The “Materials” “Palette”

We use the “Materials” palette to paint, draw and fill through “Styles” and “Materials”.

A style is a color, a gradient or a pattern, and a material is the style plus an optional texture.

Both “Styles” and “Materials” can be selected from the “Materials” palette.

To open the “Materials” palette we click the “Palettes” button in the Standard Toolbar and select “Materials” in the drop-down menu.
This opens the “Materials” palette in its default position in the top right corner of the application window.  We had already seen how to move this palette in Lesson 2 of this course.

 

Let us go through the options available in the “Materials” palette.
At the top we have three tabs: “List”, “Rainbow” and “Swatches”.
The “Rainbow” tab is selected by default. To change this, click on the tab you want to open.

(1) “List” tab: It displays an outer hue rectangular box (A) and an inner saturation rectangle (B), as well as a strip containing white, three shades of gray, and black (C).
With the horizontal scroll bar (D) we can adjust the saturation and with the vertical slider (E) we set the lightness.

(2) “Rainbow” Tab: This tab contains a panel of available colors which you can click to select a color (A). At the bottom of the tab you can click to select white, black, or three shades of gray (B).

(3)”Swatches” Tab: This tab contains samples and materials (A) that we can filter based on the “color”, “churning” and “Material” (B). If we have added a new color (C) we can use it again later, or delete it (D) when it is no longer needed.
We have some other options (E) which are self explanatory.

 

We have the boxes “Foreground and Fill” (1) and “Background and Fill properties” (2), where you will see the current foreground and background material, which consist of color, gradient, or pattern, style and the optional texture.
Click a box to open the dialog “Material Properties”, in which you set material options.

We use foreground materials for brushstrokes and background materials for fillings.

When you draw or paint with a brush or fill tool by pressing the left mouse button, you can paint with the foreground material.
When you do this with the right mouse button, you draw or paint with the background material.

 

We have the “Foreground Color” (3) and “Background Color” panes(4).
These display the current foreground and background color, and you can set colors regardless of the current material.
In the dialog box “Color”, you can set the color.

 

We have the “Style” option (1), which indicates the currently selected style, color, gradient or pattern.

We have the “Texture” option (2) which turns the current texture on or off.

We have the “Transparency” option (3), which indicates whether the foreground or background material is transparent (or whether it has any style or texture).

We have the button, “Set to black and white” (4), and this sets the foreground to black and background white.

 

Then we have the checkbox, “All tools” (5), and this indicates whether the selected foreground and background material is applicable to all tools. When this is disabled, the selected materials are applied only to the active tool.

To swap the foreground color with the background color, click the “Swap Colors” button (a).

To share the foreground material with the background, click on the “Swap Material” button (b).

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