Import or Convert Photoshop Brushes (.ABR) to TVPaint

[D.T. Nethery]

This has been discussed previously, such as in this thread from 2016 , but I think it is time to bring up this topic again , so I am posting this now as a new Feature & Improvement Request , because I see that other applications such as Clip Studio Paint , ProCreate, and Krita have made it possible to import Photoshop .ABR brush files.

Please understand , I love the brushes in TVPaint and for most of my needs , these are adequate , but I do frequently hear other artists mention "I would love to be able to bring some of my favorite Photoshop brushes over to TVPaint." And it is true that many of the Photoshop brushes are very good , so it would be a good thing to be able to reproduce them in TVPaint. When he recently posted some very good new custom brushes, Peter Wassink mentioned in this topic :

"The old custom brush engine is at the end of its life cycle...
I tried to push it to its limit a final time to try and come close to new industry standard brushes from the Likes of Photoshop and ArtRage
But the gap can't be closed ... "

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I noticed if I do a search for "Convert Photoshop Brushes to" I get results for Convert Photoshop Brushes Clip Studio, ProCreate, SAI , Krita, GIMP, Sketchbook, etc. , it seems that people are doing this for other apps.

Screen Shot 2021-01-21 at 12.29.02 PM.jpg (60.67 KiB) Viewed 24016 times

Searching some of these links I find that Clip Studio Paint by CELSYS has added support for importing Photoshop brushes natively to Clip Studio Paint. No manual converting of the Photoshop .ABR brush files is required. https://tips.clip-studio.com/en-us/articles/4002 -

ProCreate can also import Photoshop .ABR brushes. - https://procreate.art/handbook/5.1/brus ... hes-share/

GIMP can use Photoshop brushes - https://www.lifewire.com/use-photoshop- ... mp-1701706

Krita offers importing .ABR files to get brush texture from the .ABR file, but you have to recreate the brushes by adding appropriate values in size, spacing ,etc.


So this would indicate it is not impossible. The last time the idea of importing/adapting Photoshop brushes to TVPaint was addressed was in this thread from 2016. In that thread it was said:

"Sadly, it's not possible to convert Photoshop brushes into TVPaint Brushes simply because the engine is totally different : there are things that Photoshop can do and TVPaint cannot, and there are things you can do in TVPaint that are impossible in Photoshop."

While this is true, it is also true that the engines behind Clip Studio Paint, ProCreate, GIMP , and Krita are different engines from Photoshop, and yet somehow those other softwares have found ways to import and use Photoshop .ABR brush files.

Any chance this could be moved to the "To-Do" list ?

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[deruji]

On that note I would also like to suggest the integration/import of the MyPaint brushes.

[MarierV]

Been thinking of this too, I have CSP brushes I'd like to use in TVPaint. For now I'm taking a .png or .psd of the textures to make a brush in TVP.

I've also got some from Aaron Blaise which come from PS, but can be used in CSP to mostly the same degree. I understand why CSP didn't make a huge deal of it though, sometimes the brushes don't translate well.

If the brush features from CSP were incorporated to TVP (accepting .sut format), I'd be ecstatic since:

- It's my main drawing program (and the brushes can adapt in many ways, some even try to replicate brushes from SAI, FireAlpaca, etc.)
- I have the Pro version which only lets you animate 24 frames (while EX has no limit)
- The animation folders confuse me, regardless of the tutorials ;v

I wonder if Aaron B. has translated his PS brushes into TVP, but so far I've only seen him animate/color with the tools TVPaint already comes with.
If he has, I'd like to know :9

[D.T. Nethery]

I wonder if Aaron B. has translated his PS brushes into TVP, but so far I've only seen him animate/color with the tools TVPaint already comes with.

Aaron uses his PS brushes only for painting , not for animation. That brings up a good point: the default brush tools in TVPaint work perfectly well for animation. There is nothing "broken" about the TVPaint brushes that necessarily needs to be "fixed" by the addition of Photoshop brushes. And there are many , many fine TVPaint custom brush sets shared in the Contents Sharing forum if you want various types of pens and pencils for more variation in the line work for animation or additional custom brushes for painting illustrations or animation backgrounds.

I think the main reason for wanting Photoshop brushes recreated in TVPaint is for background painting or illustration, because most artists in the industry who paint background art for animation are accustomed to using Photoshop. PS brush tools are what they are familiar with and prefer using. On productions where animation is done in TVPaint or another program like Harmony , most of the time the background art is painted in Photoshop and imported into the animation program. (even though a program like TVPaint could be used to paint BG layers as well as handling the animation layers.) I've spoken with many freelance animation artists who tell me they would like to do all their work in TVPaint , but they have favorite brushes in Photoshop for painting backgrounds or certain types of textures , so they would be happy if those brushes from PS could be replicated in TVPaint. Most of the time it's only a few special brushes that are their main "go-to" brushes in PS , so it's not a matter of having to duplicate the hundreds of different brushes that have been created for Photoshop , it's just a few.

z
For now I'm taking a .png or .psd of the textures to make a brush in TVP.

From what I've read here on the TVPaint Forum , I think that's what most people do to recreate a PS brush in TVPaint. I must admit I've never actually done it. If anyone who has successfully recreated PS brushes in TVPaint were to make a tutorial on how to do it , I would be interested in watching it.


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Digging around in the forum , there have been conversations about adapting Photoshop (or Corel Painter) brushes going back many years (to 2007). Here's one that discusses the basic procedure for recreating a brush:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1537

This was from Hisko Hulsing, regarding a brush he and Peter Wassink recreated in TVPaint (from Painter)-
this brush

"I made a screenshot of the Painter brush, and imported the image in TVPaint and added paper and pressure for the opacity.
I'm working with the brush right now and it feels even better than the one in Painter."

1. Select a brush in Painter or Photoshop.
2. Make a new document and zoom in until the form of the brush is big and clearly visible
3. Place your mouse or pen above the white canvas (or whatever)
4.make a screenshot (when you are still in Painter or Photoshop)

5. Open a document in TVPaint and than: Edit - Clipboard - Get brush from clipboard
(NOTE: in TVPaint 11/11.5 this will be Edit > Clipboard > Paste Image )

Screen Shot 2021-01-27 at 9.33.45 AM.jpg (32.13 KiB) Viewed 23856 times

6. place the brush by clicking on the canvas in TVPaint (if you use TVPaint 11.5 Edit > Clipboard > Paste Image
the brush image is already placed on the canvas at this point)
7. Turn the white pixels into transparent by: FX Stack > Color > Scan Cleaner B&W
8. fill the Brushform with black using the Paintbucket fill tool.
9. Use the Cut Brush tool to pick the shape up as a Custom Brush.

Screen Shot 2021-01-27 at 9.16.25 AM.jpg (50.2 KiB) Viewed 23860 times

10. Play around with the settings of the Custom Brush (this can include
adding paper).
11. We looked at the behaviour of the brush in Painter and decided to put the angle on D (direction) and a jitter of 17% (to give it a more fuzzy random look) and pressure for 56% opacity.
We didn't use the profile editors, but if you want you can also edit those with graphs.
12. Copy and Paste the Custom Brush to a new Custom Panel. "

[MarierV]

I don’t think PS brushes would replace TVPaint’s, I’m very happy with what TVP already has (and brushes/plug-ins I’ve used).
Just remembered Aaron said in one of his first videos that he doesn’t import brushes, so now I know :9

I don’t use many PS brushes either but if I’d want to make an artistic animated project with TVP I would consider using CSP/PS brushes inside it (and would be less complicated than using the programs separately, since the PS timeline is... not as good as TVP’s.) But I’m also okay with adapting the brushes to the program if importing them can’t be done.

[D.T. Nethery]

Thierry showed me that there is a new page added to the User Manual which discusses replicating Photoshop brushes:

https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... ps-brushes

I hope that one of our veteran TVPaint users who is experienced with creating custom brushes (not me , unfortunately ! ) will make a video tutorial that goes into more detail about this important step in replicating the PS brush:

"The final step is also the longest: adding the same parameters as the Photoshop brush to the one you created in TVPaint.

Aside from the basic settings of your brush, other important parameters can be reproduced using brush connections, which define how some aspects your brush will react to external factors (for example, linking opacity to pen pressure)."

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The new page in the User Manual also notes:

"free programs such as ABRMate and ABRViewer allow you to open the .abr Photoshop brush file and export the shape of the brush tip as a .png image."

Unfortunately both ABRMate and ABRViewer are Windows-only , so Mac users must look elsewhere.


Here are two I have found for Mac:

BrushViewer Quicklook Plug-In (free)
https://www.netwebbing.com/view-abr-brush-files-mac/

http://brushviewer.sourceforge.net/

After installing BrushView Quicklook , to view any .abr file, go to where you have .abr files on your computer. Select an .abr file and press the space bar to view the brushes in the .abr file.
(unfortunately this viewer does not allow you to export a selected .abr image , so you must take a screen shot of it and then import it to TVPaint , resize it to the correct size for a custom brush, then cut to a brush and adjust the custom brush parameters until you gets a brush that behaves like the brush you were using in Photoshop . Then copy it to a Custom Panel to save it.)


BR/TPL/PAT Viewer - ($1.99 from App Store) allows you to open, view and extract images from abr (brushes), tpl (tool presets) and pat (patterns) files.
It is iOS only , so you would need to extract the brush image you want , save it as a PNG , then transfer it to your Mac
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/abr-tpl-p ... d578217435

There was also Brush Pilot for Mac , which is no longer developed or supported. It works on Mac OS Mojave, but not on Catalina or BigSur .
I was able to download it from https://mac.majorgeeks.com/files/detail ... pilot.html , but unfortunately there is no way to register it .
The unregistered version can only display 5 .abr images at a time. It does allow for exporting the brush image to PNG.

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[D.T. Nethery]

Thierry showed me that there is a new page added to the User Manual which discusses replicating Photoshop brushes:

https://www.tvpaint.com/doc/tvp11/index ... ps-brushes

"The final step is also the longest: adding the same parameters as the Photoshop brush to the one you created in TVPaint.

Aside from the basic settings of your brush, other important parameters can be reproduced using brush connections, which define how some aspects your brush will react to external factors (for example, linking opacity to pen pressure)."

Can anyone tell me how to interpret the Photoshop brush parameters to match the brush parameters we have in TVPaint ?
What I mean is, what are the equivalent parameters for Photoshop's Shape Dynamics, Scattering , Texture , Dual Brush, Color Dynamics,
Transfer , Brush Pose, Noise , Wet Edges, Build-Up, Smoothing , Protect Texture ?

I understand that TVPaint may not have an exact equivalent brush parameter for each Photoshop brush parameter , but I'm wondering which of TVPaint's brush parameters
are more or less equivalent to the Brush Parameters listed in Photoshop ?

Just for one example: is "Spacing" in Photoshop the same thing as "Step" in TVPaint ?

Or how about "Angle" in Photoshop ... does that mean the same thing as "Angle" in TVPaint or is it more like "Orientation" in the TVPaint brush options ?

Photoshop_Brush_Parameters.jpg (40.88 KiB) Viewed 12559 times

The question is: which of these various brush parameters in TVPaint are equivalent to the brush parameters
in Photoshop , even if they have different names ?

TVPaint_Brush_Parameters.jpg (89.74 KiB) Viewed 12559 times

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[condepablo]

We know TVP would need to modify a lot to be able to import photoshop brushes. But I really think thats the future, I read a LOT of improovments that are impossible in the actuall code, but if that keeps that way I wonder how many time the software has left.
keeping that way and we wont be able to run it on windows 13

[Svengali]

Can anyone tell me how to interpret the Photoshop brush parameters to match the brush parameters we have in TVPaint ?
What I mean is, what are the equivalent parameters for Photoshop's Shape Dynamics, Scattering , Texture , Dual Brush, Color Dynamics,
Transfer , Brush Pose, Noise , Wet Edges, Build-Up, Smoothing , Protect Texture ?

I understand that TVPaint may not have an exact equivalent brush parameter for each Photoshop brush parameter , but I'm wondering which of TVPaint's brush parameters are more or less equivalent to the Brush Parameters listed in Photoshop ?

Just for one example: is "Spacing" in Photoshop the same thing as "Step" in TVPaint ?

Or how about "Angle" in Photoshop ... does that mean the same thing as "Angle" in TVPaint or is it more like "Orientation" in the TVPaint brush options ?

The question is: which of these various brush parameters in TVPaint are equivalent to the brush parameters
in Photoshop , even if they have different names ?

Hi David,
I don't really use photoshop, so I've never investigated the brush design capabilities (especially compared to the brush design capabilities of TVPaint). So I went looking (DuckDuckGo) which turned up a number of different efforts to explain all the parameters for brush design in Photoshop, some excellent and others I found to be virtually opaque .

But one YouTube channel called "Digital Painting Tips" does a pretty good job at show and tell in a 45 minute overview.
Here is the link: Adobe Photoshop Brush Settings (CC 2018). I watched through most of it, some parts several times over, and see lots of overlap and things-in-common with TVPaint brush parameters... though Photoshop's brush design interface is SO much more sophisticated with lots of admirably discrete settings for each of the parameters. (I also found a few unique options in the Photoshop parameters that made me envious. )

I'm also going to take a look at the new TVPaint User Manual entry on approximation of Photoshop Brushes... successful conversion will demand a studied understanding of all of the parameters and variables in the TVP brush design tool, which I find to be pretty deep, especially if supplemented with some custom GEORGE scripts for creating and manipulating single frame brushes and multi-frame AnimBrush files.

sven