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obtusity β FireAlpaca vine brushes
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#brushes #vines #firealpaca #firealpacabrushes
Published: 2015-04-25 12:13:42 +0000 UTC; Views: 28483; Favourites: 422; Downloads: 4567
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Description
An experiment in vine brushes - brush scripts, not bitmap brushes, requires FireAlpaca 1.2 or higher.Sometimes leaves have the tip chopped off - and I'm not sure why. Maximum brush width clipping? Speed problem with Bezier drawing? A bug in my code?
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Comments: 41
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anyone know if firealpaca was inspired by medibang paint?
and also why firealpaca's file save name is mdpΒ
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click the download on the right
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Might be a dumb question, but how do you access the brush control once the brush has been added? I am somewhat worried that I might mess up and that the leaves might not end up where I want them.Β
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Sorry for the really late reply - work and personal circumstances left me with no FireAlpaca time for a couple of months.
You cannot move the settings to affect the vine after you have painted the line. However, you can undo, adjust the settings, and try painting the stroke again.
FireAlpaca is a simple raster/bitmap paint program, not a vector editing program - once you have laid down a stroke, including these vine brushes, it is fixed, as if you painted each leaf by hand.
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these are the first i ever downloaded
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Hope you're having fun using them!
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Can you please explain how you created this? I am already innately aware of making custom bitmap brushes, but scripting brushes is completly alien to me.
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I've written a small tutorial series on writing brush scripts, which you can find here: obtusity.tumblr.com/post/14652β¦
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1. Download the zip file and extract the 3 .bs files.
2. From FireAlpaca (or MediBang Paint Pro), click the Add Brush (Script) button at the bottom of the brush list (icon: little piece of paper with the letter S on it. If you cannot see the button, try dragging the edge of the brush list to make it wider, or upgrade to a newer version of FireAlpaca).
3. Browse to and select one the .bs files. This will add another brush to the bottom of your brush list.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the brush list and select the newly loaded brush.
5. You can now draw with the new brush. The Brush Control window will have extra sliders to control some of the brush properties.
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Fantastic! Used here:Β dichotomy-676.deviantart.com/aβ¦
These are great!!
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Thanks for informing me of your impressive image - nice to see the brushes used, great science-fiction-style image!
My apologies for the delay replying, I haven't been monitoring my comments recently.
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I absolutely ADORE these brushes. I'll likely be using them in everything I do for quite some time! I'm a big fan of thorny vines and they're so very tedious to do by hand, which is why Im thrilled with your script. Now, how about barbed wire?
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That's just epic!
Thank you for sharing! 
Soo kindly done!
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you clearly know what you are doing with this scripting stuff. would you mind making and sharing a tutorial with some info for those of us who want to try as well?Β
thank you in advance!
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I'll see if I can put something together (might take a while).
The short version is:
1. Learn the Lua programming language that the brush scripts are written in www.lua.org
2. Read the documentation for the FireAlpaca API firealpaca.com/bs (use Google Translate)
3. Look at existing brushes included with the program, posted in the fire-alpaca gallery, posted for the program MDIAPP (uses the same brush scripting - I suspect an overlap of authors/programmers). Here's an excellent starting point d.hatena.ne.jp/MDIAPP/touch/20β¦
4. Do lots and lots and lots of experiments - start by modifying an existing brush, combine pieces from different brushes.
5. Load it, test it, delete it from the brush list, stare at the code until your head aches, modify it to try and fix any bugs, load it again and repeat the loop until your brain bleeds and/or you reach something you are willing to use/share.
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awesome, thanks! Did you study programming before? you must have. I never really studied programming, and I am really trying to make up for it now, but I had a few attempts at the Lua, first when I was trying to make a game in Love, and second when I discovered that you can write scripts in it for Grafx2. I checked out those links, and for some reason the examples don't work for me when I try to import them as a brush. the files that are already in .bs format work, for some reason.
If you ever get around to putting something together, that would be lovely. I find that I still need someone to explain official documentation and whatnot in dumbed down language.
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Self-taught in programming, mostly in Python.
My Lua attempts are "try, bugfix, try, bugfix, try" because I don't really use the language for anything else and I keep typing Python-like syntax instead. Work in little steps, work out what went wrong (the hardest part. Well, except for trigonometry - if I'd known it had real-world uses rather than being an intellectual exercise, I might have tried to remember more when it was taught in my dim and distant school days, or have done a little in university rather than a full bio-science approach).
You might be saving as filename.bs.txt format, with your text editor automatically supplying the extension, and the operating system hiding the .txt extension (because it is supposedly "easier" for the user, bah!) so you only see filename.bs
For example, in Windows 8, it's here in the File Explorer (I think Windows 10 is mostly the same, Windows 7 and earlier might be hidden deeper within the menu somewhere):Β Fileext Β (for the current folder you are viewing)
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how did you learn Python, if you don't mind me asking?
the first thing I do when I get a new computer is enable the extensions, so it's not the extension issue, maybe the code is not compatible with new firealpaca or something like that.
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By the way, the first edition of Programming in Lua is available online:Β www.lua.org/pil/contents.html
It sometimes assumes you already know a bit about programming rather than being Β an absolute beginner, but still useful.
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Just a random thought: Are you cutting and pasting into a pure text editor (e.g Notepad on Windows, or TextEdit on a Mac, or something like the programmer's editor Notepad++ , rather than a word processor? Word processors can do nasty things to plain text files.
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The excellent documentation on the python.org website, and a copy of the book Learning Python, and applying it as much as possible to real-world problems as soon as I had a handle on the language, to keep my interest up - even the simplest little things like using it to do calculations, generate passwords, etc.
I'd look up snippets of code (for example, Google for python generate password), look at a few different results, then write my own.
I wonder if it is a matter of line endings (Windows versus Mac versus Linux). Open one script that works in Notepad and see if it looks jumbled (Linux line ends), then open one that doesn't work and compare it.
I'm typing this on Android, I'll open up a proper code editor later and have a look at what my settings are (can't remember offhand what I have set for Lua scripts).
Otherwise, zip up one that works for you and one that doesn't, and put the zip file in your sta.sh and send me a link.
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cool, thanks, will do!
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Glad it was useful!
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Thank you for sharing these, I just got firealpaca and I'm looking forward to using these!Β
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Thanks! Have fun using them.
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Thanks! Hope you find them useful for something.Β
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Thank you so much for these brushes! I'll make sure to credit you when I use them. 
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Hope you find them useful at some stage. I'd love to see your work if you ever do use them for something, but don't stress about letting me know or providing credit - it's not essential, use them freely with my best wishes.Β
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Mmhm! I haven't actually used them on anything yet (after all, I haven't had them that long) but I tried them out a little, and IΒ loveΒ them. They're almost fun just watching... Hehe...Β
Okay! I always try to be super careful with crediting, so I probably will anyway, but it's nice of you to be so open with them.
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Very interesting.
'm curious; how do you manage to create these?
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The new script brushes are small programs written in the Lua programming language, with the addition of some brush-specific functions provided by FireAlpaca. You can open them and view the code in a text editor (such as Notepad on Windows, TextEdit on Macs).
More about Lua: www.lua.org
The FireAlpaca brush-specific API is documented (in Japanese) here: firealpaca.com/bs (thanks to kodumen for that link)
I found these brush script examples extremely helpful: d.hatena.ne.jp/MDIAPP/20100311
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Ah, cool! Great job on these
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