Generate Paint Effects menu

In the Modeling menu set, the Generate menu provides the following Paint Effects options.

Paint Effects Tool

Selects the Paint Effects Tool as your current tool, and displays the settings.

For more information, see Paint Effects Tool Options.

Mark Paintable

Allows you to paint the selected NURBS or polygonal objects. To paint on NURBS or polygonal objects, you must first make the objects paintable.

For more information, see Paint on objects.

Get Brush

Opens the Content Browser to the Paint Effects folder so you can select a preset brush. For more information, see Select brush presets.

Template Brush Settings

Opens the Paint Effects Brush Settings window which lets you set template brush settings.

Reset Template Brush

Restores the template brush settings to the default brush settings. For more information, see Reset the template brush.

Flip Tube Direction

Use Flip Tube Direction to switch the direction of the current brush between Along Path (best for canvas painting of plants) and Along Normal (best for scene painting of plants). For more information, see Flip Tube Direction.

Make Collide

Enables the selected object surface to collide with the Paint Effects stroke. See Add surface interaction and collisions.

Paint on Paintable Objects/Paint on View Plane

These two menu items are toggles: when one is selected, the other is turned off. By default Paint on Paintable Objects is on and allows you to paint on the paintable objects. If this is on (check mark beside the menu item) and no paintable objects are in the scene, your strokes will lie on the grid plane of the perspective view.

If you instead want to paint on the grid plane in Perspective view, then select Paint on View Plane. For more information, see Paint on the grid plane of the perspective view.

Apply Settings to Last Stroke

Applies brush settings from the specified brush to the last stroke. For more information, see Apply brush settings to strokes.

Get Settings from Selected Stroke

Copies the brush settings of the selected stroke to the template brush. For more information, see Copy brush settings from existing strokes to the template brush in Modify stroke settings for existing strokes.

Apply Settings to Selected Strokes

Applies brush settings from the specified brush to the selected strokes. For more information, see Apply brush settings to strokes.

Share One Brush

Forces the selected strokes to share the brush of the last selected stroke. When strokes share a brush, any changes you make to the brush affect all the strokes that brush is attached to. For more information, see Make strokes share or unshare the same brush.

Remove Brush Sharing

Removes brush sharing from the selected strokes. For more information, see Make strokes share or unshare the same brush.

Select Brush/Stroke Names Containing

Selects the brushes/strokes containing the name specified in the Name Fragment text box. For more information, see Select strokes or Select brushes in your scene.

Create Modifier

Create a Paint Effects modifier to influence all Paint Effects lines/entities at the same time. For more information, see Create a Paint Effects modifier and lineModifierShape node.

Set Modifier Fill Object

Converts the selected geometry to a Line Modifier fill object.

Maya then creates a Occupation Volume effect by setting the Occupy Attraction attribute (see lineModifierShape node) to generate a grid of attraction points inside the modifier fill object volume. Other Occupation Volume attributes, such as Attract Radius Scale and Occupy Radius Scale (see Paint Effects Brush Settings).

See Line Modifier fill objects and Occupation Surface and Occupation Volume effects.

Note: The Line Modifier object does not replace the Line Modifier shape, but can be scaled to occupy the shape volume.

Brush Animation

This submenu contains the Loop Brush Animation, Make Brush Spring, and Bake Spring Animation options.

Curve Utilities

This option includes a submenu of the following options:

• Simplify Stroke Path Curves — Remove misplaced CVs to make a smoother path through the CVs. For more information, see Simplify stroke path curves.
• Set Stroke Control Curves — Modify the behavior of tubes using a system of control curves. For more information, see Modify tube behavior using control curves.
• Attach Brush to Curves — Manually attach brushes to existing CV or EP curves, in effect, turning your curves into Paint Effects strokes. When you attach paint effects brushes to curves, you can also attach the curves to a polygon mesh or NURBS surface. This lets you easily orient your brush strokes relative to their target mesh’s or surface’s normals, as well as have them deform with their target mesh or surface. For more information, see Attach brushes to curves.
• Transfer All Strokes to new Object — Transfer strokes from a selected painted object to another selected object. For example, you can transfer painted eyebrows from a low resolution mesh character to a high resolution mesh character. This command transfers all the paint effects strokes that are present on the object. If both objects have paint effects strokes, then selection order is used to determine the source and target objects. Otherwise, the object without Paint Effects strokes gets the transferred strokes.
• Make Pressure Curve — Create a stroke pressure curve, which is a visual representation of the pressure values along the stroke. For more information, see Modify stroke pressure values interactively.
  Note: When you have finished editing with a pressure curve it is a good idea to delete it. Pressure curves have an associated expression and this should also be deleted. You can find the expression using the Expression Editor and listing expressions by name. It is safest to delete the expression before deleting the pressure curve.

  Selecting Curve Utilities > Make Pressure Curve > opens the Make Pressure Curve Options window, which provides the following:

  • Control Points — Set how many control points you want along the pressure curve. The more control points, the smoother the transition between pressure points. Pressure points in between these points are linearly interpolated.
  • Offset Scale — Set how far the pressure curve should be offset from the stroke. This has no effect on the pressure values, it just controls the position of the pressure curve, so you can set the scale according to your scene.

Auto Paint

This submenu contains the Paint Grid and Paint Random options.

Paint Effects Globals

Opens the Paint Effects Globals window. For descriptions of options in this window, see Paint Effects Globals Options.

Mesh Quality Attributes

Opens the Paint Effects Mesh Quality window. Depending on the mesh brush stroke(s) selected, different attributes appear in this window. For more information, see Optimizing Paint Effects Mesh quality.

Preset Blending

Select this to turn Preset Blending on and off. When it’s on and you select Preset Blending > , the Brush Preset Blend window opens. You can set how much you want the first stroke to be influenced by the Shading and Shape setting of the next brush preset you select. For more information, see Blend preset brush settings.

Save Brush Preset

Opens the Save Brush Preset window. For more information, see Create new brush presets.