Thursday, February 9th, 2017 Posted by Jim Thacker

Bleank ships Black Ink 0.3


Bleank has released Black Ink 0.3, the new version of its customisable, GPU-accelerated painting software, adding what it describes as the “first shading editor ever created for a digital drawing app”.

Create your own custom brushes through coding (or other, less terrifying means)
The new editor, which you can see in action at 03:05 in the video above, lets users code their own custom brushes, in much the way that you might script a custom tool inside a 3D package.

Code is written in Brush Shader Language (BSL), Bleank’s own custom language.

According to the firm, it’s a “kind of HLSL enhanced with features allowing to generate automatic strokes on the canvas color. It also features a much simplified syntax compared to raw HLSL shader code”.

You can read an early version of the online documentation for BSL here.

For non-coders, the update also provides a more visual way to create custom brushes, by adding pre-made effects to an existing brush from a drop-down menu, then adjusting sliders.

New brushes, brush parameters and brush management panels
Other changes in the release include new Brush Manager and Large Brush Preview panels, both of which show thumbnail previews of brushes; and a redesigned colour picker, including a colour wheel.

There are also over 10 new brush types “including options for pen marks, canvas fills, ink droplets [and] blobby noise”, and a range of new brush parameters.

The release also adds a new Smudge tool with “no lag on high-resolution images up to 10k”.

Pricing and availability
Black Ink 0.3 is available for Windows XP and above. The update is free for all current licence holders. New licences usually cost $59.99, although the new version is currently available at a launch discount.


Read a full list of new features in Black Ink 0.3 on Bleank’s forum