EscMot

Today we are proud to announce the release of Flame Painter 4, a new edition of a standalone paint and particle effects package for Windows and macOS. This game-changing version charges up the possibilities of digital painting while allowing artists to enhance designs and photographs with captivating life-like organic brushes.

“It’s an incredible journey! Despite seeing it grow from the first line of code, this new version of Flame Painter surpassed even my own expectations of what it is capable of. Your imagination is the only limit while exploring its possibilities.” says the founder and head behind Flame Painter, Peter Blaškovič. “With Flame Painter 4, a new version of this successful art package, creating and perfecting your digital work has never been more effective.”

Flame Painter 4 Key Features

• Particle Systems - The software supports a range of simulation types - Flame, Follow, Ribbon, Liner, Elastic and Fuzzy. The package comes with 3 default systems (Flame, Follow, Ribbon) users know from previous versions. Additionally, the new specially designed systems (Liner, Elastic and Fuzzy) are introduced as add-ons to match your specific workflow needs. 
We prepared more than 250 brush presets for you to experiment with. 

• Particle Brushes - Flame Painter’s organic brushes are a unique solution nowhere to be found in other software on the market. Flowing, lashing, neon, dots, or even tentacle-like brushstrokes create attention-grabbing effects on your designs. Flame Painter 4 is shipped with hundreds of new brushes.

• Brush Creator - Ideal for creating and customizing the brush designs, the advanced Brush Creator with a wealth of adjustable parameters is at your disposal. With newly introduced variables, the range of possibilities of how the brush can look and behave is really limitless.

• Import of Vector Paths -  Import an SVG file - either to one layer as a bitmap or to multiple layers as a vector which can be further edited according to your needs. Switch between brushes, edit the brush in Brush Creator or select different colors or gradients to match your specific design.

• Editable Vector Layers - Within a click, the vector brush strokes can be modified to achieve desired results. Flame Painter 4 also lets you import your own vector paths and have the particle brush effects follow them. 

• Symmetry Tool - Create beautiful symmetrical artwork with any brush using only a few paint strokes with your mouse or tablet pen. Follow your artistic intuition and choose different colors or gradients to produce a fascinating scene. 

Watch the preview of main Flame Painter 4 features 

• Advanced Palette Panel - The improved Palette panel gives you many new options for your work. You are able to choose any Color from the Palette which can be displayed as RGB, HSL, HSV, or HSLuv - a special mode which preserves color brightness. Moreover, you can choose from the default list or create own beautiful Gradient transitions for your brush preset and apply them on the stroke, lines or dots. Lastly, you can apply the palette from an Image - this option lets you import your own images.

• Canvas Size - Flame Painter 4 includes new tools to accelerate your creative workflow. Resize of the canvas has been designed to be very easy and interactive - resize by using the control points, or by entering the desired size of a new canvas in the edit boxes.

• Advanced Pick Color Tool - You are able to pick colors from the current layer or all layers with the new Pick Color tool. You can see in detail the previous color, color under your cursor and the newly selected color.  

• Selections - Other new tools shipped with Flame Painter 4 include a Selection tool for selecting a specific area of the canvas and performing operations on this selected area. There are various types of selection tool available: rectangular, elliptical, polygonal, freehand and Magic wand. 

• Improved Fill Tool - Fill tool enables you to fill not only the whole layer with the selected color or gradient but also the already painted strokes with alpha channel. 

• New Filters - Professional color filters under the Filter menu allow you to make desired adjustments to your painting or design, with a help of Brightness, Contrast, Hue, Saturation, Lightness, Color Balance and other color filters. Moreover, ‘Black to alpha’ and’ White to alpha’ are very useful, especially when you import a picture with a background you want to get rid of.

• Photoshop Plug-in - Although Flame Painter works as a standalone application, a complimentary Photoshop plug-in ‘Flame Painter Connect’ is available. This handy tool gives you the possibility of exchanging layers between Flame Painter and Photoshop, making your creative process seamless and easy. Flame Painter Connect for Flame Painter 4 is compatible with Photoshop CC 2015 and higher.

• Extensive Brush Library - Browse hundreds of free brushes in the online brush library created by the developers as well as users and choose the ones which fit your design.

• Multi-touch Support - Flame Painter has complete support for multitouch gestures for Wacom, Microsoft or alternative tablet and trackpad devices, including Astropad application.

How to Buy

As of today, Flame Painter 4 is available from our website for the full price of $89.99 USD: www.escapemotions.com/shop/
Flame Painter 4 comes in one edition only. It is a follow-up of Flame Painter 3 Professional edition and there will be no Personal edition available.

How to Upgrade

All existing owners of older Flame Painter desktop versions are eligible for more than 50% discount - the upgrade price is $39.99 USD. 

Users can upgrade their Flame Painter license directly through the application’s menu: Help > Upgrade to Flame Painter 4 or from our Upgrade page or from our shop www.escapemotions.com/shop/. We’ve also sent out newsletters to our subscribers - check your Inbox to find yours.

Upgrading is optional and the upgrade discount will always be available. You can continue using your older Flame Painter version for as long as you like.

Users who purchased Flame Painter 3 within the last three months, i.e. from March 1st, 2019 are eligible for a free upgrade. Log in to your Community profile to download the latest version.

Additional Particle Systems with 120 brush presets + more free brushes available for download on online Brush library.

We’ve also released three particle systems Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic on our website as add-ons for Flame Painter 4. They can be purchased for $19.99 USD each. All three particle systems are bundled together for an introductory price of $39.99 USD.

Get the particle systems from www.escapemotions.com/shop/ 

Altogether they include 120 brush presets for immediate use, but this is not a final number. We prepared for you even more free brushes available as an instant download from the online Brush library. Particle systems allow you to further create an unlimited spectrum of new brushes in the Brush Creator.

These particle systems are also a part of the new Flame Painter in a special preview mode and you will be able to test all their controls and visual options on a special “preview” layer.

Make sure you purchase the particle system from the same email address you are registered for Flame Painter 4 with. To load them, just restart the software.

New Registration System

Please note Flame Painter 4 no longer supports registration keys. After you purchase you will be asked to create a Community profile - unique username and password. After you confirm your email address by clicking on the link you receive, you will be able to register your Flame Painter 4 with your email address or username and password. If you own Rebelle 3, you already have a Community account - all you need to do is log in to Flame Painter 4 with your details.

We’ve been working on this Flame Painter version for over 18 months. We’ve put everything into it, so sweat and tears of momentary misery and happiness are included. We truly hope you enjoy this new version and all the possibilities it gives you. Let us know how you like it by dropping us an email or via Send feedback option in the Help menu. 

…and most importantly - have fun and stay creative!
Your Escape Motions Team

Soon to be released Flame Painter 4, a new edition of a standalone paint and particle effects package will include amazing new brushes, particle systems, and advanced Brush Creator panel. In today’s blog, we’d like to introduce the next big improvements that will make you enjoy working with Flame Painter more than before, including Import of vector paths, Symmetry tool, Canvas Size & Transform tool, Navigator panel, Filters menu and more.

Import Vector Paths

Groundbreaking feature for the next Flame Painter release is the import of an SVG file - either to one layer as a bitmap or to multiple layers as a vector which can be further edited according to your needs. Switch between brushes, edit the brush in Brush Creator or select different colors or gradients to match your specific design. The brush strokes will be applied to the imported vector paths automatically. This will make designing your project extra fun and speed your workflow up. Well, as long as you don’t lose track of time while trying all the amazing possibilities that exist

Symmetry Tool

Flame Painter 4 will feature a new tool for creating symmetrical designs. It will be super easy to create beautiful symmetrical artwork with any brush using only a few paint strokes with your mouse or tablet pen. Follow your artistic intuition and choose different colors or gradients to produce a fascinating scene. And to enjoy this tool more, paint the shapes on a vector layer and watch the design update while switching between various brush presets, particle systems, colors or gradients.

Advanced Palette Panel

The advanced Palette panel in Flame Painter 4 will give you many new options for your work. You will be able to choose any Color from the Palette which can be displayed as RGB, HSL, HSV, or HSLuv. Moreover, you can choose from default list or create own beautiful Gradient transitions for your brush preset and apply them on the stroke, lines or dots, based on what engine your brush preset was created with. Finally, set how many times the gradient should repeat on the stroke and in what direction - either on length (horizontally) or width (vertically).

( A ) - Single Color, ( B ) - Gradient on Length, ( C ) - Gradient on Width, ( D ) - Gradient on Dots

Lastly, you can choose to apply the palette from an Image - this option lets you import your own images. The image will be mapped on the stroke, lines or dots and can also be repeated on both length and width of your strokes.

Canvas Size Tool

Previous Flame Painter versions were missing a few tools which forced artists to switch to Photoshop repeatedly in order to get things done. One of these was a tool for resizing the image. Luckily, Flame Painter 4 will introduce Canvas size - a new tool that will serve for cropping, scaling and resizing your work. Resize of the canvas in Flame Painter 4 has been designed to be very easy and interactive - resize by using the control points, or by entering the desired size of a new canvas in the edit boxes. You will also be able to resize the image and change its DPI accordingly. Size of your canvas in Flame Painter depends only on your computer’s memory.

Pick Color Tool

Another new tool we’ve implemented to Flame Painter is the Pick Color tool. Now you can pick colors either from your photograph to match a specific palette or from your current layer or all layers. You will also be able to set a sample size here.

Selection Tool

The next convenient feature in Flame Painter 4 that will make your switch to PS less regularly will be Selections. These are going to help you select a specific area of the canvas and perform operations on this selected area. There will be various types of selection tool available: rectangular, elliptical, polygonal and freehand. 

We’re also adding the Magic Wand that will create selections based on the tone and color of the pixels. You can specify the Tolerance, Antialiasing, Contiguous selection, or Use Alpha channel. Tolerance determines the color range of selected pixels, Antialiasing creates a smoother-edged selection, Contiguous selects only adjacent areas using the same colors and Use Alpha determines the alpha channel of selected pixels from the background.

Filter Menu

Besides Tile, Glow, and Blur, our development team has implemented standard color adjustments settings to Flame Painter 4 under the Filter menu. The new filters include:

- Brightness / Contrast, Hue / Saturation / Lightness
- Color Balance, Color Filter, Colorize
- Desaturate, Invert
- Black to Alpha, White to Alpha

You will find the last set of filters ‘Black to alpha’ and’ White to alpha’ very useful, especially when you import a picture with a background you want to get rid of.

Improved Fill Tool

The improved Fill tool in Flame Painter 4 will be able to fill not only the whole layer with the selected color or gradient but also the already painted strokes. Internally the stroke will be selected with a magic wand tool according to its color, then chosen palette will be applied on this stroke with one click.

Improved Transform Tool

We’ve improved the Flame Painter 3′s Transform tool to the new version - it now enables you to move, scale and resize the selected layer or layers. We’ve also added the possibility to rotate layers or selections and flip them horizontally or vertically using one single click or shortcut.

Photoshop Plugin 

Flame Painter 4 will feature an updated Photoshop plugin - Flame Painter Connect - for exchanging layers. Export layers back-and-forth between Flame Painter and Photoshop quickly and easily. 

Other New Features

• Navigator panel to quickly change the view of your artwork using a thumbnail display.

• Drag & drop to easily drag & drop brushes, gradients, images or files directly from the web browser or file manager.

• “New Artwork” window with multiple default size presets available and the possibility to save custom presets in centimeters, inches or pixels with custom DPI.

• Lock in Layers panel in order to lock a layer to prevent it from any unwanted changes, and lock transparent pixels of a layer.

• Preferences panel to set the General, Tools, Tablet and custom Keyboard shortcuts preferences.

Pricing & Availability

Flame Painter 4 will be available on our website next week for the full price of $89.99 USD. All existing owners of Flame Painter are eligible for more than 50% discount - regular upgrade price will be $39.99 USD. 
Users who purchased Flame Painter 3 within the last three months, i.e. from March 1st, 2019 will be eligible for a free upgrade.

Moreover, with the release of Flame Painter 4, we’ll also release three particle systems Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic as add-ons on our website. The particle systems can be purchased for $19.99 USD each. All three particle systems will be bundled together for an introductory price of $39.99 USD.

We will send out newsletters with the great news soon - definitely subscribe to our newsletter so you won’t miss it! 

Your Escape Motions Team

Our last blog post announced the upcoming release of Flame Painter 4, a new edition of a standalone paint and particle effects package which will feature fantastic innovations including new particle systems, fresh sets of amazingly creative brushes and unlimited brush customization possibilities. In today’s blog, we are going to talk about the particle systems in more detail and introduce their benefits for the usability in the new version.

A particle system is like the backbone of Flame Painter - a simulation type that defines the brush stroke appearance, its behavior, the way the brush moves as well as many other important parameters. The upcoming Flame Painter 4 will support a range of these particle simulations. The package will come with three different systems that users know from previous versions: Flame, Follow and Ribbon. Additionally, the new specially designed systems will be introduced as add-ons to match your specific workflow needs: Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic.

Flame | Follow | Ribbon

Despite being part of Flame Painter for a long time, the already known Flame, Follow and Ribbon particle systems are coming to version 4 in a completely different way of implementation. We’ve effectively rewritten their code to make them more versatile and complex.

As you already know, the new version will feature a Brush Creator which now includes many more new controls and sliders. Some controls like Noise, Chaos, Focus, Center or Speed are known from the older Flame versions. We added other new useful sliders as well as a separate ‘Shape’ option which will serve for defining the shape of the stroke as a Fill, Line or Dotted Line.

• Fill evenly stretches the structure throughout the entire stroke. It also lets you use an image texture that will be repeated on the stroke.

• Line consists of multiple lines which create a complex stroke. You can define the shape profile of lines, their width, width jitter or length to achieve a perfect preset for your design. Line Shape also lets you use an image texture.

• Dotted Line allows you to create strokes consisting of dots - set spacing, scatter or opacity jitter of the dots to create perfect bokeh effects, raindrops, snowflakes or flare effect.

Flame Particle System

This is the classic flame particle system for creating diverse effects from realistic fire to random arrangements of particles, light streaks, sparkles and much more.

Follow Particle System

In Follow Particle system the stroke follows the cursor more precisely and is suitable for more detailed paint strokes as well as lines of abstract flares, bokeh effects, orbits or textured brush presets.

Ribbon Particle System

The elegant particle system for creating beautiful design effects. Ribbon’s stroke spreads a bit wider creating flowing, tamed strokes perfect for designing abstract waves, ribbon-like effects that flow with the direction of your stroke.

Liner | Fuzzy | Elastic

The other three particle systems are Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic, which are going to be released as add-ons for download on our website. They will be part of the new Flame Painter version in a special preview mode and users will be able to test all their controls and visual options on a special “preview” layer. 

Liner Particle System

The liner particle system has a thin flat brush profile with a defined width. You can draw precise lines which may consist of different shapes. It’s a perfect brush particle system for creating defined lines, trails, streaks, and line surfaces. You are also able to create amazing painting brushes, classic lines or different-shaped brushes.

Fuzzy Particle System

A string-based, winding particle system that can stretch its particles along the path perfect for creating effortlessly-looking brushes for painting clusters of abstract as well as specific particles.

Elastic Particle System

Versatile particle system with an elastic brush cursor perfect for adding depth to your presets, creating soft-body effects with various elastic behavior. 

The rewritten Flame, Follow and Ribbon as well as the new particle systems Liner, Fuzzy and Elastic will broaden the horizon of possibilities for your images projects and enable you to create much more various results with the life-like Flame Painter brushes. Such a variety of particle systems is a unique solution nowhere to be found in other software on the market. Flowing, lashing, neon, dots, or even tentacle-like brush strokes will create attention-grabbing effects on your designs. The particle systems of Flame Painter 4 will surely become useful tools to your arsenal of the creative bag of tricks.

What brushes and particle systems are you looking forward to making in the new Flame Painter? Let us know in the comments!

Your Escape Motions Team

Believe it or not, it has been ten years since the first line of Flame Painter’s code was written! It was in 2009 when the founder of Escape Motions, Peter Blaškovič, created the original flame algorithm within his ‘I am an Artist’ experimental project. He believed that “Everyone can be an artist, we just need the tools which become the inspiration for creativity”. Today we still follow this vision and are proud to announce that we are about to enter a brand new stage of Flame Painter’s story.

Pioneer in procedural art: Flame Painter’s very first version in 2009 (top) vs. Flame Painter 4 (bottom).

It is with great pleasure to share with you all, that after long months of development we present Flame Painter 4 - the new game-changing software which allows you to paint and design with real organic brushes. The new version puts an incredibly broad range of creative tools at your fingertips while making adding special effects to your designs a breeze. Flame Painter 4 will feature new Particle Systems, the state-of-the-art technology which allows creating an unlimited spectrum of particle brushes, ranging from classic light effects to structured patterns, textured shapes or even natural painting brushes. Particle systems will open a whole new world of possibilities nowhere to be found in other software. The upcoming version will also bring fresh sets of brushes which will give you the power to customize every parameter via the new Brush Creator panel. Each and every one of the brush presets in Flame Painter is a piece of art and you are the creator invited to play your own game with custom artistic brushes.

New Particle Systems

Particle systems are the foundation of Flame Painter and define the main characteristic and behavior of the individual brushes. Each system consists of an effective set of settings and sliders to help enhance your stroke to perfection. Choose from various particle systems to paint an original piece of artwork, or generate abstract imagery within a design project. A great variety of particle systems is a unique solution nowhere to be found in other software on the market. With this incredibly broad range of organic tools, you are the creator.

There will be six particle systems available:
- Flame, Follow and Ribbon are systems well-known from the previous Flame Painter version;
- Liner, Elastic and Fuzzy are new systems, which will be released as add-on’s available from our website.

New Brushes

Flame Painter’s brushes are truly alive; when you paint with the mouse or pressure pen, you can feel the natural behavior of each brush shape.

While Flame Painter 4 will come with a default set of brushes, they only scratch the surface of what’s possible. If you would like to use ready-made brushes, just easily browse hundreds of free presets in the online Brush library and choose the ones which fit your need. The particle brushes in Flame Painter can be divided into three categories:

• Draw & Paint Brushes – Perfect for the fundamentals of your painting, the standard drawing, and painting tools are always on hand for your creative workflow. 

• Graphic Brushes – Within only a few brushstrokes, you can achieve interesting effects for posters, backgrounds or create original patterns on your graphic designs.

• Photo Effect Brushes – Varied effects, ranging from lightning strikes to fire, smoke, bokeh, and sparkles are ready to enhance your next digital masterpiece. Take advantage of what’s possible only in the digital world - paint your art with another painting or photograph. 

Never mind the basic colors. You can use included gradients, create your own color transitions from the scratch, or generate one from an image. You can even import a colored texture and use it as a particle brush. In the end, you can share your brush with other users and make the world a more creative place. Brushes will be added with a tag so anyone in need for a perfect graphic brush will search within the respective brush library.

If you love to experiment and have extra fun with brushes, with included Brush Creator you can create an unlimited number of brush styles by adjusting various options and parameters. For example, add a little noisiness. Modify jitter, add softness, chaos or other known and unknown parameters from the previous Flame Painter versions. Set any of the parameters to adjust to pressure sensitivity of your pen. This all is a great way to create amazing effects and add instant sparkle, depth, and richness to your paintings, designs or photographs. 

Unlimited Brush Customization

We’ve simplified the Properties panel where some of the most useful settings remain, like the brush size, blending mode or opacity. The rest of the settings have been moved to a new fully-equipped Brush Creator panel.

Here you can choose your Particle System, where you set the brush behavior and Shape, which includes visual settings concerning the stroke texture, pattern, and opacity. Brushes have three different stroke types available:

•  Fill - the typical shape already known from the older versions.
•  Lines - this is a liner brush from Flame Painter 3, extended by the possibility of the setting the stroke width, length and creating different sequences.
•  Dotted Line - which enables you to create brushes with different image shapes.

Moreover, every stroke type can have its own texture which defines the opacity of the shape. Instead of spending hours searching for the perfect brush online, save your precious time and easily create your brush design with Flame Painter. The range of possibilities, how the brush can look and behave is really limitless.

With so many options and complex tools, Flame Painter 4 remains simple and easy to use with the ability to produce top-notch effects. “I am proud we created such a powerful tool. This new version of Flame Painter has surpassed even our own expectations. It is a must-have tool for all professional CG artists, graphic designers, and photographers but also for anyone thinking of dipping their toes into the world of digital art for the first time.” says Peter Blaškovič. 

Get ready to unlock your creative potential, Flame Painter 4 will be here soon to change your artistic life.

Stay tuned for another feature announcement coming next week!

Your Escape Motions Team