Escape Motions ships Rebelle 7
Escape Motions has released Rebelle 7, the new version of the natural media painting software
The update adds a metallic materials system to mimic the look of metallic paint, and a new surface evaluation system to enable paint to interact more realistically with the grain of paper.
New general-purpose image-manipulation tools include filter layers, new Deform and Perspective tools, and the option to import vector paths in SVG format.
For Mac users, Rebelle also now supports Apple Silicon processors natively.
A natural media paint package that accurately mimics the behavior of real-world paints
First released in 2015, Rebelle mimics the behaviour of real watercolor, acrylic and oil paint, complete with fluid flow and pigment-based color mixing.
It can also mimic dry media, including pencil, pastel and marker, while commercial add-on packs replicate the textures of real-world papers, canvases and lithography stones.
Recent updates have rounded out the feature set with more conventional drawing and image-manipulation tools, including AI-based Liquify and Warp tools.
Rebelle 7 Pro only: new metallic paint system
The headline feature in Rebelle 7 – and the only one restricted to the Pro edition of the software – is the new metallic materials system.
It works with the Oil & Acrylics tool, making it possible to mimic the look of real-world metallic paints, but comes with its own color palette and set of brushes.
Users can also control the look of materials via properties like Reflectivity, Scale, or Strength.
But perhaps most eye-catchingly, the lighting and shadows of the metallic surface respond realistically when panning the canvas or transforming a paint layer, as shown in the video above.
Both editions: updates to papers and brushes
All of the other new features in Rebelle 7 are available in both editions of the software, and flesh out both the natural media and image editing toolsets.
The way that paint interacts with paper has been overhauled, with a new ray-tracing-based surface analysis system enabling paint to respond more accurately to papers’ height maps.
The existing brushes have been reworked, with the oil brushes now smudging more accurately at lower opacity values, and getting new presets to mimic scumbling and grunge effects.
For creating custom brushes, the Brush Creator gets new options to use background textures to add grain a brush, or to use a secondary brush to modify the primary brush.
Both editions: filter layers, new image-manipulation tools, and SVG path import
New image-editing features include a standard filter layers system, making it possible to non-destructively adjust properties like color balance and brightness/contrast.
The update also adds the option to fill layers or selections with color gradients, new Deform and Perspective Tools for transforming image layers, and the option to feather selections.
For geometric shapes, the Ruler Tool gets new options for parallel lines or ellipses, and users can now import vector designs in SVG format to use as paths for paint effects, as shown above.
Workflow and performance improvements
Workflow and performance improvements include a new library system, which makes it possible to save custom resources used in an image as part of a Rebelle .reb project file.
Rebelle also now supports Apple Silicon processors natively, which should improve performance on current Macs with M Series chips.
Pricing and availability
Rebelle 7 is available for Windows 10+ and macOS 10.15+. Rebelle 7 costs $89.99, and Rebelle 7 Pro costs $149.99. You can find a feature comparison of the two editions here.
Read an overview of the new features in Rebelle 7 on Escape Motions’ blog
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