Grooming Brushes

Use grooming brushes to control the appearance of groomable splines on the surface of polygon meshes. Each brush has attributes that let you create and control grooming effects. All brush operations are undoable.

Note: To Increase or decrease the radius of the brush tool, press the B key and drag your mouse.

Common brush attributes

There are four common attributes used by all grooming brushes. The values of the common attributes are shared across all brushes. For example, if you select the Length brush and set Spacing to 2, that value is also used for the Pose and Bend brushes.

Spacing: Sets the distance the brush moves on the polygon surface before a new brush stroke is created.
Falloff: Sets how the brush stroke falls-off to no effect. You can select a Gauss, Smooth, Linear, or Impulse distribution for Falloff.
Mask: Sets whether the brush stroke applies to primitives within the mask or to primitives outside the mask.

Length

Sets the length of the spline without modifying its shape.

Increment: Sets the amount within the requested value to change the length with each stroke.
Goal Length: Sets the amount to either add to the splines or the goal length.

Width

Adjusts the width of the spline without modifying its shape.

Increment: Sets the number of increments the spline width changes each stroke.
Goal Width: Sets the amount to either add to the splines or the goal width.

Pose

Controls the orientation and bend of the spline in the direction of the brush stroke.

Orientation: Sets the amount to modify the spline orientation.
Bend: Sets amount to modify the primitive's bend.

Orient

Controls the orientation of the primitive to be in the direction of the brush stroke without modifying the bend.

Magnitude: Sets the amount to modify the primitives orientation.

Bend

Controls the bend of the primitive in the direction of the brush stroke without modifying the orientation.

Magnitude: Sets the amount to modify the primitives bend.

Elevation

Lifts the spline away from the surface, and then towards or away from the surface normal without modifying the shape.

Degrees: Number of degrees and direction to rotate the spline with each brush stroke.
Goal Angle: Sets the goal angle above the surface to rotate the spline.

Attract

Pulls hairs from within the brush radius towards the spline most central to the brush radius. This can change both shape and length of the affected splines.

Style: Indicates if the goal/axis spline should be locked with the stroke down event or float along in the center of the moving brush
Magnitude: Sets the amount to move each spline towards the goal spline.

Repel

Pushes splines away from the center of the brush radius. This is done with a rotation so the shape of the spline is preserved.

Magnitude: Sets the amount to repel splines from center of brush.

Part

Pushes splines away from an invisible line drawn by the brush. This is done with a rotation so the shape of the spline is preserved.

Magnitude: Sets the amount to rotate spline from line.

Noise

Applies noise to the spline to jitter its appearance.

Middle: Sets the amount of spatial noise to apply to the spline mid point. Spline length is not maintained.
Tip: Sets the amount of spatial noise to apply to the spline tip point. Spline length is not maintained.
Width: Sets the spline width at the normal.
Off: Sets the maximum angle to rotate the spline off the normal.
About: Sets the maximum angle to rotate the spline about the normal.
Twist: Sets maximum angle to rotate the spline about its first segment.

Twist

Twists splines around the center of the brush radius.

Degrees: Sets amount to twist the spline for each stroke in degrees.

Smooth

Smooths the splines within the brush by blending between their shape and that of the average of all splines within the radius.

Length: Sets the amount to smooth splines toward the average.
Orientation: Sets the amount to modify the spline orientation.
Bend: Sets amount to modify the spline bend.

Region

Color: Sets the color for the region defined by the brush.

Mask

Lets you paint a mask onto the splines. The mask controls all other brush operations so that they are applied either within the mask or outside the mask only. The value of the mask displays in green. Darker splines have a lower mask value and brighter green ones a higher value. Click the icon to remove the mask from the Description.

Magnitude: Sets the amount to add to the mask value of the spline. Negative values reduce the mask effect and can eventually remove splines from mask.

Eraser

Erases Length, Orientation, and Bend strokes for splines within the brush's set radius.

Length: Sets the amount to restore the length with each stroke.
Orientation: Sets amount to restore the orientation with each stroke.
Bend: Sets the amount to restore the bend with each stroke. This also restores segment lengths such as Bend Param.