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Modifying the default brush settings

Lesson 1: Painting in 2D using Paint Effects

Modifying the colors of a preset brush

 

Learning Resources > Tutorials > Getting Started with Maya > Painting > Lesson 1: Painting in 2D using Paint Effects > 

Modifying the canvas

In the next steps you change a few canvas options, including color and size.

To modify canvas settings

1. Clear the canvas (Canvas > Clear).
2. Select Canvas > Set Size and set the canvas size to 512 x 512—the width and height in pixels. When you are prompted to save, click No, then close the Set Canvas size window.

   Although you’ll often use the default maximum canvas size to take advantage of the available screen space, you might need to use a smaller or larger size in many circumstances. For instance, if you plan to use the image as a background in a computer game, you might need to use a small canvas size such as 256 by 256.

3. Turn on the wrap buttons on the toolbar:

   

4. Paint strokes past the edges of the canvas.

   The strokes wrap around to the opposing side. This feature is useful for creating patterned texture images to be applied to surfaces. When you tile or repeat the image on the surface, the wrapped strokes help make the borders between the images unnoticeable.

   If you want to display the area of the canvas where the edges join, you can do this using the roll feature (Canvas > Roll).

5. Select Canvas > Clear > . In the options window, slide the Clear Color slider all the way to the left. Click Apply.

   This clears existing strokes and turns the canvas black. Before you paint strokes on the black canvas, you may notice that some brushes seem to have no effect. If this occurs, it’s because the paint is black or because it is transparent enough to prevent the color from showing.