Working with Paint Brush

The new Paint Brush tool in Animate brings the capability of using Art Brushes and Pattern brushes, as commonly known in Adobe Illustrator, within Animate. Paint Brush tool is based on strokes and is different from the existing Brush tool.

Paint brush tool lets you draw stylized brush strokes by applying the selected art brush’s pattern along the drawn path. You can apply brush strokes to existing paths, use the Paintbrush tool to draw a path and apply a brush stroke simultaneously or customize the smoothening output of your image.

Art brushes paint a vector pattern along the path and stretches to its entire length. A set of Art Brush Presets are available by default for using them directly within your Animate project. These presets are accessible in the Brush Library of the Properties panel, when the Paint Brush tool is selected in the Tools panel.

Once added to the document, these Art brushes are available with tools such as Paint Brush, Pen, Line, Rectangle, or Oval, except the Pencil tool, which lists the primitive stroke styles only.

Pattern brushes

Pattern brushes follow and repeat the pattern along the same path. A set of pattern brush presets are available by default within the Brush Library.

Using Pattern brushes

To view and select pattern brushes:

Editing Pattern Brushes

Importing brushes from Adobe Capture

 You can use Adobe Capture mobile app for Android and iOS to create and add new brushes to your Library. For more information, see Adobe Capture.

To create or import custom vector brushes:

Adding art or pattern brushes to your document

From Brush Library

You can import new Art Brushes that are available in the Brush Library to your document.

1. In the Tools panel, click the icon. The Paint Brush options appear in the Properties panel.
2. Click on the icon. The Brush Library panel appears.

3. Click on the Art Brush categories, sub-categories, and navigate to the brush that you want to use or search the library by typing a string in the search box. 
4. Double-click on a brush to add it to your document. The selected brush appears in the Style dropdown of the Paint Brush tool in the Properties Panel as the currently selected stroke style. 

From Creative Cloud Library

You can import new Art Brushes to your Animate document using the Libraries in addition to the Art brush presets available by default.

To add a new Art Brush, open the libraries panel and just click on any of the supported brushes. (Animate currently supports only Vector Brushes from Libraries).

1. In the Tools panel, click the icon. Select the Paint Brush or Pattern brush from the Properties panel.
2. Click Window > Libraries. The Libraries panel appears.

3. Within Brushes, browse through the created and saved brushes within the libraries. 
4. Double-click on a brush to add it to your document. The selected brush appears in the Style dropdown of the Paint Brush tool in the Properties Panel as the currently selected stroke style. 

Using Art Brushes

You can use the stroke-based Paint Brush tool to draw brush strokes by applying the selected art brush’s pattern along the drawn path. Apply brush strokes to existing paths or use the Paintbrush tool to draw a path and apply a brush stroke simultaneously.  

Object drawing and merged drawing modes

When using Art Brushes, the Drawing Object mode is enabled by default so that each brush stroke is drawn independently and do not merge with the existing strokes causing undesirable stroke intersections. You can see better performance when you use Object drawing mode compared to Merged drawing mode because brush strokes typically contain heavy vector data and merging of shapes may cause Animate to perform slower.

To convert an already drawn shape to a Drawing Object, select the graphic on stage and click Modify > Combine Objects > Union.

Converting art brush strokes to fills

Art brushes drawn in Animate behave as strokes and can be changed to fills by using the ‘Convert Lines to Fills option.

To convert, first select the brush strokes drawn on stage and click Modify > Shape > Convert Lines to Fills.

Once converted to fills, it will behave as normal fills and lose its path editing capability.

Draw as fill

The Draw as Fill option in Paint Brush tool helps you control the shape created by the Paint brush to be a stroke or fill a region.

Applying Art Brush styles to graphics on stage

You can apply the new art brush styles to already drawn shapes or in your existing Animate documents.

Select a shape on stage and modify its stroke style by choosing an Art brush stroke style on the Properties Panel . 

Pressure and Tilt in Paint Brush

Animate provides Pressure and Tilt support for strokes drawn using the Paint brush tool. You can draw art and pattern strokes with variable width, dependent on the applied pressure or tilt on the stylus. For further refinement, use the Width tool to adjust the width points.

Tilt option in Animate is available in Surface Pro device without the need for WinTab driver. 

 Pressure and tilt icons in the tool bar are displayed only if you have connected a Wacom pressure-sensitive tablet to your computer.

Using Pressure and Tilt modifiers

Customizing Pressure and Tilt sensitivity

Drawing with the Paint Brush tool

Paint brush tool lets you draw stylized brush strokes by applying the selected art brush’s pattern along the drawn path. You can apply brush strokes to existing paths, or use the Paintbrush tool to draw a path and simultaneously apply a brush stroke.

Editing Brushes

You can edit art brush properties using the Edit Brush option. Clicking the Edit Brush icon launches the Brush editing dialog box for the selected brush. If you select an Art Brush for editing, the Art Brush Options dialog box appears. You can modify properties such as brush direction, scaling preferences, and overlap preference, and apply the changes to the existing strokes. Clicking Edit Brush after selecting a normal brush launches the edit dialog box that brush type. 

Editing art brushes

1. Select an art brush style and click on the edit button next to the Style dropdown box.
2. In the Edit Art Brush Options box, you can edit the following:
   • Scale Proportionately: To scale the brush dimensions according to proportions without stretching.
   • Stretch to fit stroke length: To stretch the brush according to the length of the stroke that you are drawing.
   • Stretch between guides: To stretch the brush between the guides. 
   • Overlap: To specify whether to adjust corners and folds to prevent overlap.
   • Flip artwork: To flip the brush shape.
   • Brush direction: To change the direction of the brush.

3. To apply the changes to existing strokes drawn using the brush and apply your changes to the brush, select Apply to existing strokes and update the brush. 
4. Click Add to save the changes. 

Editing stroke styles for Solid and Primitive Stroke Styles

1. Select a brush/stroke style and click on the edit button next to the Style dropdown box.
2. In the Stroke Style box, you can edit the following:
   • Type
   • Zoom 4X
   • Thickness 
   • Sharp corners

PI shortcuts to frequently-used options

You can use the following shortcut buttons in the Properties panel for easier access:

• Expand to fill: Converts the selected strokes to fills and merge them together
• Create Object: Converts the selected shape in merged mode to Drawing object (same as Union operation)
• Break Apart: Breaks the selected Drawing Object into a raw shape

A tutorial on how to use Paint Brush tool