4.5 and newer. It is tested on 4.5 and 5.2, which produce a bit-identical GPU paint.

No. There are no dependencies and no network access — NumPy ships with Blender.

Set Geometry Source, then raise Direction. The two work together: the first supplies the form, the second decides how hard the strokes obey it. Follow Geometry defaults to the midpoint, so the effect is visible without overwhelming the texture's own features.

Raise Brush Economy. It is what stops broad areas that are already well described from being refined away into small strokes everywhere. Raising Simplicity and lowering Coverage also push it back toward paint.

Before the first paint of a session, the GPU and CPU rasterisers both draw one batch and the results are compared. If they disagree, the GPU path is refused and the CPU path is used instead, so you get a correct painting rather than a fast wrong one. Turn on Verbose Logging to see it happen.

First check the line under the preview: if it says CPU, slow, turn the GPU Rasteriser back on — the CPU is ten to forty times slower. Then Stroke Length — it is the dominant cost, and 0 disables stroke growth entirely for a fast preview. Then raise Simplicity, which paints fewer layers. Make sure the GPU Rasteriser is on; it is roughly ten times faster end to end.

Yes — press Enter. It finishes the painting as it stands. Esc throws it away instead.