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Clip Studio n00b-ing
5 months ago
The purpose of this journal is two-fold. First it's to collect some hints at infrequently encountered situations so I have an easy to locate reference. The second is to displace that stale New Years' journal :) I also added some (probably) obscure newbie stuff to plump it out a little.
Note that this material references the perpetual-license V1.xx.x version. Subscription versions (V2.x and up) may operate differently. Both are still being sold (I think), but the V1.x does not receive major updates (or at some point it will no longer get them--check their website as they did talk about this when the subscription version debuted)
New install, New user:
-- You don't have to spin up a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account to use the program, but one is needed to download additional materials (free or paid) from the CSP store. It also gives you a limited amount of cloud storage (10 gigs) for your projects should you want to hold WIP stuff there to work on them from more than one machine.
-- You need a network connection to validate your license key on first launch of any new install. Each CSP license allows you to install it on two machines (say a desktop at home, and a laptop on-the-road), and they do keep track of this. Need it on a third machine? Buy another license or it will bug you to deactivate the install on one of the other two. I think that juggling act only works a limited number of times -- I only used it once to deactivate a secondary install on an old Celeron laptop that no longer boots so I could use it on my current away-from-home laptop. I actually do have two licenses for the high-end version CSP EX as I did have a use case for having it on three machines. While this is somewhat pricey, CELSYS does hold CSP discount promotions a couple of times a year and I got my licenses at a substantial discount in 2014 and 2015.
---Try not to lose that key. You'll need it should you ever need to re-install. I made a text file or save-as-PDF of the email you get when purchasing a license key and stored it along with the CSP installer+help file copies I keep on an external-drive archive so I can perform installs/reinstalls of most applications without involving a network connection (a situation my away-from-home laptop is frequently in). This is also useful if you keep older versions (of any software, not just CSP) around as you update, just in case a new version goes haywire on your system, you can revert to the last one that worked.
--CSP doesn't self-update. They place notices in the news section of the store module when new versions appear and you can DL the newest version at your leisure. They'll also email you news of updated versions
--The default desktop icon placed by the installer launches to the CLIP STUDIO news/store module by default. It's kind-of like an in-app browser dedicated to the CSP ecosystem. Meaning if you don't have an internet connection it'll just give you some sort of "site not found" message. You launch the actual paint program by clicking the "PAINT" button in the top left. After you've saved a project in CSP's native file format .CLIP, you can bypass the news/store by double-clicking the file. If you really need to make a shortcut directly to the paint application, the executable is located in C: \Program Files\CELSYS\CLIP STUDIO 1.5\CLIP STUDIO PAINT\CLIPStudioPaint.exe
--- If after this you need to re-launch the news/store app, you can do it from within CSP under the [File] menu. [Open Clip Studio...] is the next-to-last entry
Brushes:
This is the real meat of the journal. I talked about this in a past submission somewhere in my gallery as a reference, but I don't recall which one (and the title doesn't hint at it either). It'll be easier to find it here.
-- As mentioned above, a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account is needed to download additional assets (brushes, textures, 3D models, etc). Some of them are free, others are paid through a credits system that I have not tried since my needs have yet to intersect an asset only available as a paid download.
-- Downloading an asset can fail for no apparent reason. I found this out last night after attempting to DL a free set of tree-bark brushes. After looking through my asset browser in vain, I returned to the brush entry in the store and noted that the "Download" button had changed to "Re-download", indicating that the system had added it to my profile. While mousing over various icons in the store browser I noticed one of the icons along the upper right side (two arrows pointing in opposite directions) said "Data transfers" Clicking it revealed a list of recent downloads and update checks. I noted that the most recent one said the download had failed, so I went back to the brush page, hit "Re-download" and returned to the data-transfers screen to watch. This time, two progress bars appeared (the pack has 36 brushes) and I watched as each brush downloaded, adding to the overall transfer progress. This time it succeeded, and the brush pack now appeared in my local asset browser within CSP.
-- Making new brushes usable: This is the part I had to puzzle over late last night, the part I talked about in one of my long-winded descriptions that I couldn't locate on a whim. How do you get your new brushes into your brush sub-toolbox? Most of mine have slightly more than enough entries to induce a scroll bar, but I didn't want to add a mess of tree-bark brushes to the bottom of any existing categories. The answer here is to create another tab dedicated to that one category of brushes.
---> How to do this? Open your asset browser (it's usually collapsed on the right edge of the image window if you haven't moved it elsewhere, locate your new brush (it'll most likely be in the "Download" subfolder), and drag/drop it into the current brush list (not the tab -- you can't drag it there yet). Once the brush appears there, make room in the tabs if there isn't already a blank space by dragging the boundary of the brush sub-toolbox (or the image window) until space opens up next to the existing tabs, then drag the new brush into that space. It'll create a new tab named after that brush. Right click it to rename the tab, then marvel at your new brush tab. At this point you can drag any other brushes for that tab directly into the list beneath it.
---You can rename brushes. I did this to some rain brushes by a Japanese author, who in turn named the brushes...wait for it...in Japanese :D (Brush/asset names may be translated within the store browser, but if the author gave them a non-English name, the asset will display that name once installed on your system). Right-click the brush, select [Sub Tool Settings] and the dialog box that appears will allow you to rename the brush and set it's default icon (that one only affects the icon appearing in the toolbox while it's selected). In my case I copied the Japanese text from the name, ran it thru Google translate, then copy-pasted the translation in-front of the original (I kept the original Japanese name in case I needed to match it up with the brush file in the download folder)
---Duplicating brushes on another install: I had to do this on my away-from-home laptop. While the CSP store applet supposedly allows you to sync downloaded brushes between different machines, I didn't have the patience to make it work, and besides my away-from-home laptop didn't have a network connection at the time I did this. You can export brushes into an installable form from their sub-tool entries. Right-click on the brush, select "Export Sub-Tool", and you can then save an import-able brush file wherever you desire. In my case it was a thumb drive. At the receiving machine, under the desired sub-tool tab, right-click any brush, select "Import sub-tool", navigate to the desired brush file and load it in. The new brush will appear in the brush list under the selected sub-tool tab. And yes, if this brush transfer needs its own tab in the sub-tool box, you can treat the installed brush just as you would if it came from your asset browser as described above.
Any corrections feel free to add them and I'll update the text. I can't guarantee I'll have answers to questions on other aspects of CSP as I haven't used most of the functions in the program. Beyond initial usability, I usually only discover new functions (like the adding brushes procedure) when I have a specific need for something I haven't done before. If I do discover something neat going forward I'll add it here and update the title with a revision date.
Note that this material references the perpetual-license V1.xx.x version. Subscription versions (V2.x and up) may operate differently. Both are still being sold (I think), but the V1.x does not receive major updates (or at some point it will no longer get them--check their website as they did talk about this when the subscription version debuted)
New install, New user:
-- You don't have to spin up a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account to use the program, but one is needed to download additional materials (free or paid) from the CSP store. It also gives you a limited amount of cloud storage (10 gigs) for your projects should you want to hold WIP stuff there to work on them from more than one machine.
-- You need a network connection to validate your license key on first launch of any new install. Each CSP license allows you to install it on two machines (say a desktop at home, and a laptop on-the-road), and they do keep track of this. Need it on a third machine? Buy another license or it will bug you to deactivate the install on one of the other two. I think that juggling act only works a limited number of times -- I only used it once to deactivate a secondary install on an old Celeron laptop that no longer boots so I could use it on my current away-from-home laptop. I actually do have two licenses for the high-end version CSP EX as I did have a use case for having it on three machines. While this is somewhat pricey, CELSYS does hold CSP discount promotions a couple of times a year and I got my licenses at a substantial discount in 2014 and 2015.
---Try not to lose that key. You'll need it should you ever need to re-install. I made a text file or save-as-PDF of the email you get when purchasing a license key and stored it along with the CSP installer+help file copies I keep on an external-drive archive so I can perform installs/reinstalls of most applications without involving a network connection (a situation my away-from-home laptop is frequently in). This is also useful if you keep older versions (of any software, not just CSP) around as you update, just in case a new version goes haywire on your system, you can revert to the last one that worked.
--CSP doesn't self-update. They place notices in the news section of the store module when new versions appear and you can DL the newest version at your leisure. They'll also email you news of updated versions
--The default desktop icon placed by the installer launches to the CLIP STUDIO news/store module by default. It's kind-of like an in-app browser dedicated to the CSP ecosystem. Meaning if you don't have an internet connection it'll just give you some sort of "site not found" message. You launch the actual paint program by clicking the "PAINT" button in the top left. After you've saved a project in CSP's native file format .CLIP, you can bypass the news/store by double-clicking the file. If you really need to make a shortcut directly to the paint application, the executable is located in C: \Program Files\CELSYS\CLIP STUDIO 1.5\CLIP STUDIO PAINT\CLIPStudioPaint.exe
--- If after this you need to re-launch the news/store app, you can do it from within CSP under the [File] menu. [Open Clip Studio...] is the next-to-last entry
Brushes:
This is the real meat of the journal. I talked about this in a past submission somewhere in my gallery as a reference, but I don't recall which one (and the title doesn't hint at it either). It'll be easier to find it here.
-- As mentioned above, a CLIP STUDIO PAINT account is needed to download additional assets (brushes, textures, 3D models, etc). Some of them are free, others are paid through a credits system that I have not tried since my needs have yet to intersect an asset only available as a paid download.
-- Downloading an asset can fail for no apparent reason. I found this out last night after attempting to DL a free set of tree-bark brushes. After looking through my asset browser in vain, I returned to the brush entry in the store and noted that the "Download" button had changed to "Re-download", indicating that the system had added it to my profile. While mousing over various icons in the store browser I noticed one of the icons along the upper right side (two arrows pointing in opposite directions) said "Data transfers" Clicking it revealed a list of recent downloads and update checks. I noted that the most recent one said the download had failed, so I went back to the brush page, hit "Re-download" and returned to the data-transfers screen to watch. This time, two progress bars appeared (the pack has 36 brushes) and I watched as each brush downloaded, adding to the overall transfer progress. This time it succeeded, and the brush pack now appeared in my local asset browser within CSP.
-- Making new brushes usable: This is the part I had to puzzle over late last night, the part I talked about in one of my long-winded descriptions that I couldn't locate on a whim. How do you get your new brushes into your brush sub-toolbox? Most of mine have slightly more than enough entries to induce a scroll bar, but I didn't want to add a mess of tree-bark brushes to the bottom of any existing categories. The answer here is to create another tab dedicated to that one category of brushes.
---> How to do this? Open your asset browser (it's usually collapsed on the right edge of the image window if you haven't moved it elsewhere, locate your new brush (it'll most likely be in the "Download" subfolder), and drag/drop it into the current brush list (not the tab -- you can't drag it there yet). Once the brush appears there, make room in the tabs if there isn't already a blank space by dragging the boundary of the brush sub-toolbox (or the image window) until space opens up next to the existing tabs, then drag the new brush into that space. It'll create a new tab named after that brush. Right click it to rename the tab, then marvel at your new brush tab. At this point you can drag any other brushes for that tab directly into the list beneath it.
---You can rename brushes. I did this to some rain brushes by a Japanese author, who in turn named the brushes...wait for it...in Japanese :D (Brush/asset names may be translated within the store browser, but if the author gave them a non-English name, the asset will display that name once installed on your system). Right-click the brush, select [Sub Tool Settings] and the dialog box that appears will allow you to rename the brush and set it's default icon (that one only affects the icon appearing in the toolbox while it's selected). In my case I copied the Japanese text from the name, ran it thru Google translate, then copy-pasted the translation in-front of the original (I kept the original Japanese name in case I needed to match it up with the brush file in the download folder)
---Duplicating brushes on another install: I had to do this on my away-from-home laptop. While the CSP store applet supposedly allows you to sync downloaded brushes between different machines, I didn't have the patience to make it work, and besides my away-from-home laptop didn't have a network connection at the time I did this. You can export brushes into an installable form from their sub-tool entries. Right-click on the brush, select "Export Sub-Tool", and you can then save an import-able brush file wherever you desire. In my case it was a thumb drive. At the receiving machine, under the desired sub-tool tab, right-click any brush, select "Import sub-tool", navigate to the desired brush file and load it in. The new brush will appear in the brush list under the selected sub-tool tab. And yes, if this brush transfer needs its own tab in the sub-tool box, you can treat the installed brush just as you would if it came from your asset browser as described above.
Any corrections feel free to add them and I'll update the text. I can't guarantee I'll have answers to questions on other aspects of CSP as I haven't used most of the functions in the program. Beyond initial usability, I usually only discover new functions (like the adding brushes procedure) when I have a specific need for something I haven't done before. If I do discover something neat going forward I'll add it here and update the title with a revision date.
What I did was just for a few brushes that I recently downloaded, plus some default pencil brushes that were present in my at-home install that didn't appear in the install on my away-from-home laptop. It's certainly less risky for newbies :)