes respond to physical effects, ruffle, and other settings. (Tg) And the duplicates will look the same.

Scale jitter applies to duplicated strokes separately. (Tg)

The orientation of the axis for rotation and positional duplication, as well as the centre for rendering effects, is based on the origin and orientation of the grid of the painting object itself as set when the object was created in Paint mode.

# Positional Duplicates

Duplicates the painting preserving orientation but randomly changing position in a way allowed by the setting. (Pk)

• None: No positional duplicates.

• Inside Sphere: Duplicates are placed within a sphere.

• Around Camera: Duplicates are placed within a sphere in view of the camera. As the camera moves, copies outside of the sphere won’t be rendered, and new ones will be rendered when in range. (Pk)

  This makes flying through starfields very easy to implement. (Tg)

• On Plane: Duplicates are placed on the surface of a flat square plane, whose surface points up.

• On Disc: Similar to On Plane, but on a circular area.

• Along Line: Duplicates are placed along a line to the left and right of the original. The direction of this line is aimed to the left and right, perpendicular to the “upright” of the painting.

# Rotational Duplicates

Duplicates the painting, randomly rotating each around the origin in directions allowed by the setting. (Pk)(Pk)

• None: means there are no rotational duplicates.

• All Directions: will make duplicates randomly going in all directions, centred at the starting point of the painting.

• Around Hemisphere: will make duplicates similar to the “all directions” setting, but only have them on one side.

• Around Cylinder: will make duplicates similar to the “all directions” setting, but only have them on one axis.

# Copies

Render each fleck more or fewer times.

# Clone Spread

Affects the distance from the origin point of the painting that the copies will be shown at. (Mm)

# Scale Jitter

The range of sizes away from the original size that a clone can be. Each duplicated stroke is scaled from the origin point of the painting to a random degree between 100% - jitter and 100% + jitter. (Mm)

For example, at 50% each stroke will be scaled between 0.5 and 1.5 times its original size.

# Animation Tab

Increase the animation speed to have flecks smoothly travel along the drawn line, adhering to the size of the original line but each fleck retaining its own opacity. If you turn down the fleck density, the gaps will travel along the line at the same speed.

The animation tab has various ways of animating the flecks along each stroke. (Pk)

# Playback Speed

The speed at which each stroke’s flecks move along the line. If there is a lower fleck density, the gaps move along the stroke in the same way. (Mm)

# Animate in Sequence

Strokes are considered to be one stroke, in the order they were created.

Note, this doesn’t just affect animations.

# Loop

When off, plays whatever animation would happen once only.

When on, seamlessly replays the animation constantly.

# Pulse

When switched on, instead of the flecks moving along the line, the flecks stay in the same position and a “pulse” is animated along the stroke instead. A pulse has a gradient to it according to the Trail Length setting. At the front of a pulse, it’s at full strength. This strength falls off linearly towards the end of a pulse.

Flecks are rendered with their size being multiplied by the strength of the pulse at their position. (Mm)(Pk)

# Trail Length

The length of the pulse’s trail relative to the length of that stroke. (Pk)

# Jet Trail

When on, a fleck will follow its normal animated path, but that path will not move as the painting object itself moves. This has the effect of individual flecks floating behind as the painting is moved. (Mm)

Note that Frame-by-Frame animation will also update these paths as they animate.

This can be used to easily leave a particle trail behind an object. (Tg)

# Frame-by-Frame Tab

Settings controlling which painting frame (created using the Frame-by-Frame tools) is rendered. (Tg)

# Frame

The current frame of the painting to show. Can be set by wire. (Tg)

When coming out of editing a painting, this will be set to the last edited frame.

So don’t leave it on a new empty frame or you won’t be able to see it even with preview invisibility off. You’ll have to play time to allow it to change to a frame with visible flecks to be able to edit the painting again.

# Animation Type

Affects the playback of the paint frames.

Includes the None option to not animate the frames at all.

# Speed

Each frame is shown for 1 ÷ speed seconds. (Tg)

# Stop Motion Movement

When on and time is running and the frame changes, the current position of the painting will be stored. Strokes will be rendered with the start relative to the stored position instead of the painting object’s current position.

If attached at both ends, the end of the stroke will not be affected.

# Effects Tab

Individual settings, one for each effect type.

The offset for the timing of a fleck’s animation is based on the order it was created within that painting.

# Hand-Drawn Animation

This effect moves all flecks away from their original positions by some amount. This amount changes at intervals. (Tg)

The higher this setting, the further the flecks move and the shorter the interval—making it appear more animated.

# Physical Properties

# Physical

When on, the paint will have some limited physical reactions to things such as being moved or forces being applied. (Pk)Note that when strokes move, the start always stays in the same position.

Strokes are rendered in a 3D field grid. That grid may deform along the length of the stroke, starting after the first point in the stroke and ending after the last point in the stroke. This field may deform based on the painting object's movement, and is affected by the Force Applier gadget's Force Speed on Strokes setting.

Strokes made with surface-snap on compare their start points to the start point of the oldest stroke and non-surface-snapped strokes. It follows the deformation field of the closest of those strokes. Each stroke individually counts towards the physical paint limit.

Single flecks can be affected by the field if they were made with surface-snap on. Live clones are simulated separately. Duplicates are not.

# Attached at Both Ends

When on, the start and end points will remain static, while the length of the strokes can physically move. (Pk)

# Attach End to Object

Click this button and then a different object. While the tweak menu is open, the target object will have a translucent white sphere around it. The ends of all strokes within the painting will now keep their position relative to the position orientation and scale of the target object.

Remove the link with the Delete controls.

# Floppiness

How much each stroke can deform when forces affect the painting.

# Wind Strength

The higher this is, the more the “wind” affects the paint strokes. (Pk)Requires the paint to have floppiness so that it moves in the wind.

If wind strength is more than 0%, a white widget appears allowing you to move the wind and change its direction relative to the painting. (Pk)

# Wind Flap Frequency

The higher this is, the faster the waves of wind hit. (Pk)

# Wind Ripple

How randomly offset each stroke’s wind flap is.

# Wind Direction Local

The direction of the wind will adjust as the paint object’s orientation is changed.

# Gravity

Simulates gravity on the strokes, as if there was a projectile fired from the start point toward the end point. (Mm)

Works even when the painting is not physical.

# Labels

For use with Force Applier gadgets.