Blending brushes

You can blend brushes. Before beginning, display the Visor, click gold.mel in the metal folder, and paint on the canvas so you know gold’s effect. Do the same for grassOrnament.mel from the grasses folder.

To blend brushes

1. Click grassOrnament.mel in the grasses folder.
2. From the menu, select Paint Effects > Preset Blending > .

   The Brush Preset Blend options window appears.

   The brush preset blending is toggled on and the options in this window set how much the template brush is influenced by the next preset brush you select. This affects only the subsequent painting, not the preset brushes in the Visor.

3. Change the Shading value to 80 and the Shape value to 0.

   When you select the next brush (gold.mel), Maya uses 80% of its shading and 0% of its shape. Conversely, the stroke uses 20% of the grassOrnament.mel brush’s shading and 100% of its shape.

4. To confirm the effect, select gold.mel (in the metal folder), then paint on the canvas.
5. Repeat the preceding steps, experimenting with different preset brushes, Shading, and Shape values. As a first try, blend flameCoarse.mel from the fire folder with the existing template brush. Set Shading to 60 and Shape to 30.

   If the Brush Preset Blend window is open, each time you select a preset brush, its Shading and Shape values will be blended with the template brush.

6. Close the Brush Preset Blend window when you are done blending brushes.
7. Do not clear the canvas. You’ll use your existing strokes in the next steps.