Brush Asset Project #101895

New Issue

NOTE: WIP...

This task is a general overview of the proposed new 'Brush Asset' system, aiming at offering a better brush management in Blender. Technical design will be done in sub-tasks.

The short-term flow of work is not organized here, but on the dedicated "Taiga" platform: https://tree.taiga.io/project/julianeisel-blender-brush-assets

Issues With Current Brush Management

Currently brushes are essentially handled like any other data-block. However, they are not really data, more some sort of complex presets affecting sculpting or drawing tools.

Their coupling with editing modes and tools is also flaky, in most cases (besides Grease Pencil modes), selecting a tool also select a brush, and often there is only one default brush per tool. So having to select a tool automatically select a 'default' brush for it, this is redundant and not so clear for the user.

Being regular local data-blocks, they are hard to share:

Linking them is essentially useless, since one cannot edit their parameters then.
Appending them fully breaks any link to their source, and makes these brushes purely local data.

Further more, any edit to the brush settings is stored in the current file, making the concept of 'default' brush essentially nonexistent. Typical brush usages implies lots of frequent changes for a few properties, which should not be stored/kept across editing sessions.

New Proposal

General Ideas

Brushes define the type of edit mode and action they perform. Selecting a brush automatically enable its relevant 'tool'. Consequently, there is only one drawing or sculpting tool left, per edit mode.

Brushes are assets, stored in asset repositories. Either regular repositories, or a few special ones (like one shipped with Blender, currently called 'Essentials'). There are no more brushes stored in a regular working .blend file.

In regular working files, brushes are runtime-only data, their settings can be edited, but all changes are lost by default when closing Blender. Users can see (and reset) the edited values.

Changes to brushes can be saved into the 'draft'. Draft is a special asset repository that acts as some kind of advanced per-user copy-paste buffer (similar to e.g. User Preferences: several instances of Blender ran by the same user would have access to the same draft data, but it would not be shared between different users).

Draft data can either be independent (i.e. a full duplicate of the original brush data), or a library override of the original asset, to allow draft brushes to be updated if their original source is modified.

Authoring of brushes assets happens in the asset .blend files. Brushes can be either created from scratch, or duplicated from the draft or other assets. This process needs to be clearly separated from brush usage in the UI (probably done in different editors, Asset and/or Properties ones?).

UI/UX Mockups

This is a mockup of the new asset region for accessing as many or as few brushes as needed, as well as catalogs.
From the bottom, the user would access and use their brushes. Meanwhile the brush settings would still be accessed in the tool settings.
Basic drafting and saving of a draft would happen in the sidebar, but possibly in a different tab.
The Toolbar would keep a single brush tool, which activates if a brush is selected.

If there is a strong need for multiple tools for brushes in the Toolbar is still open.

Like the name implies, this region would be used for more assets than just brushes, and could be used in various different editors.
The basic interaction with assets would be the same as the current Pose Library implementation, which this region aims to build upon and replace.

Using a new horizontal region is a more efficient and intuitive use of space, while saving space in the toolbar and sidebar for other important content.

More open questions and details in a different design task.

Technical Aspects

Main points:

Brushes are linked and overridden. Allows user to be able to edit their settings, see which settings are modified, reset to default (i.e. linked data) values, etc.
No changes are expected for now in the existing brush/stroke/draw/sculpt code.
Clicking on the brush asset has to enable the relevant tool, do the linking & override action (or find existing override), and assign the override as active brush.
Draft support needs ability to create, manipulate, open and save additional Mains databases in Blender.

Open Questions:

Asset System: How to handle updates to the draft repository? User would expect to see these changes immediately in their UI.
Brushes: How to handle BKE_paint_toolslots_brush_get and the toolslot system? Pre-load brushes from the essentials there? Otherwise hook this code into the new brush loading system.

Issues Not Tackled Here

There are several other issues with Brushes and Sculpt/Paint modes that are not meant to be tackled by this proposal:

General technical debt (code severely lacks of proper design, and is very hard to understand, maintain and extend in its current state).
** Somewhat related, serious lacking in things like tablet pressure control etc.
Unified Settings should be stored per edit mode, it makes little sense to share unified settings between sculpt and paint mode e.g.

NOTE: WIP... -------------------------- This task is a general overview of the proposed new 'Brush Asset' system, aiming at offering a better brush management in Blender. Technical design will be done in sub-tasks. The short-term flow of work is not organized here, but on the dedicated "Taiga" platform: https://tree.taiga.io/project/julianeisel-blender-brush-assets Issues With Current Brush Management **** Currently brushes are essentially handled like any other data-block. However, they are not really data, more some sort of complex presets affecting sculpting or drawing tools. Their coupling with editing modes and tools is also flaky, in most cases (besides Grease Pencil modes), selecting a tool also select a brush, and often there is only one default brush per tool. So having to select a tool automatically select a 'default' brush for it, this is redundant and not so clear for the user. Being regular local data-blocks, they are hard to share: * Linking them is essentially useless, since one cannot edit their parameters then. * Appending them fully breaks any link to their source, and makes these brushes purely local data. Further more, any edit to the brush settings is stored in the current file, making the concept of 'default' brush essentially nonexistent. Typical brush usages implies lots of frequent changes for a few properties, which should not be stored/kept across editing sessions. New Proposal **** General Ideas ---------------- Brushes define the type of edit mode and action they perform. Selecting a brush automatically enable its relevant 'tool'. Consequently, there is only one drawing or sculpting tool left, per edit mode. Brushes are assets, stored in asset repositories. Either regular repositories, or a few special ones (like one shipped with Blender, currently called 'Essentials'). There are no more brushes stored in a regular working .blend file. In regular working files, brushes are runtime-only data, their settings can be edited, but all changes are lost by default when closing Blender. Users can see (and reset) the edited values. Changes to brushes can be saved into the 'draft'. Draft is a special asset repository that acts as some kind of advanced per-user copy-paste buffer (similar to e.g. User Preferences: several instances of Blender ran by the same user would have access to the same draft data, but it would not be shared between different users). Draft data can either be independent (i.e. a full duplicate of the original brush data), or a library override of the original asset, to allow draft brushes to be updated if their original source is modified. Authoring of brushes assets happens in the asset .blend files. Brushes can be either created from scratch, or duplicated from the draft or other assets. This process needs to be clearly separated from brush usage in the UI (probably done in different editors, Asset and/or Properties ones?). UI/UX Mockups ------------------ This is a mockup of the new asset region for accessing as many or as few brushes as needed, as well as catalogs. From the bottom, the user would access and use their brushes. Meanwhile the brush settings would still be accessed in the tool settings. Basic drafting and saving of a draft would happen in the sidebar, but possibly in a different tab. The Toolbar would keep a single brush tool, which activates if a brush is selected. If there is a strong need for multiple tools for brushes in the Toolbar is still open. ![asset_bar_region1.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13726853/asset_bar_region1.png) ![asset_bar_region2.png](https://archive.blender.org/developer/F13726855/asset_bar_region2.png) Like the name implies, this region would be used for more assets than just brushes, and could be used in various different editors. The basic interaction with assets would be the same as the current Pose Library implementation, which this region aims to build upon and replace. Using a new horizontal region is a more efficient and intuitive use of space, while saving space in the toolbar and sidebar for other important content. More open questions and details in a different design task. Technical Aspects --------------------- Main points: * Brushes are linked and overridden. Allows user to be able to edit their settings, see which settings are modified, reset to default (i.e. linked data) values, etc. * No changes are expected for now in the existing brush/stroke/draw/sculpt code. * Clicking on the brush asset has to enable the relevant tool, do the linking & override action (or find existing override), and assign the override as active brush. * Draft support needs ability to create, manipulate, open and save additional Mains databases in Blender. Open Questions: * Asset System: How to handle updates to the draft repository? User would expect to see these changes immediately in their UI. * Brushes: How to handle `BKE_paint_toolslots_brush_get` and the toolslot system? Pre-load brushes from the essentials there? Otherwise hook this code into the new brush loading system. Issues Not Tackled Here **** There are several other issues with Brushes and Sculpt/Paint modes that are not meant to be tackled by this proposal: * General technical debt (code severely lacks of proper design, and is very hard to understand, maintain and extend in its current state). ** Somewhat related, serious lacking in things like tablet pressure control etc. * Unified Settings should be stored per edit mode, it makes little sense to share unified settings between sculpt and paint mode e.g.

Changed status from 'Needs Triage' to: 'Confirmed'

Added subscribers: @mont29, @dfelinto, @JulianEisel, @JulienKaspar

#100122 was marked as duplicate of this issue

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While we are working on multiple branches/PRs, we regularly merge those into one combined brush-assets-project branch. There's a PR to follow this now: #106303: WIP: Brush assets project

While we are working on multiple branches/PRs, we regularly merge those into one combined `brush-assets-project` branch. There's a PR to follow this now: [#106303: WIP: Brush assets project](https://projects.blender.org/blender/blender/pulls/106303)

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Brush Asset Project #101895

General Ideas

UI/UX Mockups

Technical Aspects