Fill Type

Solid
Brush
Wrap
Pattern
Antialias
Smooth
Gradient
Dithering

Right-clicking the Fill tool or the lower-right half of most drawing tools displays this Fill Type requester:

The options in the requester are explained in the following paragraphs. When you return to the painting screen after choosing a fill type, the current gradient (or pattern, if Pattern is selected) and its orientation are shown in the Color Fill box in the menu bar:


Bar fill status examples.

Solid

Solid fills with the current color with no added effects. If you paint or fill your shape using the left button, the shape is filled with the foreground color. If you paint or fill your shape using the right mouse button, it is filled with the background color.

Brush

Brush fills with the current custom brush and sizes it to fit the filled area.


The current defined brush is on the left. Examples of fills in a variety of shapes, from rectangles on the left, to polygons on the right, to circles and inclined ellipses.

Wrap

Wrap fills with the current custom brush and adjusts it to the horizontal and vertical shape of the filled area. This gives the illusion of wrapping the brush around a 3D solid. The effect is most pronounced if you use it to fill a shape that is very different from the shape of the custom brush.

See the comparative examples below.

Pattern

Pattern fills with a pattern made from current custom brush. It's a "wallpaper" type of filling. There's no stretching, no distortion. It's the patterned fill of early monochrome drawing software.


*Brush* respects the original image of the brush. *Warp* gives interesting effects on rounded shapes. There are no predefined rules: it's up to you to experiment!

AntiAlias & Smooth

The following two modes are new to PydPainter:

Smooth allows you to use the drawing mode of the same name (that of the F8 key) with fill tools. It's a brutal softening, which can give interesting effects (blur, textures).
AntiAliasing is a more modern mode, which really smoothes the sharp borders of pixels. It's perfect for lettering, diagonal lines or softening the contrast.

Note that you need an existing design to have a visible effect.


Some AntiAliasing and Smooth examples. Original* here, can be quickly redone with the Airbrush, or 5-point random brush in various colors.*

Note that with a limited palette of 16 or less, the performance of these two modes will depend on the color values available in the palette. If you're smoothing red on a black background, but no dark red/brown color is available, PyDPainter will do its best by using purple and dark grays. Under no circumstances will it alter the palette for you.

Gradient

Gradient Fills offer a host of creative uses. Their rendering will depend as much on the colors range chosen in the palette, the shapes drawn, as on the options selected here.


Examples with a suite of 6 colors (3 bright yellow, cyan, blue and 3 white), a 7-color orange gradient and the default grayscale (12 colors).

Remember to select one of the Range colors as foreground color to select your gradient and get this type of preview.

Select one of the gradient options by clicking it with the left mouse button. Preview will update automatically.

Vertical fill paints the gradient top-to-bottom with an even distribution without regard to the shape of the object.

Vertical Line fill paints the gradient top-to-bottom adjusting the gradient so that it follows the contours of the shape being filled.

Horizontal fill paints the gradient left-to-right with an even distribution without regard to the shape of the object.

Horizontal Line fill paints the gradient left-to-right adjusting the gradient so that it follows the contours of the shape being filled.

Vertical and Horizontal fill paints the gradient from the inside out adjusting the gradient so that it follows the contours of the shape being filled.

The preview uses the shape of a circle, but remember that the fill tools can fill the whole screen and any type of shape.