Most Used or Favorite Brushes Grouping

[kenmo]

Is there a way to add your favorite or most used brushes into a group of their own? Corel Painter has this feature and it helps as your brush collection grows.

Cheers & many thanks....

[Enug]

I have a Toolbox saved with the brushes and presets I use when painting animals. I saved another with my favourite watercolour brushes/presets. Would that work for you?

[markw]

Yes, collections of brushes can be grouped together.
If the brushes are all of the same kind, say, Oil Brushes for example, you can make a new Preset Group in the Presets panel and stored them there.
But if the brushes you want to collect together are of different kinds, then Toolboxes in AR will facilitate this.
And not just brushes can be stored in Toolboxes! For more info about what can be stored in Toolboxes see here: https://www.artrage.com/manuals/getting-started-artrage/artrage-manuals/artrage-4/toolbox-and-workbench/
One thing to note though about Toolboxes is that they do not actually contain any assets. They are more like a fetch list telling AR where and what to get you.
If an asset is moved or renamed after being added to a Toolbox, you will get an error message when trying to access that asset from the Toolbox containing it.

[Krigen813]

I'm just gonna go ahead and agree with June and Mark. Toolboxes are my best friend in AR. Here is a screen shot of the toolbox (top left area of the screen shot) I use when I'm painting nebula. In my case so far I just keep tools in it, but I might start keeping my common color samples there too.101574

[kenmo]

Thanks all for the replies. Sounds like Toolbox Presets are the answer. I know Photoshop has something similar to this.

Again many thanks....

[kenmo]

Thanks for the link but that has to be one of the most confusing and worst written documentation I've ever read.

And I do not want to save the ToolBox to a single painting. I want to save my favorite brushes so I can use them with any new painting I am working on.

So sorry but IF I understand the documentation correctly (and I'm having a hard time following it - the lack of images in the documentation is appalling) Toolboxes can only be saved to a single work in progress painting.

But thanks for the suggestion, I do not think it would be for me NOR do I want to muddle through the documentation.

Cheers & many thanks...

[Enug]

Hi Kenmo. I save my Toolboxes into folder from which I can load them when setting up the next painting. As I have been using the same canvas for most of my latest paintings I have saved the canvas shortcut to my desktop as a .ptg(it's named "my fav canvas";) so when I open AR the toolbox will be loaded. If I want a different brush etc. I can edit from there. So that particular toolbox will be in my toolbox folder and also stored in my fav canvas. I don't keep individual toolboxes - just the one mentioned here and another with my favourite watercolour brushes, etc. I have made a stencil of my sig and store that in the toolbox too.

I hope that isn't as clear a mud!:confused: Of course I have to rename the canvas so that I can keep the original shortcut. Just counting I find that I have 13 tools/presets stored with the canvas. Not counting colours as they vary too much.

PS. looks like the Workbench was only in version 4 so things might be a little confusing reading the manual for that version.

[Krigen813]

You can save toolboxes outside of paintings. First you will need to make the toolbox you want to save. Then you will need to click the menu button of the toolbox window.
101585

Then you will have the option to save the toolbox as a file in what ever folder you want.
101586

This same menu will let you load any saved toolboxes in any paintings.

I hope this helps.

[nekomata]

THANK YOU so much for explaining this, Krigen813!

I struggled with the way supporting documents for artrage 5 were presented as well, and completely overlooked there actually was an option to keep the toolboxes backed up for reusing in different painting projects.

I love this feature when working on something requiring differently adjusted tools going back and forth, but making a separate tool stack for every painting I was working on was a little bit of a hassle.

[markw]

Yes, as the others have said Toolboxes of brushes can be stored as an independent Toolbox file that can be later loaded into any future painting.
But I agree, that help page could benefit from a bit of a rewrite perhaps.
Certainly references to AR4’s old Workbench mode don’t help if you are working with AR6.

So there are three classes of things that can not be saved in an independent Toolbox and must always be associated with a specific painting:
Layers, References (inc Scraps & Views) and Stencils.
Personally I can see the rationale behind the first two being tied to a specific painting but not Stencils?
As Stencils are independent files stored on disk, the same as any other brush files, I can’t see why they can not be stored in an independent Toolbox and must remain tied to a specific painting?

One more thing I would note here is that if you have a saved Toolbox that contains one or more of those painting specific items, it can still be saved and used in other paintings but those items in it that are tied to a specific painting will not be visible in the Toolbox. But they will become visible again when that Toolbox is used with it’s linked painting.

[kenmo]

Hi Kenmo. I save my Toolboxes into folder from which I can load them when setting up the next painting. As I have been using the same canvas for most of my latest paintings I have saved the canvas shortcut to my desktop as a .ptg(it's named "my fav canvas";) so when I open AR the toolbox will be loaded. If I want a different brush etc. I can edit from there. So that particular toolbox will be in my toolbox folder and also stored in my fav canvas. I don't keep individual toolboxes - just the one mentioned here and another with my favourite watercolour brushes, etc. I have made a stencil of my sig and store that in the toolbox too.

I hope that isn't as clear a mud!:confused: Of course I have to rename the canvas so that I can keep the original shortcut. Just counting I find that I have 13 tools/presets stored with the canvas. Not counting colours as they vary too much.

PS. looks like the Workbench was only in version 4 so things might be a little confusing reading the manual for that version.

Great tip. I was wondering why I could not get into Workbench mode. After spending 30+ years as server admin and reading through volumes of technical documentation the ArtRage doc on Toolsets ranks as one of the most confusing and you've explained why.

Cheers & thanks for the reply...

[Krigen813]

Personally I can see the rationale behind the first two being tied to a specific painting but not Stencils?
As Stencils are independent files stored on disk, the same as any other brush files, I can’t see why they can not be stored in an independent Toolbox and must remain tied to a specific painting?


Whole heartedly agree here. Stencils can be used anywhere, so why not let them be stored in toolboxes outside of paintings? Maybe it can be patched or updated. Or at the very least, improved in AR7.

[Krigen813]

THANK YOU so much for explaining this, Krigen813!

I struggled with the way supporting documents for artrage 5 were presented as well, and completely overlooked there actually was an option to keep the toolboxes backed up for reusing in different painting projects.

I love this feature when working on something requiring differently adjusted tools going back and forth, but making a separate tool stack for every painting I was working on was a little bit of a hassle.

You're very welcome. Unfortunately, the AR6 documentation is nonexistent. I've learned what I know of AR6 from tinkering, AR6 walkthrough videos on YouTube, and asking here in the forums.
I started posting last night to say that I'd make a pictured guide of how to do this when I get through finals this week, but then I realized that I could do so in about the same time it takes to say I would do it later. LOL.

So glad to help! Let us know if you have other questions.

[Enug]

I thought I had posted this comment last night but as I don't see it in this thread here it goes again:confused:

It is possible to save a stencil in the Toolbox and for it to be available when next you load the saved Toolbox. Select "hide stencil" when you want to remove it from the canvas and it will remain in the Toolbox. If you 'remove stencil' you will remove it from the Toolbox as well.