2D Painting & Texture Editing
The Paint tool is Trumble's full-featured 2D canvas. Create alphas, edit texture maps, and work with channels — all without leaving the browser. This tutorial walks you through everything from creating your first document to exporting a finished image.
Create a Paint Document
A paint document is a 2D canvas. It can be a standalone image, a texture you're editing, or an alpha map you'll later drag into the Texture tool.
- Open Trumble and select the Paint tool from the top toolbar.
- Go to File → New. The new document dialog will open.
- Enter a document name and set your width and height in pixels, or choose from a preset (e.g.
2048 × 2048for a tileable texture,1920 × 1080for a concept sheet). - Choose a color mode: RGB for full-color work, Grayscale for alphas and single-channel work.
- Set a background: White, Black, or Transparent. For alphas, start with Black. For painting, White or Transparent both work.
- Click Create.
Canvas & Navigation
The Paint canvas works like any professional 2D painting app. Once your document is open, here's how to move around efficiently.
Brushes & Settings
Select the Brush tool from the left toolbar. The properties panel beneath it gives you full control over how your strokes behave.
| Property | What it does | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Size | Diameter of the brush tip in pixels | Small for details, large for base fills |
| Hardness | Edge softness — 100% = sharp crisp edge, 0% = feathered | Hard for line work, soft for blending |
| Opacity | How transparent each full stroke is | Low opacity for smooth gradients and glazing |
| Flow | How much paint deposits per frame while holding the brush down | Combine low flow with high opacity for airbrush-style buildup |
| Spacing | Distance between each stamp of the tip along a stroke | Increase for textured / dotted stroke effects |
| Rotation | Fixed angle of the brush tip | Directional textures and hatching |
| Pen Pressure | Enables stylus pressure sensitivity for Size and Opacity | On by default when a drawing tablet is connected |
Layers & Blend Modes
The Layers panel is on the right side of the screen. Every layer is non-destructive — you can rearrange, hide, rename, and delete layers at any time without affecting other layers.
- Click the + button at the top of the Layers panel to add a new layer.
- Drag layers to reorder them. Higher layers render on top.
- Click the eye icon to toggle layer visibility.
- Click the blend mode dropdown (defaults to Normal) to change how a layer composites with those below it.
- Adjust the Opacity slider (0–100%) per layer for transparency control independent of brush opacity.
The most commonly used blend modes for game texture work:
Default. Top layer covers what's below.
Darkens. Great for shadows and grime.
Brightens. Good for light effects.
Boosts contrast; darks get darker, lights get lighter.
Keeps the darker pixel from either layer.
Keeps the lighter pixel from either layer.
Extreme brightening. Good for emissive glows.
Extreme darkening. Deep shadows and vignettes.
Export Your Image
When your painting is done, export it as a standalone image file to use in other tools, import into your game engine, or drag back into the Texture tool as a channel fill.
- Go to File → Export Image.
- Choose a file format — see the options below.
- Click Export. The file downloads to your browser's default folder immediately.
Lossless with transparency. Best for alphas and any image where quality must be preserved.
Compressed, no alpha. Best for reference sheets, concept art, or when file size matters.
Modern format with both lossy and lossless modes. Smaller than PNG, supports transparency.