Brush Presets

[Count_Zero]

I have been using Alchemy on a daily basis for some time now and one thing I noticed is that I am forced to use quite a lot of key shortcuts when switching between brushes. For example: I usually start out with Pull Shapes set to Line Shapes, Foreground Color and Displace On and then switch to Speed Shapes with Solid Shapes, No Affect and Background Color. So basically I have to hit 4 different hotkeys every time I switch between these two brushes and that happens quite a lot.

It would be great if Alchemy featured a preset system similar to that in Photoshop. I could then set custom brushes that include Affect Shapes, Over, Line Weight, Color and Transparency and save them. These brushes could be displayed in a floating window and then assigned to hotkeys (which is something Photoshop still can't do!).

This kind of feature would not only be a great time saver, but also keep you in the drawing zone or whatever you want to call it(as in less keys to press = less technical stuff = more artistic immersion).

[inverse catheter]

definitely would be great to have some kind of macro recording for this sort of thing. and some way to share them with other users

and also gives me an idea for an affect module ( feel a little silly i didn't think of it before. perhaps somebody already has and it's been documented ? ) : Alchemy would randomly generate a macro of settings ( combination of create and affect modules ). perhaps run for a given time. you draw. then it picks out another. all macros being saved out. . .

[Count_Zero]

Some more thoughts on the matter:
Rather than a floating window for brush presets you could have a shelf that is part of the UI. It could be integrated into the top UI or be docked to the bottom and only appear when the mouse hovers over it (like the top UI already does). When I say shelf I am thinking along the lines of ZBrush or Maya.

Another idea would be to have the presets be accessible through the right click. I can RMB click and a menu pops up with the different presets. Like in Photoshop. Or it could be a ring menu. Like in Maya. Not that I'm a Maya fan boy (OK, I am), but I have loved ring menus ever since I played Secret of Mana on the Snes.

And while I am already spinning tales of feature envy it would also be great if you could export your brush settings to a file. So you could easily transfer settings to other computers. Obviously this feature would just be the cherry on top of the icing, but after all this category is for throwing out ideas.