Brushes Asset behavior look like a bug, I think?

[karasu1980]

Hi Adobe support team and community.

I'm kind of newbie in Substance Painter. Started the trial few days ago and after watching a good amount of tutorials, read the manual, watch the FAQ, and read the other users posts. But I cant find the answer, that's why I'm had not more choice than post this.

Learning how to use the tool, I started to explore the Brushes in the Assets panel, and naturally picking here and there, among the different options to see what they do and "play" with their individual setting over and over, after couple of hours of experiments I close the model and open a clean new one to check more of the other brushes but for my surprise I started to see that the new selected brush, is painting carrying all the settings that the previous brush used, for example if I used an Autumn Leaf and switch to a Basic Hard now the brushes paints with the Autumn Leaf color parameters among others, little weird but somewhat manageable, but when you previous brush is something like Cracks, now your Basic Hard has not color but instead is carving a groove. So, in order to go back to the original settings for the Basic Hard in this case, I have to see in the Properties - Paint panel and edit the former options in order to use the original setting of brush which is pretty annoying.
Is the Brushes by default behave like this? Is there a setting that I accidentally activate that make this thing happen?
No matter how many times I restart the program, start a new session the behavior still the same.

Thank you for your assistance and time.

Sincerely
Rai

[karasu1980]

Hey I'm still wanted to hear from someone, I'm a rigth or wrong?
Thank you.

[davescm]

Some brushes carry a material setting (such as the leaf brush you mention), but most are just brushes and do not overwrite the material with which they are painting. That is quite sensible as if it didn't, you would have to start again and re-input the material just because you had changed from say a soft round brush to a sponge brush.

Restarting the programme though should reset the brush to it's default channel settings until you set those channels or enter a material.

Dave

[karasu1980]

Hi davescm.
Thank you for the reply.

Before start my additional questions I think I have to put things in a context.
I'm familiar with 3D software but mainly I'm coming from working with software like Photoshop or Clip Studio Paint, and my approach to brushes [among other concepts] are derived of the logic of those environments.

Well as far as I understand, the complex and material profuse the brush is, the less chances to "lost" their attributes when switching among others brushes, right?
Well if is this the case and considering my background, I had a couple of questions on how to work with this logic and don't feel frustrated when I grab the brush tool:

1. Is there a "best practice" or "intend way" in the case of working with brushes inside Substance 3D Painter? I mean, maybe just create a new layer and look for a brush in the library is against the software logic.

2. Is there a way to create a "vanilla" brush that not change if I switch other brushes?

3. Is the brush setting sensitive or linked to a material? I mean, since you define the properties of the layers and the interactions are "limited" to the previous settings, is this also a way to define what are the properties of the brush instead of thinking in setting a brush property, you have to set the layer or material in which you plan to work?

Sorry for the expansion in the topic, I really appreciate to have a better idea of this, because I'm considering to subscribe to the tool but not sure if is the right fit for me.

[davescm]

Hi

Since you work in Photoshop, you will be familiar that changing brushes in Photoshop does not change the colour (unless the colour is saved as a preset with the brush). So it is with Substance Painter, with most brushes, when you switch brushes your brush material stays.

However, you can save presets in Substance painter which can help streamline your workflow:

- A tool preset saves both the brush, its settings and the associated material 

- A brush preset saves just the brush and its brush settings including any alpha that gives the brush its shape.

To save these just right click in the properties window.

https://substance3d.adobe.com/documentation/spdoc/presets-180191512.html

By using such presets you can make Painter work the way you want. For example switching between presets that change the material as well as the brush itself.

Another method I often use is to add a fill layer with my material, add a black mask then an "Add paint" effect to that mask. Now I can paint with any brush shape I like revealing the material as I do so. Erasing is a simple matter of pressing x which switches the brush to black and hides my fill layer.

Dave

[karasu1980]

Thank you Dave for your time and insight, I'm going to try your suggestions.

Rai