Search for answers in our Studio Artist Knowledge Base Blog. Find basic to advance techniques to use with Studio Artist. Painting, Image and Video effects, Rotoscoping, Vectorizer, Sketching and more.
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Working with Source .png Images Turning the alpha channel on for transparent .png backgrounds When using .png source images with transparent backgrounds, you will need to set Canvas > Selection > Set to > Source Alpha and then Check Mask in the top Bar of the interface Check Mask Studio Artist will show the alpha…
This Post will show you how to process selected frames from your Source Movie. 1: Choose File > Movie Loop Action Advance 2: Choose what Frame of the Source Movie you would like to Start Processing From (example shows frame 250). 3 3: Choose how many frames you want to process in the Paint…
Gallery Show was originally conceived as a way for artists to build self-running dynamic art shows using Studio Artist that could be presented in art gallery settings. But we quickly realized that Gallery Show could be used as a generative art app. It’s a great way to automatically create generative art, abstract art, NFT’s, and…
Streaming out your Gallery Show Generated Images and Paint Action Sequence Presets to a Folder If you want to stream out your Gallery Show images and also save the PASeqs you need to choose Force Stream – Image and PASeq (see below image). TIP: Do not process Gallery Show on High Resolution canvases, keep your canvas size…
This video will show you how to make your own vector shapes for automatic mosaics in Studio Artist.
This video will show how to add text to automatic vector mosaics in Studio Artist.
This video will show you how to add patterns inside your Vector tiles through the Vector Output Panel. It will also show you how to add shadowing and how to change colors.
This video will show you how to make your own vector shapes for automatic mosaics in Studio Artist.
This video will show you how to change the tiling pattern when making automatic photo mosaics or shape mosaics in Studio Artist. There are several tiling options and each of those can be edited to create hundreds of different tiling looks.
This is a Quick Tip on how to add definition to your Photo Mosaics
Video will show you how to Tighten a Photo Mosaic presets Load your own images Add Detail and Edging How to save your edited preset
Basics of the Dual Paint Mode, Concepts and How to Create Your Own Dual Paint Presets For More Information on Dual Paint please see this DUAL PAINT POST For More Information DUAL PAINT POST
How to Erase the Canvas To erase the canvas choose the Eraser Icon at the top of the Interface or choose Canvas > Erase to See this Post for more detailed information on the canvas eraser options.
Everything You Need to Know about Studio Artist Presets and Preset Management
There are a few different ways to resize the canvas, let’s go through these options. NOTE: When designing you want to keep your canvas size to around 2K Also when creating a new file you will be asked what canvas size you want. Canvas > Resize Canvas This is the main canvas resizing option. Changing…
Resizing the Canvas Please see this tip on Resizing the Canvas And how to Resize the Canvas for High-Resolution Print
This video will introduce you to the Image Operations Mode in Studio Artist Image Operation Mode Image Operations (Ip Op) are image processing effects. There are over 80 currently in Studio Artist (see below). While this may seem large, the actual number of different visual effects you can generate with these Ip Ops is…
Processing Selected Movie Frames This Post will show you how to process selected frames from your Source Movie. 1: Choose File > Movie Loop Action Advance 2: Choose what Frame of the Source Movie you would like to Start Processing From (example shows frame 250). 3 3: Choose how many frames you want to…
How to Output to and From a Folder of Sequential Images And how to Open Your Folder of Sequential Images in Quicktime or your choice of Video Editor Note: 5.0 Please refer to this post Why would you want to output your Studio Artist movies or animations to a Folder of Sequential Images and…
The MSG Evolver Image Generator is an automated tool that instantly evolves cool generative art. Simply click on a MSG thumbnail to create new imagery based on your preferences. What’s In this Video This Video will show you the basics of the MSG Generative Art tool to get you started using this tool. (MSG…
This Video will Introduce you the the Interacting Warp Mode in Studio Artist
5.0 Processing Movies using a Folder of Sequential Images One important reason to output processed movies using a folder of sequential images is to avoid any compression. Another reason, is If you are still using Studio Artist 5.0 and Mac OSX Catalina or later you will need to use this to process videos since Quicktime…
If you are using only vector presets in your PASeq can your PASeq as .svg (which is like .eps). The presets in the Vectorizer are all vector. The Paint Synthesizer has a lot of vector presets as well that will output to .SVG. You can see if a Paint Synthesizer preset is vector by…
Important Information and Tips To help you have the best experience when getting started with Studio Artist 5.5. This Post Addresses: The Importance of Using Lower Resolution Canvas Sizes until you are Ready to Print Outputting Movies Viewing Movie Examples of Studio Artist Factory Presets How to Preview Presets easily How to launch multiple…
How to Output a Movie with a Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) This video tutorial will teach you everything you need to get started on outputting an animation or auto rotoscoped movie with Studio Artist See this POST for a Written Explanation Loading your own Source Movie Using a PASeq Preset to effect…
How to Effect and Output a Folder of Alpha (.png) Images Alpha Images are handled a little differently than PS so there are a couple of extra steps when saving an Alpha Image Canvas. See this post for effecting and outputting a single Alpha Image To Output A folder of Images Choose the PASeq…
How to Process and Output an Alpha Image Alpha Images are handled a little differently than PS so there are a couple of extra steps when saving an Alpha Image Canvas. 1. Bring an Alpha Image into the Source Area 2. Run whatever effect you want (ie a PASeq Preset as shown below) Note:…
How to Live Stream Interactive Dual Paint to Video For More Information on Dual Paint please see this DUAL PAINT POST
How Live Stream and Screen Capture to Video If you want to capture Studio Artist auto-painting, assisted painting or manual painting you can do that with Streaming. You just need to set up flags which will tell Studio Artist what to stream and how. Before you can stream out video or screen capture you…
What to do when the MSG Thumb Looks Different when you Drag it to the Canvas MSG has a bit of a mind of its own. Here are some workarounds to try and get it close to the thumb representations. First I would scale up your thumbs in the SA MSG Preferences (You may have…
Introduction to the Studio Artist Vectorizer Editor The vectorizer converts images or video into resolution independent stylized Vector Art that you output as .eps or .svg. This video will show you how to edit Vectorizer presets. This Post will show you how to: Access the Vectorizer Presets How to Mutate the Presets to make new…
Interactive masking with the tools in Selection Mode This video will show you how to use the interactive selection and masking tools
Save Time Rendering by Launching Multiple Versions of Studio Artist on One Computer This video will explain how you can save a lot of time by running multiple versions of the Studio Artist app on one computer. This way can render animation or high resolution canvases on one or two versions of the program…
How to Edit A Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) This video will show you some of the basics of editing a Paint Action Sequence. The Paint Action Sequence mode is the default mode when you launch Studio Artist. A Paint Action Sequence can combine presets into a script from all the different image processing modes,…
How to Watermark Studio Artist Images and Videos with your Logo If you want to watermark you Studio Artist Images or Videos you can easily do that with an image brush. Here’s how. Go to the Paint Synthesizer and Choose the Watermark Preset Once you click on the Watermark Preset toggle to the Preset Editor…
How to Print High Resolution Images in Studio Artist. Designing in low resolution canvases and outputting at High Resolution. Also Printing Vector Steps as resolution independent .svg.* *.svg is similar to .eps but unlike .eps it is able to handle the complexity of Studio Artist’s Vector Paints For Video Explanation please go here. When you…
Studio Artist allows you to select areas of the canvas, and then use your selection to mask image processing or painting effects. The selection mask also works with the canvas ‘erase to’ feature. This post is a simple introductory tip that shows how to lasso select an area of the canvas, and then how to…
Automatic Rotoscoping and Animation in Studio Artist Transcript In this video we will explain how Paint Action Sequences are used to turn video into automatic animation and rotoscoping in Studio Artist. Then we will show you how to output an animation or movie and finally how to do some basic editing. We’ll also…
The Paint Synthesizer – Image Operations – Vectorizer Modes in Studio Artist This video is going to concentrate on these three Studio Artist modes, The Paint Synthesizer, The Vectorizer and Image Operations. Let’s start with the Paint Synthesizer. This is the Painting Mode in Studio Artist and like all modes, The Paint Synthesizer has collections…
What You Will Learn: This video will show you some of the basic features of Studio Artist. Import Source Images Use Dark Mode (mac) How to Erase the Canvas How to use the 1000’s Studio Artist presets for your projects How to use the Paint Action Sequence (PAseq) Presets and the hotkeys to preview the…
This video will introduce you to the PASeq How to use your own Source Image and Show you how to print high resolution raster images as well as export vector images as .SVG for high resolution printing More info on High Resolution printing here https://synthetik.com/printing-high-resolution-images/
How to Edit a Paint Action Sequence How to Combine Paint Action Sequences (PASeq) Another article you might find useful is how to combine steps from different Paint Action Sequences to make a new PAseq using the History Sequence https://synthetik.com/combining-paseqs-paint-action-sequence-presets/ How to Edit Text in a PASeq Step Regarding the the text. …
Right now, you cannot stream a movie from the GS preferences. You need to do by manual streaming. First set up your streaming in Gallery Show to Manual Then Choose File > Stream > Flags > Enable Write on Gallery Show Cycle Then choose File > Stream > New Movie Steam Name the…
Batch Processing with a Paint Action Sequence is Easy You can batch process either a folder of images or a folder of videos. Action > Batch Process > With a Paint Action Sequence Choose the folder of Images or videos you want to process Choose where you want to save the processed images…
How to Combine Paint Action Sequence Presets (PASeq’s) using the History Window It’s easy to combine PASeq steps using the History Sequence Window from the Windows menu (which records steps like a PASeq). So you can record or drag and drop steps into the History Sequence and then drag and drop them into another PASeq…
The Source Context Step To record more than one source image or movie into a PASeq you need to add what called a Source Context step. So when you want to change the source in the PASEq you choose Action > PASeq Timeline > Record Context > Single Key – Use Source > Source. Bear…
How to Combine Paint Action Sequence Presets (PASeq’s) using the History Window It’s easy to combine PASeq steps using the History Sequence Window from the Windows menu (which records steps like a PASeq). So you can record or drag and drop steps into the History Sequence and then drag and drop them into another PASeq…
Missing Visual C++ on Windows? Go to this Microsoft link https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/ Then scroll down the page and click on “Other Tools, Framesworks and Redistributable”. Then in the box labeled Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2019 Choose X64 and download and install Then Reboot your computer.
Streaming out your Gallery Show Generated Images and Paint Action Sequence Presets to a Folder If you want to stream out your Gallery Show images and also save the PASeqs you need to choose Force Stream – Image and PASeq (see below image). TIP: Do not process Gallery Show on High Resolution canvases, keep your…
Video explaining how to organize and save your custom presets in your Favorites folder.
The Preset Favorites Toolbar provides a way to custom organize different Studio Artist presets. We highly recommend you save all your custom presets in your Favorites folder so that when there are updates to Studio Artist you can easily copy all your custom favorites to the new version of Studio Artist. You can build…
Creating a Gallery Show – Saving the Generated Images – Saving the PASeq Presets In Gallery Show you can build free-running art shows that endlessly loop creating new art imagery for display in an art gallery. You can also use gallery show to automatically generate sets of randomly evolved art images or effect presets that…
When you get the ‘store_QImage save Image Disk failed during check to offload’ error message it means you are using undo store preference to disk. It is failing because your operating system is not letting Studio Artist have write access in the Studio Artist folder. You should try two things to remedy this. First…
When you get the ‘store_QImage save Image Disk failed during check to offload’ error message it means you are using undo store preference to disk. It is failing because your operating system is not letting Studio Artist have write access in the Studio Artist folder. You should try two things to remedy this. First…
Gallery Show was originally conceived as a way for artists to build self-running dynamic art shows using Studio Artist that could be presented in art gallery settings. But we quickly realized that Gallery Show could be used as a generative art app. It’s a great way to automatically create generative art, abstract art, NFT’s, and…
Studio Artist provides several different ways to help you organize and manage your extensive preset collection. These include the Preset Browser, the Favorites Preset Toolbar, support for active command links in the Help Browser that can load individual presets from html help pages, and drag and drop support for individual preset files from the…
Use this collection in the Temporal Image Operations shows in the image below to create still images from movies. You will need to load a source movie to work with these. However a regular movie is probably not going to give the desired results for still images. We suggest you create a movie…
How to Erase the Canvas The erase button is located in the main operation toolbar, as seen in the screenshot below. This is the equivalent of the old erase button with the arrow icon. When you click on the eraser Icon on the top of the Studio Artist Interface, you will get a contextual menu with…
The Studio Artist Workspace is extremely user configurable. This tip will discuss how you can reorganize and configure the workspace to suit your particular style of working. The workspace consists of the main working canvas and a series of editing palettes and toolbars. The centered working canvas is where you paint or build…
One cool feature of Favorites categories is that you can combine together different operation mode presets into a single accessible category. This is useful for organizing different kinds of presets (like paint and image operation presets) that work together to build specific visual effects. Favorites categories can also be used to control Gallery Show processing…
MSG – Modular Synthesized Graphics MSG stands for Modular Synthesized Graphics. MSG is a modular image processing architecture that allows you to build essentially an infinite number of different image or video processing effects or abstract procedural art images or animations. MSG presets can generate abstract procedural art from scratch, or can be configured to…
The following image gallery below off a few random Smart Blur effects generated by using Studio Artist’s new Gallery Show features to randomly mutate new image operation effects in real time. This particular Gallery Show feature is very useful for previewing the range of potential different artistic styles that any given image operation effects can…
The Texture Synthesizer provides a way to create resolution independent texture field based effects. It can also be used as a modulator in many Image Operations, or as a background texture module in the Paint Synthesizer. You can either work with pre-built texture synthesizer Presets, or work directly in the Editor palette to modify…
‘How do I change the brush size?’ The Quick Way – Hold down the b Key and draw the size brush you want If you are using a Wacom pen, you can adjust the current eraser preset’s brush size by using the b hotkey as described above with the eraser tip of the pen. Using…
Temporal Still Art Temporal Image Processing operations are time based video processing effects that use the current source movie as a source for processing. This kind of effect assumes you have a loaded source movie or are processing a movie file. You can run them without a loaded source movie but nothing interesting will happen…
You can find the Hot Key guide in the Studio Artist help window under the Index Tab. Canvas Hot Keys – Generic h – switches to hand positioning interaction, cursor movement scrolls the view c – switches to color picker, current color is set to the canvas color at the cursor position =…
Check out the Training Videos on Each Operation Mode Video Explainers for Each Mode Individual Operation Modes Here’s a quick explanation of the various operation modes. Image Operations – an extensive set of image processing effects and tons of presets, each with associated editable parameters that can adjust the visual appearance of the effect.…
If you get this error message please try the following. Studio Artist Preferences > General > Change Undo Store from Disk to Memory
This post discussed how to work with the path angle control panel in the Studio Artist’s paint synthesizer mode to adjust the orientation of the paint path relative to the orientation of the source image. Depending on whether the automatic painting attempts to follow the orientation of the source or draw perpendicular to it,…
The image below is a frame capture from an abstract generative paint animation. The animation is based on the movement of time particles over the course of the animation. The paint time particles are part of a more complicated DualMode Paint preset that also incorporates locally adaptive displacement modulation. The water wash paint preset…
In a previous post we showed how to build a simple MSG preset that stacked a 3C Abstract11 CP processor to overlay simple arrow-like vector shapes to build an abstract procedural image. In this post we will expand on what we built on by hand, using the Evolution Editor and directed evolution to build…
The image below is a frame capture from a movie stream animation generated by dynamically evolving a MSG preset used as the Dual Op in a DualMode Paint effect. This post continues our discussion from yesterday, but instead of working with the Paint Synthesizer Evolution help commands we’ll be using the MSG Evolution Editor live…
The image below was generated by working with the Paint Synthesizer Evolution help commands. But rather than running the Paint Synthesizer, I was running action painting in DualMode Paint operation mode. So, you can use the Paint Synthesizer Evolution Patch Memories and evolution commands to dynamically evolve new DualMode Paint presets in real time in…
How to Smooth Flicker in Auto-Rotoscoping Movie Editing Basics with a PAseq Preset This video explains how a Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) works in Studio Artist for making movies. You can also use any PASeq to make still images as well. This video will show you how to edit a Factory PASeq Preset. You will…
Three Training videos on Color Management through the source area as well as how to automatically make and save Color Palettes using your favorite images or using your favorite artist’s color schemes to colorize your own images.
The Studio Artist Vectorizer takes a raster image and converts it into a flat color vector representation. The vectorization process can either try to mimic the source as closely as possible or can be configured to create a wide range of different stylistic effects. This Post will show you how to: Access the Vectorizer Presets…
Otto Laske Otto makes heavy use of Studio Artist to create his visual compositions. When asked what he particularly likes about working with Studio Artist, he had this to say. “Studio Artist is a real gold mine for serious professional compositional explorations in the visual domain. It encourages experimentation and leads to unbelievable…
How to Print High Resolution Images in Studio Artist. Designing in low resolution canvases and outputting at High Resolution. Also Printing Vector Steps as resolution independent .svg.* *.svg is similar to .eps but unlike .eps it is able to handle the complexity of Studio Artist’s Vector Paints Resizing the Canvas Resizing the canvas…
Processing a Movie File with a Paint Action Sequence is fairly straightforward. First you either need to record a custom PASeq to be used for processing or import an existing PASeq preset. Then you can just run a single menu command to start the processing. The PASeq will then be used to process the movie…
Welcome to Studio Artist Tips. The purpose of this blog is to provide a technical tips and help resource for Studio Artist Users. Anyone running a previous version of Studio Artist is encouraged to upgrade to the latest release to have access to all the latest features and support. The Studio Artist News Blog at…
Studio Artist’s image operation effects include one called White Balance, which you can use to automatically correct the white balance of an image. Today’s post will take a quick look at using the White Balance effect to balance the nighttime lighting in a processed image.
Today’s post take a look at a MSG preset that generates an abstraction effect via horizontal mirror reflection symmetry along with some additional image processing. This approach to generating symmetry effects is an alternative to a recent post where we used successive applications of an interactive warp translate effect to build mirror symmetry in a…
Today’s post will describe an approach you can take to tighten up a paint preset. By tighten, we mean make it generate a more realistic representation of the source image, as opposed to generating a loose abstracted painting style.
Today’s post continues our recent discussion of some different approaches to building wet paint effects. Today’s post takes a look at a paint preset that simulates painting on top of a wet paper towel. This produces a very soft diffuse wet colored paint backing effect. Yesterday we talked about how to use a…
Today’s post is more of an introduction into a specific approach to building a wet paint effect in the paint synthesizer, as opposed to a tutorial on building a specific finished visual effect. The image above just shows a few wet spreading paint strokes drawn using today’s paint preset. Today’s paint preset works best for…
Today’s post discusses how to use the Translate interactive warp to build mirror symmetry effects.
Today’s post shows how to spice up the Block Abstraction image operation effect by re-colorizing the blocks in a way that also splits them up into triangles.
The Mass Abstractor is a Studio Artist image operation effect. It can process a source image into a variety of different black and white effect styles. What about generating color output from the Mass Abstractor? Today’s post shows one way to do that, using the Colorize image operation effect. The effect above was generated with…
MSG presets can be used to customize and extend the capabilities of the paint synthesizer in many different ways. MSG stands for modular synthesized graphics and is Studio Artist’s modular image processing architecture. This tip will discuss the various ways you can use MSG presets to customize and enhance the paint synthesizer.
Today’s post continues our discussion of the canvas gradient lighting PASeq preset discussed in yesterday’s post. Yesterday’s discussion focused on how we used the Simple Texture ip op to build a canvas texture simulation. Today we’ll take a look at a MSG preset used within yesterday’s PASeq preset that implements the gradient lighting effect shown…
There’s are many different approaches you can take to simulate paint effects on lighted textural surfaces and there are several presets in the the Paint Synthesizer that have really nice canvas texture effects. Today’s post starts to break apart a PASeq preset that uses the Simple Texture image operation effect to build an artificial canvas…
Today’s post shows how to use a single vector paint preset to build up a simple but interesting paint style. We’ll show how the paint preset was built, and gain some insight into the underlying paint strategy defined by the paint synthesizer programing used to build up the final image.
Yesterday we discussed how to use the ‘Sketch to Internal Path Memory1‘ path start Generator to create sketching paint presets. Today we will use 2 different variations of this particular intelligent sketch paint effect along with a factory water wash blend paint preset to build a paint action sequence that emulates a brightly color saturated…
Hidden away in the paint synthesizer in the Path Start control panel is the ‘Sketch to Internal Path Memory 1‘ option for the path start Generator parameter. This particular path start Generator option can be very powerful if you are interested in creating sketch style paint effects. But it can also be confusing to work…
Today’s post will discuss how to build a movie brush that incorporates an embedded alpha channel to create a photo mosaic effect based on a hexagonal grid. The trick is to build your movie brush to include a hexagonal embedded alpha channel mask. And to then use that embedded alpha channel movie brush in the…
Today’s post is the second part in a simple exercise that shows how to modulate a paint synthesizer parameter associated with generating one movie’s paint animation output, where the parameter is being modulated by a second movie file.
Today’s post shows how to build a simple MSG preset to create a very simple circular shape animation movie file that loops every 100 frames. We will then use this movie file to modulate a paint synthesizer parameter when creating a second animation effect in tomorrow’s post.
How to Composite movies by using Content Context Action Steps. How to use Content Context action steps to associate images or movie files as default backgrounds for specific canvas layers. Today we’ll show how to composite 2 different movie files together by using Content Context action steps to associate them as default backgrounds for…
Today we will show a technique you can use to associate a particular image or movie file as background content for a layer. To do this you use a Content Context action step in a a paint action sequence.
Today’s post continues our exploration of different approaches to generating paint strategies that work to build up different visual aesthetic paint effects. Today’s example takes an extreme approach to get across that how you approach this task is only limited by your imagination, and the end result may be very different than the individual sub-components…
Today’s post continues our exploration of how to combine together different paint presets and or image processing effects to build up different artistic effects, build with associated ‘paint strategies’.
Building a paint strategy is the process of breaking down the individual components that work together to build up a final artistic image, articulating them, and then constructing them as individual action steps in a paint action sequence. Today’s example looks at building a similar paint strategy we have discussed in the past (reducing brush…
Yesterday we talked about some creative ways to add stylized vectorizer abstraction effects into a digital photo. Today’s post continues that discussion, creating a kind of hyper enhanced abstraction of an original landscape photo.
There are lot’s of different approaches you can take to mix vectorizer effects into a natural image. For this particular effect, I wanted to break up the smooth gradients in the original landscape photo by adding in a stylized vectorizer abstraction of the original photo. Rather than just overlay the vectorizer effect on top of…
Border effects can be a very effective finishing treatment for a painting or other artistic visual effect. You can configure the paint synthesizer to create a wide variety of different border effects (check out the Borders category for some examples). But you can also use different image processing effects to provide different aesthetic treatments to…
Running loop action causes the current preset to continuously run in a loop until the loop cycle is stopped by pressing the spacebar. You can select new presets while running loop action and the loop will automatically switch to live processing with the new selected preset at the beginning of the next loop cycle. TIP:…
Today’s post will show off how to combine the Line Screen Regionize image operation with the Vectorizer to create a vector color line screen effect.
Yesterday we showed off how to configure the Rank MultiScale Filter image operation effect to build an intelligent smoothing filter that smooths an image while retaining sharp edges. We mentioned in yesterday’s post that like all Studio Artist image operation effects, by adjusting their editable parameters you can dramatically change the type of visual effect…
Intelligent smoothing effects that blur or blend smooth gradient sections of an image while at the same time preserving sharp edges can be very useful. They can be used to create cartoon stylings, or to remove noise artifacts, or to clean up an image prior to subsequent processing. Today’s post will show off a new…
Yesterday we showed how to configure the paint synthesizer to build vector paint blobs that simulate splashing paint. Today we’ll extend yesterday’s abstract paint effect to build a finished painting that is more representational of the source image.
Today’s post takes a look at how to configure the paint synthesizer to generate vector paint blobs that simulate splashing paint.
Today’s post shows how to configure the vectorizer to generate a close packed circle representation of an image.
Today’s post shows how to build a simple color wave abstraction of the source image. The effect combines a MSG preset that generates a series of colored bands with an interactive warp option that warps the colored bands based on the source image.
This Quick Tip video shows how to use compositing with Image Effects to create a layered look without using layers. Also how to combine several images into one. Take a look!
DualMode Paint presets built with a Warp DualOp can easily be interactively adjusted while they are auto-painting by moving the mouse in the main canvas. It’s also possible to build interactive DualMode Paint presets that use a MSG DualOp with a little bit of additional programming work. This post will discuss what you need to…
Today’s post shows off a spatially modulated nonlinear filtering effect I created by starting with the MSG preset we generated in yesterday’s post, and then working with Swap mutation in the Evolution Editor. This preset is built in a very similar way to yesterday’s organic kaleidoscopic effect, and will hopefully make you a little more…
Organic patterns in nature are oftentimes balance symmetry making an symmetry breaking. The interaction of the 2 opposing symmetry making and breaking forces give organic patterns a visual complexity missing in artificial images that have pure mathematical symmetry. There are a number of different MSG processors that use internal modulation to make and break geometric…
Interactive warp operation mode lets you dynamically generate a wide variety of different warp effects in real time based on your mouse movement in the Studio Artist canvas. Although there are not currently warp presets, you can save individual warp operations in a PASeq if you want to save them for later use as pre-built…
Today’s post continues the discussion from yesterday about building MSG presets that simulate video feedback.
Simulating a Video Feedback effect. The post called Simulating Video Feedback described how to build a simple paint action sequence that incorporated an Image Compressor ip op effect and a MSG rotation and scaling effect to simulate analog video feedback. This post take a second look at that post, and shows how to build…
The image above is a frame capture from a MSG based procedural animation. A single MSG preset was run in loop action mode to generate the animation output. I opened a movie stream before starting the loop action run of the MSG preset, so each cycle of the loop action processing was output as a…
Today’s post combines 2 different kinds of text painting to build a paint effect that renders a source image with colored text words. Some paint synthesizer editing tricks are used to be somewhat clever about how the individual text words are positioned on the canvas.
Some recent user forum discussions have asked about how to build image tiling effects where the image tile successively rotates as individual tiling paint nibs are painted in one by one. Today’s post shows one approach to doing this in the paint synthesizer that uses the built in horizontal and vertical symmetry control options associated…
Today’s post shows how to combine together an image operation effect and the Vectorizer to create a stylized black and white edge effect. We’ll be using the Vectorizer’s Flat Input Technique, which allows you to take a flat color image generated by a raster image processing effect and convert it into a vector representation.
Yesterday we showed how to use the Vectorizer to generate flat colored regions that were then used to position paint synthesizer text brush word positioning. Today we’ll show an approach to use the Vectorizer to build a region effect abstracted flat color source representation that the paint synthesizer will then convert into a photo mosaic…
Today’s post continues our exploration of different paint synthesizer text brush effects. Today, we’ll use a vectorizer rendition of the source image to automatically position the painting of text brush regions based on the size and positioning of the individual flat color vectorizer generated regions.
Today’s post shows off a slight modification of yesterday’s size modulated text brush effect. Rather than using a horizontal grid tiling pattern for the text brush overlay painting, we use path start regionization to fill each of the flat color regions generated by the vectorizer with a outline fill patterning for the text overlay.
Today’s post will look at a paint synthesizer text brush effect incorporated into a paint action sequence. The Vectorizer is used to build a light flat colored background image that is then overdrawn with a size modulated text brush using the paint synthesizer. The text size is modulated based on the source image texture, so…
Today’s post continues our exploration (see last 2 posts) of Rutt Etra video synthesizer style effects. Today we’ll modify a factory paint preset and then use it in a DualMode Paint preset to create a very abstract Rutt Etra like paint effect. The paint preset is combined together with the Smart Blur image operation effect…
Today’s post continues our examination of Rutt Etra style processing effects. As we mentioned yesterday, the Rutt Etra video synthesizer was an influential early analog video synthesizer built in the 70s. The Rutt Etra style is based on modulating video scan lines, so you can think of it as a kind of displacement mapping effect.…
The Rutt Etra analog video synthesizer was invented in the 70’s and was used by many early analog video artist pioneers. There are several different approaches you can take within Studio Artist to construct effects that simulate the look of Rutt-Etra video processing. In today’s post we’ll explore how to work with the paint synthesizer…
THIS IS AN ARCHIVED POST (Please see the Mosaic Training videos) In yesterday’s post we showed how to build a masked photo mosaic effect from a movie brush that contains an embedded alpha channel. Today we will show how we built the masked movie brush used in yesterday’s post from a folder of alpha matted…
Today’s post will discuss how to create the movie brush photo mosaic effect shown above. The effect uses a movie brush with an embedded alpha channel that masks the objects in each individual movie frame. The effect is also using random paint nib positioning for the individual masked objects, as opposed to laying them down…
In yesterday’s post we used 2 temporal generators to build a procedural shape animation from a MSG preset. The preset was based on the 1C Abstract5 processor. Today we use 3 different stacked instances of this processor in a single MSG preset with 3 temporal generators to build a more complex time varying shape animation.
Today’s post continues off from yesterday’s as we continue to explore the “Simple MSG Shapes” preset category. Today we’ll show how to use the Shape1 MSG preset to generate an evolving shape animation.
All of these presets generate simple shapes or patterns. They are all based on index mapping a single channel black and white generated shape image with a color gradient to generate a colorized output shape. The images shown above are just a few of the different kinds of shapes or patterns you can generate with…
Bezier Context is a PASeq action step that can store multiple sets of bezier paths as keyframes, and generate bezier movement when interpolating between 2 different keyframes. Today we’ll discuss how to use a Morph Context to generate image morph effect. Studio Artist uses the positioning and movement of bezier paths over time to specify…
In a previous post we showed how to store sets of bezier paths into a Bezier Context action step. And then how to use bezier path keyframe animation to build an animating pencil sketch effect. In today’s post, we’ll slightly modify the PASeq we built for yesterday’s animation effect, and show how you…
Today’s post shows how to take the stylized set of bezier sketch paths we generated in yesterday’s post, and use them in a Bezier Context action step in a PASeq to generate keyframed bezier path movement over time. This lets us build an animated painted sketch effect based on the keyframe movement of the…
Yesterday’s post described how to automatically generate a set of bezier paths derived from the source image, and then paint in the bezier paths with a vector paint preset. Today we will show how you can use additional manual bezier editing steps to stylize a set of bezier paths prior to painting them in with…
Today’s post describes how to build a simple crisp pencil sketch effect. The effect is painted in with 2 applications of a paint synthesizer vector paint preset that renders a smooth thin gray vector paint stroke. Rather than using the paint synthesizer’s auto-paint features, a set of bezier paths that represent the sketch strokes are…
Today’s post combines a paint preset that draws luminescent rectangular bars along with an interactive warp effect to create an animating paint tunnel effect.
"Tips"Getting"Common"Training"Additional"Answers This tip provides some answers to common getting started questions for beginning users of Studio Artist. How do I set the canvas to the source image? How do I erase the canvas to a fixed color background? The erase button is located in the main operation toolbar, as seen in the screenshot below. This…
Today’s post continues our examination of some new DualMode Paint presets In Studio Artist. Today we’ll look at how to procedurally animate a MSG effect used as the Dual Op for a DualMode Paint preset by attaching temporal generators to editable MSG parameters.
Today’s post continues our discussion of dynamic DualMode Paint animation effects you can interactively control in real time. Yesterday we looked at a DualMode Paint preset based on an interactive warp DualOp. Today we will look at how to configure a MSG based DualOp that is interactively controlled by mouse movement in the canvas while…
DualMode Paint operation mode lets you build dynamic paint effects that combine live painting with an interleaved live image processing effect. Today’s post will explore some of the DualMode Paint presets. You can use these amazing presets to quickly generate kaleidoscopic paintings, or to generate live paint animation effects.
Yesterday we showed how to combine paint synthesizer time particles along with an image operation effect to build a dynamic moving paint particle animation from a static source image. One limitation of DualMode Paint is that you can only interleave a single image processing effect into a dynamic paint preset. An alternative approach to building…
This post discusses how to build a DualMode Paint preset that dynamically sketches a static source image with paint particles whose paint stroke trails fade out over time. The DualMode Paint preset is composed of a time particle based paint synthesizer preset along with the Fixed Color image operation for it’s Dual Op to fade…
Today’s post will look at how to generate dynamic paint effects using the Particle Pen Mode in the paint synthesizer. You can use this kind of dynamic painting to very quickly build interesting abstract painted imagery with a tremendous amount of internal detail. Or you can use movie stream output to create dynamic paint animation…
Today’s post shows off a simple black and white sketch effect you can create with 2 passes of the Sketch Mass image operation effect. Like the Watershed Sketch ip op we discussed yesterday, you can use Sketch Mass to automatically generate bezier paths if you want to use the paint synthesizer to paint in the…
Yesterday we used the Watershed Sketch image operation effect to build a stylized color sketch effect. Today we’ll continue where we left off with yesterday’s discussion, by using the Watershed Sketch effect to drive the paint synthesizer for painting in a more visually complex sketch effect (based on the same 2 Watershed Sketch presets we…
Today’s post shows off a simple example of using the Watershed Sketch image operation effect. Watershed Sketch takes an image input and can generate a variety of colored sketch effects. While today’s post will use the Watershed Sketch effect to generate a raster sketch image, you can also use Watershed Sketch to generate bezier paths…
For the last 2 days we’ve explored generating paint animation based on a paint synthesizer preset that incorporates an embedded MSG preset that directs the paint synthesizer to auto-paint a dynamically evolving chaotic attractor. The embedded MSG preset uses temporal generators to procedurally modulate editable parameters associated with the generation of the chaotic attractor shape…
Over the last 2 days we first showed how to build a paint synthesizer preset that uses an additional embedded MSG preset to paint a chaotic attractor, and then to build a moving paint animation by attaching temporal generators to editable parameters in the embedded MSG preset. Today we’ll modify yesterday’s animation approach to incorporate…
Today’s post continues the discussion we started yesterday, where we showed how to use an embedded MSG preset to make the paint synthesizer paint a chaotic attractor generated by the embedded MSG preset. Today we will show how to generate a moving paint animation of the chaotic attractor. We’ll use temporal generators attached to editable…
Studio Artist’s paint synthesizer can be extended by embedding MSG presets into the paint synthesizer. Today’s post will show how to take a MSG preset that generates a Pickover chaotic attractor and use it as a MSG Path Start Generator to drive auto-painting in the paint synthesizer.
The MSG Editing Commands located in the Studio Artist integrated Help Browser include a specific set of meta-edit commands you can use to automatically build various kinds of color gradients. These active link help commands are oriented at building color gradients to use in MSG presets via automatic edits made to the the MSG Advanced…
In yesterday’s post, we discussed how to use the Texture Synthesizer and keyframe interpolation in the PASeq timeline to create a simple self-animating color gradient mapped texture field animation. We also mentioned that you could build the same effect using MSG as opposed to the Texture Synthesizer (as shown above). We will show how to…
The image below is a frame capture from a simple procedural animation of a gradient mapped texture field generated using the Texture Synthesizer. This post will show how the animation was generated. In tomorrow’s post we’ll show the relationship between this kind of Texture Synthesizer effect, and how you could configure the same style of…
A favorite Texture Synthesizer effect of mine is to build texture based displacement mapping effects, like the one shown below. This post will show how to modify the simple Texture Synthesizer effect we were working with yesterday and configure it to be a texture driven displacement mapping effect.
The Texture Synthesizer is an older Studio Artist operation mode that can be used to generate procedural texture fields and texture based effects. While it is superseded to some extent by MSG these days, there are still lots of interesting visual effects you can generate with it. The Texture Synthesizer is designed so that the…
Temporal slitscan processing effects can generate all kinds of visually interesting size distortions to objects moving in the movie file processed by the slitscan effect. This post will explore one example of this based on processing a 90 degree video pan with the Temporal Scan Tracker effect.
Movies of fish swimming underwater typically work really well as source video for temporal image processing effects. In this post we’ll explore the use of the Temporal Difference Matte effect, and also discuss how to auto-correct the white balance of images or video taken underwater.
Someone recently asked about how to generate a progressive wet melt effect applied to a movie file. So that as the processed movie plays, the wet melt effect applied to the movie gets progressively more extreme over time. This is actually pretty easy to achieve in Studio Artist, by key-framing your wet melt effect over…
Most paint action sequences (PASeq) are composed of multiple action steps that work together to build a final finished effect. When initially building a PASeq, the ability to watch each individual action step update in real time as it plays back is useful feedback. But if you are using the PASeq to process live video…
There are a number of different user configurable Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) Editor parameter options. These user adjustable options allow a user to control PASeq playback associated with masking, layer and view changes, path layer record options, and source color memories. The PASeq Editor parameters are stored as a part of a PASeq preset file.…
This post will discuss how to re-use a PASeq like this, since it can easily be re-edited to reference a different movie brush file and associated auto-selection tiling size for the new movie brush you want to work with. We’ll also use a Vectorizer Outline Technique preset to overlay some additional facial features (as seen…
Paint Action Sequences (PASeq) are the heart and soul of Studio Artist. Studio Artist is built around using PASeq’s instead of layers. Studio Artist does provide layers as well, but using PASeq’s is often much more powerful and much easier to use than layers. Paint Action Sequences are used to combine together presets into…
In yesterday’s post we discussed how to build a simulation of pouring paint, based on hand editing an older Wacom pen tilt sensitive air brush preset. In that post, we mentioned that you could do additional hand editing in the paint synthesizer to build various kinds of wet paint effects to add additional complexity into…
Someone recently asked me for some advice on programming the paint synthesizer to emulate paint pouring out of a hose, where the user could control the direction of the flow. And i’m assuming there’s some form of gravitational force associated with the paint movement as well. We’ll take a look at one approach to doing…
We’ve previously discussed how to program the paint synthesizer to generate grid tiling paint presets, and how to hand paint 50% size reduced grid tiling movie brush presets to hand paint additional detail in a photo mosaic that properly nests the tiled sub blocks. But sometimes you might not want to put in all that…
This post will discuss a simple approach you can take to help you get a better feel for visualizing how different temporal generators work. The question was actually posted in a discussion about temporal image processing effects, so let’s start by making the distinction between the 2 clear. Temporal image processing effects are…
In a post 2 days ago we showed how to modify a MSG effect so that it’s coloring was derived from a custom color palette generated from a specific source image. The effect’s custom coloring is built into the resulting modified MSG preset. So if the source image is later changed, the effect’s coloring continues…
Today’s post will discuss how to work with creating photo mosaic effects based on movie brushes that contain a series of non-rectangular shapes or objects on flat colored backgrounds. The images above show how I created a movie brush effect using the actual shapes of the objects for the individual brush nibs, as opposed to…
We were recently asked how to take an existing MSG preset and impose the colors of the source image onto the MSG preset. I was able to do this by adding an extra processor to the end of the MSG preset’s processor chain, that colorizes image streams based on a custom color palette. I derived…
Today, we will show an alternative approach to automatically building up a bezier path sketch using image operation effects. The automatically generated bezier paths will then be painted in with vector paint, with the end goal of outputting a vector file of the finished sketch, which allows for resolution independent printing of the vector sketch…
Today’s post will continue our discussion of different approaches one can use to generate vector file output from Studio Artist. Over the last few days we’ve talked about using the vectorizer to output vector art, and 2 different approaches to working with the paint synthesizer to generate vector painting and associated vector file output. Today…
Yesterday we discussed one approach (the Vector (solid color) setting for the Main Render Option parameter in the Vector Output control panel) to configure the paint synthesizer to allow for vector painting as well as vector file output. Vector file artwork output via EPS or SVG vector file formats is very useful for high resolution…
Today’s post continues our series devoted to examining how to use Studio Artist to output resolution-independent vector effects as EPS or SVG vector files. Yesterday we discussed how to work with the vectorizer to output vector files. Today we’ll take a look at how to record vector paint presets in a paint action sequence (PASeq)…
The conventional approach to using Studio Artist is to build up an effect in one or more more raster layers in the main Studio Artist canvas. And then to output the raster canvas view as a raster image file output. However, some Studio Artist effects can also be output as vector files. If the particular…
Today’s post will look at an adjustable parameter available in the paint synthesizer to help fine tune the behavior of a paint preset when you try to resize it. We’ll also talk about some fundamental changes that were made in the Studio Artist 4.03 update with regard to how resizing paint preset resizing works.
Temporal effects take multiple movie frames at different times as input and output a single effected output image. This post will help explain how to work with the temporal time window (the range of input frames used to build the effect) associated as an input to a temporal effect, and how by adjusting that time…
Today’s post started with the MSG preset we hand built in yesterday’s post that generated an abstract image based on combining together 3 1C Truchet FlipMod processors and a 3C Truchet Mod1 CP processor to build up an overlaid abstract patterning image. I then worked with the Evolution Editor, using the Swap control button in…
This post continues the discussion over the last 2 days, looking at different ways to build MSG presets that build complex overlaid truchet tiling patternings that are adaptively modulated with a source image. As with yesterday’s post, we’ll be focused more on creating an interesting abstract image with internal variability as opposed to building a…
The Paint Synthesizer The Paint Synthesizer allows you to create an unlimited range of different manual or automatic paint tools and effects. You can interactively paint or draw manually via the mouse or a pen and tablet, or press the Action button and the Paint Synthesizer will analyze the source image and automatically…
Today’s post will look at a Truchet patterning based abstraction. Sebastian Truchet first looked at tiling patterns (called Truchet patterning) in 1704. MSG offers several different processors that let you generate a wide variety of different Truchet like tiling patterning effects. Some of these processors also allow for adaptive modulation of the patterning based on…
Yesterday we talked about how to configure Studio Artist to work with live video processing. Today we’ll discuss another kind of live video performance feature, but one oriented at synthesizing abstract visual imagery via recursive feedback processing in real time. The image above is a frame capture of a dynamic textural image generated in real…
The frame capture above was taken from a movie stream generated by using a MSG preset to process live video in Studio Artist. While we often focus on static image or movie processing visual effects that are generated out of real time, there are many interesting live visual performance features available in Studio Artist. Including…
The screen shot above shows an example of 3 different instances of a movie brush playing back in real time in the Studio Artist canvas. I’m using the movie brush paint preset we built yesterday, with one slight editing modification that will be described below. The edit allows me to interactively define and move around…
Someone recently asked me some questions about the Temporal Difference1 effect, which is a relatively new temporal image processing effect in Studio Artist 4.03 that was added after the initial 4.0 release and is not documented in the User Guide pdf. This post will discuss the Temporal Difference1 effect, and contrast it to the much…
Today’s post continues our look back at the old Process Movie Tutorials that we started with yesterday’s post. If you have not read yesterday’s post, please read it before continuing. Today’s example will again show off the differences between building a paint action sequence (PASeq) that erases to white and then paints each frame, vs…
FineTuning Paint Regionization Effects The Studio Artist paint synthesizer is capable of creating an extremely wide range of different paint styles. This post is going to focus on discussing some editing techniques you can use to fine tune the appearance of Path Start Regionization painting effects.Path Start Regionization is an intelligent process where Studio Artist…
Studio Artist provides several different ways to organize and access presets when working. Favorites folders are designed to provide an easy way for individuals to customize preset access to better serve their individual workflow needs. This tutorial will discuss how to make your own custom preset Favorites categories.
This Post will show you how to erase the canvas and also how to use eraser presets. A simple question that comes up when getting started using Studio Artist for the first time is how to erase the canvas. The quick answer is that you can use the eraser button in the main operation…
This post will show how to bring the canvas image into the source, the clipboard or the Style Image. And also how to do the opposite of bringing the source image into the canvas. To bring the Canvas Image into Source – Clipboard or Style Image Canvas > Canvas To Using the Toolbar Eraser –…
The Paint Synthesizer is the part of Studio Artist that generates digital paint presets, which you can use for manual hand drawing or fully automatic Auto-painting by pressing the Action button. There are a large number of different paint synthesizer control panels available in the Editor palette that allow you to edit the 500 user…
Yesterday’s post showed how to use the Vectorizer to convert a flat color region line screen image processing effect into a smooth anti-aliased vector output effect. In today’s post we will show how to use the Vectorizer to extend the same line screen effect generated in yesterday’s post, adding additional abstraction to the final…
This post will discuss how to use the Line Screen Regionize image operation effect to create a stylized line screen rendering of the source image. We will then use the Vectorizer to convert the raster line screen image processing effects into a vector effect. Vector effects have smooth anti-aliased edges, and can also be…
Today’s post will show how to colorize the black and white source feature modulated noise image we generated in yesterday’s post.
This post continues a series we started yesterday on adding representational features from a source image into a very abstract canvas. This post starts with a flat random noise texture field and shows how you can use a modulated interactive warp to pull source features out of a totally random noise canvas.
Adding some sort of representational component to an extreme abstracted image can often be a useful way to anchor the abstracted image back to it’s original source in the viewer’s mind. This post will show off how to use the Vectorizer Outline Technique to add source features into an abstracted canvas via an overlay.
This post will discuss how to use multiple applications of the Vectorizer outline technique to build a different kind of stylized abstraction effect. We’ll be using the Fixed Contour Outline Type, but you could use a similar approach with any of the Outline Type options.
This post will continue yesterday’s MSG effect post by detailing how I started with yesterday’s MSG preset and then worked with directed evolution in the Evolution Editor to build a new MSG abstraction effect. Part of working with directed evolution involves what I call hand cleanup, checking the IO connections and doing minor hand…
There was some recent discussion on the Studio Artist User Forum suggesting adding gradient lighting effects to the Vectorizer in the future. I had suggested one approach to doing something like this today would be to use a MSG Gradient Lighting effect to post process Vectorizer output. I whipped this effect together quickly to…
You have the ability to customize the integrated help browser in Studio Artist 4. You can add your own custom help pages with hints, or personalized instructions. And you can also build custom help pages that can document and call up specific presets.
Two days ago we described how to build a stylized petroglyph effect that was drawn on synthesized brown paper. I thought it would be fun to run with the synthesized textured paper idea, and build a movie processing effect that rendered a source movie as a moving raised texture on a brown paper backing.…
One cool aspect of Studio Artist is that it bridges the gap between 2D graphics or photo manipulation programs and animation or video processing programs. Animation and movie processing features can be useful to you even if you are only interested in generating static 2D artwork. This post will explore the concept of using…
A recent discussion on the Studio Artist User Forum about building paint action sequence (PASeq) presets to simulate brown weathered paper inspired me to put together a petroglyph simulation this afternoon. I’ll detail how I built the petroglyph effect in this post.
This post continues the recent series focused on using temporal generators to build self-animating MSG presets. Today’s post will focus on different coloring strategies for building abstract color imagery.
This post continues yesterday’s post on building self-animating MSG presets that create abstract procedural animation. In this example we’ll combine self-animating behavior generated via attached temporal generators along with some additional MSG keyframe animation using the PASeq timeline.
The following image is a single frame from an abstract animation generated with a self animating MSG preset. This post will discuss how to use temporal generators (TG) to self modulate MSG turbulence texture parameters to create generative animation effects.
The following image is a hue randomized abstraction sketch effect, consisting of randomized color shapes with an overlaid black sketch effect. This post will discuss how the abstraction effect was put together.
Training video for using Layers and compositing in Studio Artist.
The following image is a frame capture from a simple animation that shows a source image shattering outwards. The effect was generated by using the time particle features of the paint synthesizer. This post will discuss how this simple animation effect was put together.
This post continues the discussion about using embedded bezier paths to generate keyframed animation that morphs between a series of stylized renditions of different source images. We will extend yesterday’s black and white sketch animation example by incorporating a second animating Bezier Context action step that encodes a morphing colored backing for the animation.
So you really like your painting but you want to bring out the eyes and mouth a bit more or a bit of detail here and there from the source image. It’s easy to do. Just watch this video on bringing in detail to your paintings.
The following screen shot shows the MSG Evolution Editor and it’s associated context menu commands. The context menu command called Run TG Grid Preview allows you to preview MSG presets that incorporate temporal generators attached to individual editable parameters. All of the individual small MSG preview cells will self-animate when TG Grid Preview is…
The following image was generated by running a MSG preset in loop action mode. Loop Action means that the effect is run over and over again until the user presses the spacebar to stop the loop action cycles. The MSG effect incorporates temporal generators (TG), which are attached to editable MSG parameters. You can…
The following image was generated using a new feature in the Image Processing Brush Load section of the paint synthesizer. The block patterns were generated by pixel smearing the source image as opposed to using a movie brush filled with horizontal and vertical textures. This post will show you how to use the new…
This post covers several different Studio Artist features that were used to build the following black and white sketch. The sketch was generated from a series of 25 different facial images, so it’s a sketch of a virtual face rather than a specific face since the sketch features are derived from all 25 source…
Wacom Studio Artist provides extensive support for all of the features of Wacom pens and tablets. All Wacom pen tablets provide pen pressure modulation. As you press the pen into the tablet you can modulate paint parameters based on how hard you are pressing in while drawing. There is also a pen eraser tip that…
We recently discussed how to manually select an area of the canvas using lasso selection, and then work with the Mask checkbox control to mask automatic painting or image processing effects with the selection mask. This post will discuss how to use a black and white image processing effect to automatically generate an intelligent…
The followng simple painted example shows how you can use the generic ‘compositing options in Studio Artist as an alternative to working with multiple layers when building up artistic effects. In this particular example, I wanted to add some black outlining to a really loose painted canvas to bring in some source image representation detail…
Beginning Studio Artist users often just select a paint preset, hit Action, let the preset draw, stop the drawing, finished painting. However, by working with the controls in the paint synthesizer you can tweak any given preset to modify it’s rendition of the source image you are painting. This can be useful to focus on…
Image Operations (Ip Op) are image processing effects. There are over 80 currently in Studio Artist (see below). While this may seem large, the actual number of different visual effects you can generate with these Ip Ops is much larger. Many Ip Op effects have adjustable algorithm parameters that can totally change what any given…
In the last 2 posts we’ve been discussing how to generate a vast array of different artistic slit scan effects in Studio Artist by processing a source movie file with temporal image operation effects. However, you can also generate live video processing slit scan effects in real time using your Mac’s built in iSight…
Studio Artist provides a number of different fully automatic Temporal Image Processing effects that can be adjusted to build a wide range of artistic slit scan effects that process a set of video frames into a static 2D image. These temporal effects include the Temporal Scan Tracker as well as the Temporal Slit Scan…
I quickly threw together a woodcut simulation effect for the recent discussion taking place on the Studio Artist User Forum concerning Lynn Ward’s woodcut stylings. It’s one example of some of the different woodcut effect variations I tried out. This image was generated by a custom paint action sequence (PASeq), and is based on a…
It’s easy to generate various kinds of automatic cubist paint effects in Studio Artist. Here’s a quick example I tossed together this morning. The effect starts with a digital source image, and then automatically processes it with a paint action sequence (PASeq for short) to quickly generate the cubist abstraction effect. You can think of…
Studio Artist Photo Mosaic Preset Studio Artist comes with a lot of Photo Mosaic Presets which you add your own images to. You can also edit the presets as well. Generally it’s good to start with a preset and then edit it. There are several Photo Mosaic Presets Categories in the Paint Synthesizer Mode in…
Each Studio Artist layer has an associated bezier path frame. The bezier path frame is a buffer for bezier vector paths. Studio Artist has a unique internal graphics model for paint strokes that paints raster paint over vector paths. The nice thing about vector paths is that they are resolution independent and in the case…
EPS stands for encapsulated postscript and is a vector file format. The advantage of vector files over raster image files is that a vector file is essentially resolution independent and can be rescaled smoothly to any resolution. Raster image files are pixel based image files and while they can be resized with something like Studio…
Studio Artist Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) feature called Contexts. PASeq Contexts can be recorded as individual action steps in a PASeq. Contexts can be used to record source, content, bezier, warp, morph, and filtering keyframes within a PASeq. The screenshot above shows how to access the menus to record all of the various Context types…
Today’s post looks at the details associated with building a multi-pass vectorizer overlay source image abstraction effect.
Yesterday we showed how to put together a vector paint preset that generated a black and white woodcut simulation effect. Today we’ll show another approach to building a woodcut simulation, this time in color. This particular woodcut effect is put together so that individual wood cut paint strokes don’t overlap any other paint strokes with…
Today’s paint effect simulates a black and white woodcut effect. It uses the Path End Visual Error features discussed in yesterday’s post to intelligently build up black paint strokes on a white canvas background.
The Studio Artist paint synthesizer is capable of some really nice smart sketch paint effects. However, sometimes you need to fine tune the editable parameters associated with the intelligent sketch behavior to get the best rendition of your particular source image. Today’s post will take a look at how to fine tune a sketch effect.
Yesterday we showed how to build a float sum area MSG preset that generates a resolution independent color source edge abstraction effect. Today we’ll show how to colorize yesterdays’s flat color edge effect. We’ll also add some symmetry translation warping to the colorized edge abstraction to create the finished effect shown above.
Yesterday we shows how to use a spatially modulated MSG float sum area blur effect to process a source photo to fake a miniature view. Today we’ll take a look at a different float sum area filtering effect that generates a resolution independent color source edge abstraction.
Blurring parts of a photo simulates the shallow depth of field normally encountered in close up photography. You can take a normal photo and convert it into a faked miniature photo by subjecting it to this kind of processing. Today’s post will show how to build a MSG preset effect that generates a faked miniature…
Today’s post showcases some new tutorial videos that are available to help new Studio Artist users get started with working with interactive Dual Mode Paint effects.
Today’s post will continue our recent discussion about working with interactive DualMode Paint presets to create dynamic real time abstract procedural animation effects. You can dynamically control the procedural animation by working with the mouse cursor positioning in the canvas while capturing the animation output into an open movie stream.
Movie Layers replace the old Studio Artist loaded canvas movie features. Movie layers can be used to build up animation frame by frame or to hand paint on individual frames of a movie file. This tip will discuss how to work with the new Movie Layer features in v4.
MSG Evolver is a stand alone MSG editing and effects application that shipped with the Studio Artist 3.5 release. One particularly cool feature of Evolver is the Art Mapper, which can be used to generate photo mosaic effects and/or composite art images created from multiple applications of MSG presets. This tip will discuss some approaches to duplicating…
There are a number of different adjustable Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) preference options you can use to fine tune the behavior of PASeq playback based on your personal workflow needs. These include options for controlling when the Editor and canvas are updated during PASeq playback as well as how keyframe interpolation works. This tip will…
The purpose of this guide is to help you get started understanding the Studio Artist Paint Synthesizer. We’ll cover some of the design philosophy behind the Paint Synthesizer as well as provide an overview of some of its wide range of different features. What is the Paint Synthesizer? Paint Synthesizer is a digital paint engine.…
Dual Mode Paint DualMode allows you to combine a Paint Synthesizer preset with an image processing, TextureSynth, MSG, Warp, Adjust or Vectorizer effect into a new kind of paint preset. The image processing effect is interleaved into your live painting. This means the effect can run live while you are interactively painting. For example, if…
The 2 canvas images shown here were generated by painting with a movie brush. The second example was using manual painting that cycles through the individual frames in the movie source brush, placing them one by one along a manually paint path as you move the pen on the canvas. The first example was generated…
Today’ post continues the custom palette colorization thread we’ve been developing over the last 2 days worth of posts. We started out by showing how you could automatically generate a custom color palette from an image or painting you liked the color aesthetics of, and then use it to remap another image or movie to…
Today’s post picks up where yesterday’s left off. Yesterday we discussed how to auto-extract a custom color palette from a source image we liked the color appearance of, and then use the custom color palette to re-colorize a different source image or movie file to try and replicate the original color feel of the image…
Yesterday we briefly discussed auto-generating color palettes from specific images, and mentioned that one use for this feature is to re-colorize images or movie frames to match the color aesthetics or mood of a particular image or painting you like the color aesthetics of. This post will discuss the methodology of how to do re-colorization…
There was a question asked recently on the user forum concerning building up a simple color gradient like the one shown above in the Source Area. This post will look at this task in detail, explaining why you are better off using a manual approach as opposed to an automatic one for this kind of…
Today’s post continues where we left off with yesterday’s post. We show how to use the Vectorizer to overlay some black source feature outlining on top of a very abstract irregular photo mosaic effect we constructed in yesterday’s post. The source feature outline overlay can help anchor the abstract photo mosaic image, making it more…
The last 2 day’s posts have covered working with photo mosaic effects that tile in a regular grid pattern and allow for addition of non-overlapping sub blocks within the tiling mosaic to add additional detail. At the end of yesterday’s post we briefly mentioned that you could use the Vectorizer to define the region structure…
Hand Painting Nested Sub-Blocks to Build Detail in a Regular Grid Photo Mosaic. This post continues our discussion started yesterday about a particular paint synthesizer approach to generating a traditional photo mosaic rectangular grid. Yesterday we discussed how to modify Path Application control panel settings to setup a regular grid tiling that sub nests with…
Studio Artist provides a large number of different approaches to use when building photo mosaic effects (representing a larger image with a collection of smaller images). Many of the photo mosaic feature options available to you allow for much more visually interesting adaptive mosaic block placement that a traditional grid arrangement of rectangular sub image…
Today’s post continues our discussion from yesterday, where we used a source movie taken with a non moving camera that contains objects (pedestrians) moving within the static view scene. Yesterday we worked with the Temporal Scan Tracker to build SlitScan effects. Today we will look at some other temporal image processing effects that work well…
Today’s post will discuss working with the SlitScan direction control in a Temporal Scan Tracker effect. All of Studio Artist’s temporal image processing effects work with loaded source movie files and process multiple input frames taken from different times in the movie to build time based image processing effects.
Today’s post follows directly from the last 2 day’s posts, which re-examined some old Process Movie Tutorial examples. The movie processing examples detail how to incorporate the concept of overdrawing on a previous canvas output frame into building a movie processing effect in a paint action sequence (PASeq). One important consideration to take into account…
The Process Movie Tutorials are some old Studio Artist tutorials that were originally generated several version releases ago. They discuss some fundamental basics regarding how to go about constructing paint action sequences (PASeq) for movie processing so that the processing scripts incorporate the notion of temporal continuity into the paint animation effects they generate. We’ll…
The following images were generated with an edited modification of the paint preset we hand built yesterday. As you may recall, we used a MSG preset that generates a chaotic attractor image to build a MSG Live source brush paint preset. Today, we will work with Temporal Generators (TG) attached to the MSG preset’s editable…
Two days ago we discussed how to build a paint preset that used an embedded MSG preset to build a MSG Brush Load paint nib, and then use the Evolution Editor to evolve new paint presets based on MSG on the fly during live painting. Today we will take a look at a different way…
I thought i’d take a break from the normal ‘how to build a visual effect‘ tutorial posts for a day and talk about a fun little project we have going on at Synthetik. In the process of that discussion, we’ll take a look at using Studio Artist to build custom art images specifically for printing…
I started with a factory paint preset that uses a MSG preset internal to the paint synthesizer. Because the paint synthesizer preset is doing it’s drawing based on a MSG preset embedded inside of the paint synthesizer, I can use all of the various Evolution Editor features we have discussed here in the past to…
An interesting discussion came up on the Studio Artist User Forum the other day, which concerned how to access a particular image stream I used in a post example. I gave a brief explanation as a reply to the user forum post, but we’ll explore this aspect of MSG editing more detail in this post.
Continuing the discussion from yesterday on building images rendered out of text characters in the paint synthesizer, today we’ll look at how to program raster vs vector drawing for text brush nibs. The image above shows essentially the same preset, the left side is rendered using raster text brush nibs, the right side is rendered…
There’s been a few images posted recently on the Studio Artist User Forum that were related to representing images with blocks of text, where the text size is modulated to represent the original image luminance. Of course that’s easy to generate in the Studio Artist paint synthesizer, so we’ll take a look at how to…
The image above is a piece of procedural art generated from a directed evolution session that started with the MSG preset configuration we built in yesterday’s post. We’ll take a look at the process I followed to create this image, and reflect on the nature of hand built design vs directed random mutation and evolution…
Today’s post will explore another MSG processor that generates abstract shapes, where the shape positioning is modulated by an input stream. We’ll show how you can stack multiple instances of the 3C Abstract 5 Grid Mod CP processor to build up spatially variant abstract image complexity.
I was asked why a paint synthesizer particle pen mode paint preset had very different drawing behavior and associated appearance when used manually vs when run with the Action button. The answer is that it’s all a function of how the preset is programmed in the paint synthesizer. Understanding the differences in behavior and how…
All of the different abstract images in this post were generated by working with Swap evolution in the Evolution Editor starting from the MSG preset we built in yesterday’s post. So we’re working with a fixed IO (input-output) routing configuration for all of the different effects. And the number of processors in the MSG effect…
Today’s post continues the image modulated apollonian gasket close packing experiment we started in yesterday’s post. We’ll modify yesterday’s MSG preset to combine 2 different image modulated close-packed abstractions into a single output image. And we’ll use self-modulating recursion to generate a series of images to build an abstract animation.
This post continues yesterday’s discussion of generating abstract imagery based on close packed circles, historically called an Apollonian Gasket. Today we’ll discuss how to use an input image stream to modulate the positioning of the close packed circles (as opposed to the random placement used in yesterday’s post).
The above image is an example of an Appollonian Gasket, otherwise know as close-packed circles. Technically the close packing should take place in a single large circle as opposed to the entire rectangular canvas, but we’ll ignore that minor detail. This post will show how to create close packed circle abstractions using MSG processors.
This post shows examples of different procedural images created using Swap evolution in the Evolution Editor, starting with the simple colorization preset we built in yesterday’s post. The point being that even with a simple MSG processor configuration by working with Swap and Mutate evolution processes you can still generate an infinite variety of different…
We’ve discussed 2 different colorization approaches over the last 2 days for building abstract procedural imagery using MSG. The first used a 1to3ModGradMap processor to colorize a single image stream by modulating between 2 different color gradients with a second image stream as a modulator. The second in yesterday’s post used a ForceColorMap processor to…
Today’s post will continue the topic we started yesterday, looking at different approaches to colorizing MSG procedural imagery. Today we’ll look at using the ForceColorMap processor to colorize a 3 channel MSG procedural preset.
Many MSG presets that generate 1 channel procedural textures use the 1to3GradMap processor to index map the black and white texture image through a color gradient to generate full color output. However, you can also work with 2 different color gradients to colorize procedural imagery. This post will show off how to do this using…
Yesterday we showed how to use the paint synthesizer to build a smart random screen halftone effect. today we will show how a simple editing change in the paint synthesizer can change the effect to emulate a woodcut screening or litho print effect.
The real power of Studio Artist is that it’s an extremely user configurable environment for building custom visual effects. In today’s post, we’ll take a look at using the paint synthesizer to build smart halftone screens, which can then be used in a PASeq to build custom halftone screening effects.
The paint synthesizer has always had a number of smart paint dropout options that can be turned on to add visual intelligence to building up sketch effects. Some of these old options depended on starting with a white or black canvas. Studio Artist includes some smart sketch options based on the Blanking Buffer, which allows…
The image above is a frame capture from an abstract procedural animation generated by a MSG preset. The movement in the animation is built from a combination of attaching temporal generators to some MSG editable parameters along with the use of keyframe animation to interpolate between 2 different color palettes over the course of the…
The following images shows off a few MSG source processing effects generated from scratch, using nothing more than a press of the Inspire command button in the Evolution Editor. Inspire evolution works off of the set of factory MSG presets, using them as a basis for building new mutated effect variations. Inspire evolution is a…
Yesterday we showed how to use the 3C Abstract12 CP MSG processor to build pseudo plant-like abstract procedural imagery. Today we will show how to use MSG Meta-Edit help commands and directed evolution to take yesterday’s simple effect and build something more visually complex.
Today’s post will continue our exploration of MSG processors that generate simple colored vector shapes that can be overlaid to build visual complexity to create abstract procedural art imagery. Today we’ll be exploring the 3C Abstract12 CP processor.
This post will discuss how to work with the command controls on the Paint Synthesizer Evolution help page while painting in real time to build up the abstract painting shown above. You can also use this process to create paint animations on the fly by streaming the results into an open movie stream.
There’s a vast range of different fun things you can do using the active command links in the Paint Synthesizer Evolution Help Page. We discussed this help page in yesterdays’s post along with it’s associated 4 paint Patch memories. Today we will show how to work with random paint patch evolution to create new paint…
The following is a screen shot of the Paint Synthesizer Evolution help page in the built in Help Browser in Studio Artist. Many people are unaware of the existence of the different paint synthesizer memories, let alone all of the different things you can use them for. So this post will take a quick look…
The following is a procedural abstract image generated with a simple MSG preset. We’ll take a look at how it was constructed in this post. The 2 MSG Abstract processors used in the preset are useful for creating semi-organic looking vector procedural imagery.
Studio Artist’s Paint Synthesizer is an amazingly versatile digital painting tool. You can choose to paint manually, with assistance or completely automatically. There are thousands of factory paint presets available to help you get started. Paint presets are completely editable, so it’s easy to customize them to suit the needs of your own individual workflow…
The following is a photo mosaic image created using a movie brush in the paint synthesizer. In a previous post here we described how to build a black and white pantograph effect. This post will discuss how to fill the white interior cells of a black and white pantograph image with photo mosaic blocks. This…
The following image is a frame capture from an animation generated by running a MSG preset in loop action into an open movie stream. The processing is recursive, which means that the output of the previous MSG processing cycle is used as the input to the current MSG processing cycle. This post extends on the…
The Paint Synthesizer can respond to your mouse or pen movements in different ways. How the current paint preset responds to pen movement is a function of the paint synthesizer’s adjustable Pen Mode option. Changing the pen mode is an easy way to modify the drawing behavior and appearance of any paint preset. This tip…
We’ve recently discussed various uses for movie pixel indexed background textures. Today’s post points out a useful feature associated with all image or movie based background textures you may be unaware of, the ability to build symmetry operations into the tiling associated with any image or movie based background texture.
The following image is a single frame from an abstract animation generated from a self-animating MSG preset. This post will take a look at how the MSG preset was built, showing off the user of Temporal Generators (TG) to self-animate MSG parameters. We’ll also show off a few MSG Editing tricks you might find useful…
Studio Artist includes a large number of different image operation effects that are raster image processing effects. However, you can use Studio Artist’s Vectorizer to generate vector output from a raster image processing effect. Studio Artist can output EPS, SVG, and PDF vector files. This tutorial will run through the steps necessary to convert a…
This Post shows how to work with the paint synthesizer in an alpha enabled view. We will start today’s example with the same Butterfly source image we used yesterday ( as shown in the 1st gallery image below). Remember, the Butterfly image is a TIFF image that contains an alpha channel. The easiest way…
There’s been a lot of discussion recently on the Studio Artist User Forum about working with alpha channels. While there is no need to get involved with alpha channels to build paint effects in Studio Artist, there is a full set of alpha channel features available for those of you who wish to use them.…
Today’s post continues our exploration of the Movie Pixel Index Background Texture feature in Studio Artist. So we’re working with movie brush files, but using them to build a dynamic background texture as opposed to a movie source brush. The 2 following images were created by a simple modification of the factory preset Default :…
Today’s post continues yesterday’s theme of working with self tiling patterns. Today we will show how you can use a stack of self tiling patterns stored as individual frames in a movie file to build a set of hatching patterns, where each frame in the movie corresponds to a hatch pattern for a fixed luminance…
This Tip will show you how to constrain Autopainting so that the drawing is more representative of the Source Image The Paint Synthesizer is capable of generating an extremely wide variety of different paint styles. This tip will focus on explaining how to get under the hood and edit paint presets to change their automatic…
The following images shows a simple self-tiling pattern followed by a 2×2 and 4×4 tile of the original pattern. This post will discuss how to generate self-tiling effects in the paint synthesizer. We’ll also take a look at the simple MSG preset we used to generate the 2×2 and 4×4 tiling shown above.
Yesterday’s post described how to build a custom movie brush from a personal collection of images. With the ultimate goal of using the movie brush to build a photo mosaic effect in the paint synthesizer. But there are other applications of a custom movie file composed of a disparate set of individual images, like stack…
The following photo mosaic image was created with a custom movie brush I generated from a collection of digital photos of beach boulders I photographed yesterday. This post will run you through the complete process of building your own custom movie brush. You could use it to make custom photo mosaic effects, or all kinds…
This post will explore Photo Mosaic Path Start Regionize Arrangement Options and some of the different path start regionization options available for building photo mosaic images using the Studio Artist paint synthesizer. We’ll be using variations of of the brick wall presets associated with this previous Studio Artist News article that are available…
Yesterday’s post covered a tremendous amount of material devoted to building path start regionization photo mosaic effects based on movie source brushes. Today’s post will just focus on the issue of movie frame index modulation on algorithms for recolorizing movie source brush frame images.
The following 3 images are 3 different photo mosaic images created from the same source image. They all were made with the same PASeq. The only difference is that the approach taken to coloring the individual movie source brush images used to fill the individual regions is different. We’ll explore how this particular effect was…
Today’s post will focus on some tricks you can use to generate interesting abstractions using the Block Abstraction image operation as a starting point .
This tutorial continues our discussion of the mechanics of designing and building paint strategies for creating paint animation effects in Studio Artist. To process a movie file in Studio Artist you first record a Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) and then process a movie file with the PASeq. A paint strategy is the series of processing…
The following 2 images show off using a movie background texture to add visual complexity to a conventional simple rectangular gradient computation source brush. We’ll take a look under the hood of the paint synthesizer preset used to generate the above images in today’s post.
This tutorial will show you how to process a movie file with a single image operation effect. Studio Artist processes movie files with Paint Action Sequences (PASeq). A PASeq can be thought of as a script that details the different processing steps needed to achieve a certain stylistic effect. PASeqs consist of a series of…
This tutorial continues our discussion of the mechanics of designing and building paint strategies for creating paint animation effects in Studio Artist. Studio Artist uses Paint Action Sequences (PASeq) to process movies. So to implement your paint strategy for building a particular paint animation effect you need to record a series of action steps in…
The following two images above were generated with a feature in the Studio Artist paint synthesizer, called the Stretch2 Brush Type. The Stretch2 Brush Type lets you stretch warp an image or movie brush onto the complete paint path when painting. So think of the image as being like a rubber sheet that stretches, twists,…
Studio Artist uses Paint Action Sequences to process QuickTime movie files. We have discussed the mechanics of working with Paint Action Sequences in previous tutorials and the User Guide. This tutorial is a more advanced look at different strategies to keep in mind when constructing Paint Action Sequences to process movie files.
Studio Artist allows for some amazing effects that involve processing multiple video frames using the temporal image operation effects. You can smear time, generate slit scan effects, create panorama images, and much much more.
We’re returning to the MSG effect we discussed 2 days ago, which generates a Hilbert space filling curve adaptive halftone effect with built in colorization. The MSG effect itself generates raster image output. In today’s post we will show how you can convert this effect into one that generates vector output, which allows for resolution…
Today’s post continues the thread we’ve been following for the last 2 days. This post will show a modification of yesterday’s MSG processing effect with the space filling curve part removed. So the effect is purely based on an adaptive halftone screen generated from the source image edge map and some additional chamfer distance map…
Today’s post continues the thread we started yesterday. In yesterday’s post we showed 2 different approaches to building halftone screen effects based on space filling curves. Today we show how to build an adaptive halftone screen effect based on a variate of a Hilbert space filling curve. Adaptive halftone screening means that the halftone screen…
Studio Artist has some cool new MSG processors that generate space-filling curve based effects. One fun thing you can do is to generate a halftone screen based on the space-filling curve. We’ll take a look at how to build this effect in today’s post.
This post continues the thread we started yesterday about how to build MSG Live Source Brushes. So we’re using a MSG preset to extend the paint synthesizer by running the MSG preset live to generate a dynamic brush shape for each paint nib. Yesterday’s post used the same MSG brush image for each painted brush…
Today we’ll begin take a look at how to use a MSG preset to build a dynamic source brush in the Studio artist paint synthesizer.
The following image was generated with a few image processing effects. This post will discuss the approach taken to produce the triangular block abstraction effect shown above. You can use the technique whenever you have an image composed of flat color regions that you want to split with diagonal slices.
The image above was generated using the new Bamboo Sketch paint preset. This post will take a look under the hood of the paint synthesizer to show how this particular paint preset was programmed to generate it’s stylistic bamboo sketch look.
The following image shows off an example of a spatially variant blur effect. By spatially variant, we mean that the bur is different in different spatial locations in the image. The particular spatially variant blur shown above simulates rotating a camera around the center of an image while snapping a photo. This post will…
Today’s post will continue the thread we’ve developed over the last 2 posts. We started by taking a look at one of the new Magic Spiro paint presets, and then showed how to incorporate it into a DualMode Paint preset and generate a paint animation from the auto-painting behavior of the DualMode Paint preset…
Today’s post will take the A Magic Spiral paint preset we discussed in yesterday’s post and convert it into a DualMode paint preset. We will then build a paint animation from streaming the DualMode paint preset auto-painting into an open movie stream.
The following abstract image above was generated in about 10 seconds using one of Studio Artists Spiro paint presets. We’ll take a look at how this particular paint preset works in this post.
Studio Artist has a vectorizer Shape Type option that can fill with different Truchet patternings. This post will take a look at how to use the new Truchet Shape Type options. You can find Truchet Presets by choosing the Vectorizer mode and searching for Truchet. There are also Truchet presets in the Paint Synthesizer that…
The following image is a combination of a vectorizer abstraction preset with an added smart blur effects masked so that it only blurs at the edges of the image. This can be used as a technique to focus the viewer’s attention on the center of the image, and also to create a sense of…
The following image is the end frame of a simple paint animation that paints in 2 bezier paths that spell out ‘Happy Holidays’ over a specific number of frames. Someone recently asked me how to build this kind of animation effect, so I quickly threw this simple example together, which we will explore in…
Three Training Videos on Preset Management. Check ’em out on the Training page or through these links
The following image is a still frame from a bezier path tween animation. A series of bezier path edge sketches were keyframed to build a morphing animation that transforms through a sequence of different still images of faces. The still image sketch output shown above was generated between 2 keyframes, so it’s a sketch…
Yesterday’s post described an approach that can be used to build stylized blocky abstraction effects. Today’s post will continue an exploration of this kind of effect, but the technique we will use is somewhat different. How the blocks and source features embedded in them are generated is different than yesterday’s post. The colorization of…
Recently on the Studio Artist User Forum there’s been a number of user art posts that showcase various blocky abstraction effects. This post details a different approach you can use to build this kind of effect style, as shown above. The idea is to build a stylized blocky abstraction of the source image that…
The following Watercolor Cartoon effect is reminiscent of a soft watercolor. It’s generated with a series of different image processing steps, and uses some tricks first discussed in a previous post on adding soft gradient fills to vectorizer output. Rather than using the vectorizer, we will be working with the Mass Abstractor image operation…
The following gallery above shows four different black and white sketch effects, designed to emulate different pencil or ball point pen sketching styles. They start out with a tight rendition of the source image and then get progressively looser. The sketch effects build up mass and edge rendition by utilizing the Sketch Mass and Sketch…
This post continues our discussion yesterday about working with Path menu commands to generate bezier paths for painting. In yesterday’s post we used a series of path menu commands in a PASeq to build a stylized woodcut block print paint effect. Today we will show how to take the stylized source image outline paths…
There are lots of different approaches you can take in Studio Artist to simulating different traditional woodblock print effects. The example shown above uses a series of path menu commands to build a stylized set of bezier paths that are then painted in with a paint synthesizer vector paint preset. This post will discuss…
The following abstract image was generated working with the MSG Evolution Editor. This post will discuss working with the Evolution Editor to generate new abstract imagery from scratch by using the Inspire button.
The vectorizer typically generates visual effects consisting of flat color region fills. While there is a vectorizer feature that allows for some gradient fill options, you can also take a flat color region image and convert it into soft gradient filled regions via post processing by image processing algorithms. There has been a lot…
The following image above is a IFS (iterated Fractal System) chaotic attractor color mapped with a color gradient. The fractal image was generated by building a MSG preset. Instead of editing the MSG preset from scratch in the MSG Advanced Editor, I used a series of MSG Configuration Help Commands to build the preset.…
The following image is a frame capture from an auto-rotoscoped paint animation. This post will take a look at the various components used to build this vibrant paint animation styling.
The following image is a frame capture from a processed movie file. This post will explore how the wet dripping vectorizer animation was generated.
Many of the visual processing effects generated by the vectorizer generate flat color region representations. Studio Artist allows for the vectorizer color regions to be filled with color gradients as opposed to just flat color fills. However, you can also use the vectorizer in conjunction with the paint synthesizer, where the vectorizer generates a…
There are lots of different ways to build exotic black and white (or color) sketch effects using MSG processors. This post will dive into an explanation of how the black and white sketch effect above was constructed using 2 different MSG presets.
The following image is a frame capture from a paint animation. We’ll take a look at the different processing steps used to create this effect, and generate a few different animation examples to help get a better understanding of how the individual components of the complete processing script interact to build the final visual…
The following image is a frame capture from an auto-rotoscoped paint animation. I was trying to generate the look of a moving oil painting, inspired by some recent discussion on the Studio Artist User Forum about emulating Van Gogh styles using paint synthesizer auto-painting. While I don’t think i’ve totally achieved the van Gogh…
MSG presets can be used to create abstract imagery or image and video processing effects. The individual editable parameters associated with MSG presets can be modulated over time to build dynamic animation or processing effects. This tip will take a look at 2 different approaches to building MSG animations. They are procedural animation via attaching…
The following image is an example of a rough black and white sketch effect. It was made with a combination of image processing and paint synthesizer treatments. This post will discuss how the effect was put together in detail.
This post continues the discussion yesterday regarding directed evolution of MSG presets using the Evolution Editor. We’ll be taking a look at Add mutation in this post. The MSG preset effect above was created by using Add mutation in the Evolution Editor to evolve yesterday’s MSG preset into a new effect.
The following MSG preset example shown was created by using the Evolution Editor to evolve new MSG presets. I started with the MSG background preset used in the yesterdays post. Directed evolution is a powerful approach to building procedural art and new processing effects. You can work with directed evolution in the Evolution Editor…
This post will delve into the 2 steps used to build the following stylistic effect. The image was generated by a combination of a custom MSG preset and the Vectorizer.
This post continues our discussion on different approaches to adding border treatments to finish a painting or image processing visual effect. Rather than using a border painting preset, we will use border modulation in an image processing effect to create a treatment that only effects the borders of the canvas.
Working with painted border effects is a fun way to add some additional finishing touches to a digital painting. Studio Artist has a number of features that make it easy to build custom paint effects that paint in a solid color or effected border. There are also some factory Borders paint presets to help…
The following images shows a rough color sketch effect created by combining together several different image operation effects. So the paint synthesizer is not being used at all for this particular sketch effect. This post will discuss how to create this effect in detail. We’ll take a look at the Sketch Edge ip op, which…
“Art on the Marque” is a public art exhibit displayed outside of the Boston Convention Center that is viewed by over 10,000 people a day. Studio Artist user Dennis Miller’s artwork has been featured throughout the “Art on the Marque” exhibit. You can learn more about Dennis’s Studio Artist generated video artwork for “Art on…
When outputting a movie from Studio Artist you can take advantage of the the ProRes 422 codecs if you have Final Cut Pro installed on the same machine as Studio Artist. Apple only allows this compression on Mac computers with FCP installed. If you do not have FCP then please see the below advice for…
The first image in the following gallery shows off a circular block print effect. This post will discuss how the effect was put together. We’ll also take a look at a cool trick used in the effect that allows you to convert raster image processing effects that generate solid color regions with hard aliased edges…
I was working with a paint action sequence (PASeq) that builds generative paint animation when run over time. I wanted to add a symmetry warp effect to the animation. In doing so I ran into an interesting case where just adding the warp effect to my existing PASeq worked fine for a single frame but…
The following imageshows a soft abstraction effect I was recently playing around with. We used the output of this effect in yesterday’s post on tiling as our initial starting canvas. Today’s post will detail how I created this particular soft abstraction effect. It’s created with a combination of the paint synthesizer and some interactive…
Brush load capture is a new feature in Studio Artist 4 that allows you to capture a piece of the current draw canvas and then load it into a paint brush and use it as a paint nib coloring source. This tip will discuss how to work with brush load capture in more detail.
One cool thing you can do with Studio Artist is simulate video feedback. In the analog world you would generate video feedback by pointing a live video camera at a monitor displaying the output of the live video camera feed. You can generate all kinds of different warp and texture synthesis imagery depending on…
There’s a cool feature buried in the paint synthesizer that lets you paint individual words from a textural passage into paint regions. So each painted region has only one word painted in it’s interior. This feature is a part of the Region Fill as Brush pen mode. There are lots of different ways to paint…
The following image shows a simple Pantograph effect generated using the paint synthesizer. The details of how this effect was put together is interesting, so we’ll explore it’s underpinnings in more depth in this post.
The following images shows a black and white noire effect. Like the previous post, I created this particular effect for movie processing. This post will detail how the effect was created, and how it differs from a conventional thresholding effect.
This post details a simple paint action sequence (PASeq) I was playing around with to generate a stylized cartoon effect for some movie processing. The Smart Contrast image operation is used to help add some additional source feature detail into the stylized vector cartoon effect.
The following image is a fun abstraction effect you can create that utilizes the vectorizer and an image operation effect working in conjunction with one another to create the final abstraction. In this post we’ll take a look at how this effect was generated with a 4 step paint action sequence (PASeq) And we’ll…
This post details the individual steps used in a simple paint action sequence (PASeq) that generates a thread weaving effect. The approach I took might not be what you would originally expect. Rather than building a paint synthesizer preset that emulates threads being horizontally or vertically woven into a tapestry, I used some clever image…
The first image in the following gallery above is a color sketch effect created by incorporating the black and white MSG sketch effect we discussed in yesterdays post into a paint action sequence (PASeq). The black and white MSG preset was used with the Vectorizer and some image operation action steps to build a more…
This post details how a simple black and white rough sketch effect was created using MSG. MSG stands for modular synthesized graphics and is Studio Artist’s modular image processing architecture. MSG presets are created by combining together different individual processors that work together to build up an overall effect.
The MSG Help Commands are a series of MSG editing commands available via user commands in the built in Help browser. Working with the MSG Editing Commands allows you to access the complete set of MSG evolution editing functionality, some of which is not directly accessible when just working with the MSG Advanced Editor. Studio Artist…
The Studio Artist MSG Evolution Editor (shown below) is a cool way to generate abstract art and wild image processing effects. MSG stands for modular synthesized graphics and is Studio Artist’s modular image processing architecture. You can manually fine tune and edit MSG presets using the MSG Advanced Editor, but getting the most out of the…
The previous post showed how to use the PushPull interactive warp operation to add a warping pull-in attractor to a generative paint animation. MSG presets are another approach you can take to create warp effects that pull in (attractors) or pull out (repulsers). This post will discuss how to build a simple MSG preset that…
The following two images are frame captures from 2 different generative paint animation. The paint animations are based on the same paint action sequence (PASeq) that combines some image operations, interactive warps, and auto painting time particles to build a wispy abstract paint animation. The first animation frame capture is using an interactive warp PushPull…
Studio Artist’s various operation modes that generate visual effects all contain standardized generic Compositing controls that can be used to subtly or radically change the nature of a given effect. This post will show how to use the Edge1 option for the generic Composite control in an image processing effect to convert an effect that…
Time Axis Rotation (shown above) is a cool temporal image processing feature available in Studio Artist 4. The image shown above is a frame capture from a time axis rotation video, which was generated by processing a source video of some kung fu fighters in a gym throwing kicks at each other with a time axis…
Typically the paint synthesizer auto-draws by generating a paint path and then painting it in. This process repeats individual path by path. However, you can configure the paint synthesizer to analyze the source image, construct a series of automatically generated regions, and then fill in each region with different kinds of paint patterns. In this…
Movie layers can be used to paint or modify individual frames of a movie file. You could use movie layers to construct hand drawn animation a frame at a time, or to add paint or image processing effects to specific frames in an existing movie file. Movie layers are a new feature in v4 that…
MSG (modular synthesized graphics) is Studio Artist’s modular image processing architecture. 600 different image processing modules (called processors) are available within MSG and can be combined together to create an infinite variety of different image synthesis or processing effects. MSG can be used to create abstract procedural imagery or animations from scratch. Or MSG can…
Time Particles provide a way for individual paint strokes painted by the paint synthesizer to have temporal continuity in an animation. Temporal continuity means that the individual paint strokes are present across multiple sequential frames as the animation progresses. The individual paint strokes associated with the time particles can have their own movement that is occurring over…
Wikipedia includes the following as an explanation for recursion. “In order to understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.” But we’re going to try and explain it here anyway. Recursive IO connections in the context of a MSG preset means that a given input Stream for a processor is also used as the output Stream. Oftentimes…
MSG Live is a new Source option in the paint synthesizer’s Brush Source control panel. This source brush option uses the current MSG preset to generate a source brush image buffer on the fly when drawing. Any MSG preset can be used to interactively generate the source brush, which means you can use Temporal Generators…
Each layer in Studio Artist is composed of 3 RGB (red-green-blue) image channels and 1 alpha (A) channel. The RGB image channels define a color image. The alpha channel is an extra image buffer that can be thought of as an additional mask channel associated with the layer. Technically the pixel values in the alpha…
Someone asked about how to create a PASeq action step that could zoom the canvas in or out in a controlled fashion. You could of course use the Scale Uniform Interactive Warp to do this. Another approach is to build a MSG preset that scales the canvas. This is an extremely simple MSG preset to…
There are a number of different active link user commands you can access in the Help Browser that can be used to control directed evolution of MSG presets in the Evolution Editor palette. If you have previously used the MSG Evolver application to evolve MSG presets some of these will be familiar to you. When…
This tip focuses on some simple editing strategies for generating coloring effects in abstract imagery created with MSG presets. A color MSG output image consists of 3 image Streams (R Out, G Out, B Out). RGB stands for red-green-blue. Each image stream in a MSG preset is a monochrome image. So generating a color…
The MSG Advanced Editor is a special control Palette that lets you edit and build MSG presets. It provides access to all of the individual modular processors and their associated editable parameters and IO Stream connections that make up the MSG preset. The screen snap above shows a simple 3 processor MSG preset in the…
Studio Artist has a number of new features that can be used as an aid when using Studio Artist in live visual performance situations. Live visual performance could mean using Studio Artist in a live performance in front of a crowd creating live visuals on the fly. Or it could mean real time visual jamming…
You can live screen capture anything in Studio Artist. So say you want to make a video showing Studio Artist painting or you want to Video stream and Interactive Dual Paint Animations. There are a lot of reasons you might want to live screen capture with Studio Artist. If you are using Gallery Show will…
Starting with Studio Artist 5.5 the system requirements are for Windows 10 and 11 (once it becomes available). You can run 5.5 on 7 and 8 but only for still images. Windows users will notice that most of the online documentation presented here is using Apple Macintosh screenshots and hot key conventions. However, if you…
This tip will discuss how to create an embedded alpha channel in a movie file you are generating with Studio Artist. Embedded alpha channels could be associated with movie stream or action processing movie file output. What is an embedded alpha channel? An embedded alpha channel can be thought of as a selection mask that…
Versions of Studio Artist prior to v4 had various keyframe options in the layer timeline. These included bezier, source, and content keyframes. Version 4 integrates the old layer timeline into the PASeq timeline. The old layer keyframe functionality is now accessible by using the new v4 Context action steps recorded in a PASeq. This tip…
Yesterday we discussed how you can use Region Draw Pen Mode to automatically generate different hatching patterns to fill in interactively drawn regions. Today we’ll show how you can use the Region Draw Pen Mode hatching patterns to fill paint regions generated by path start regionization.
Today we’ll take a quick look at Region Draw Pen Mode. You can use Region Draw Pen Mode to automatically generate different different hatching patterns that fill an interactively specified ellipse or rectangular area of the canvas. A few of the different hatching pattern options are shown above.
Today’s post talks about how to work with the Local Color Range controls in the paint synthesizer’s Path End control panel to tighten up a paint preset for better reproduction of source image details.
Yesterday we shows how to configure the paint synthesizer to generate a simple tiled inset circle paint effect. Today we modify yesterday’s paint preset to generates hexagonal tiled inset painted squares.
Today’s post shows how to configure the paint synthesizer to generate tiled random sized inset paint circles.
Yesterday we discussed how to work with path start regionization to build paint effects that intelligently paint in a series of regions generated from analyzing the source image. Today we will continue out discussion of path start regionization and show how you can use Region Fill as Brush pen mode to fill in path start…
Path Start Regionization is a special feature of the Studio Artist paint synthesizer. When used with auto-painting, the paint synthesizer first intelligently analyzes the source image, breaking it up into a series of individual regions. A wide variety of different path generation options are then available that can paint in the individual path start regions…
Live Extend is a new Path Type feature in Studio Artist 4. It is designed to be used with paint presets for manual drawing, and creates dynamic streaming real time paint effects.
Today’s post take a quick look at how you can use the paint synthesizer’s tiling features in combination with the AntiAlias Solid Brush Type to generate abstract ‘circuit board’ paint effects.
The use of paint nib auto-masking was recently discussed here as an approach to tightening up a paint effect so that it better represents the details in a source image. Today’s post take a look at a different paint synthesizer editing technique you can also use to tighten up paint effects. It’s based on automatically…
Studio Artist Editor At the bottom of every preset window there is an editor toggle. If you do not see this make sure the Editor is checked in the Windows menu. Some Studio Artist Modes have only one Editor Panel such as Image Operations and some have multiple Editor Panels, such as the Paint Synthesizer…
This tip is going to discuss some Studio Artist features useful for building up tone in an image. Tone or mass can be thought of as representing the visual weight of a sketch or artistic rendition and relates to building some kind of representation of the original source luminance in the artistic rendition of that…
There are a wide variety of different tools available in Studio Artist for converting raster images into bezier path renditions of the image. These include techniques to generate bezier path edge sketches (like above), as well as bezier mass sketches based on cross-hatching, and complete cartoon-style vector renditions of color imagery. This tip will provide…
Studio Artist has 5 different Bezier Path Memories. Four of them are global memories and one is internal to the paint synthesizer. The bezier path memories can be used to record, store, and playback sets of bezier paths. You can use the path memories as working storage when editing a bezier sketch or animation. You…
You can certainly build a finished painting in Studio Artist using a single paint or other effect preset. However, the real power of Studio Artist is the synergistic ability to combine together different paint presets and other visual components that work together to build up a particular artistic style. Today’s post will take a look…
Studio Artist provides many different ways to generate or process movie files. Sometimes it might be desirable to hand paint or otherwise modify individual frames in a pre-existing movie file. This tip discusses how to use movie layers to do some hand paint touchup to an existing paint animation movie previously generated in Studio Artist…
Sequential Keyframe Recording is a feature available when working with Paint Action Sequences (PASeq) to generate hand painted animations or movies. Sequential Keyframe Recording can be used to help automate some of the repetitive and tedious issues associated with building up interpolated keyframe animation from a series of hand drawn sketches or paintings. This tip…
Today we’ll take a quick look at the Watershed Regionize image operation effect. It’s useful for generating a wide variety of flat color cartoon styling effects.
Today we’ll take a look at how to create some simple geometric op art imagery using MSG processors.
This tip will discuss how to create a morph animation from a series of still images. Older versions of Studio Artist used the old Timeline Animation op mode functionality to generate morphs. Morphs are now created single Morph Context in a Paint Action Sequence. How to generate a morph To start off, open the Paint…
This tip discusses how to automate the generation of encapsulated bezier paint animation. This is done by constructing a PASeq that generates the desired bezier paths. This PASeq is then automatically run multiple times for a series of recored source context keyframes to generate a bezier context. The bezier context is then automatically converted into…
This tip discusses how to create a keyframed paint animation from a series of freely sketched pencil sketches. Each sketch can have an arbitrary number of pencil strokes. Each sketch is encapsulated into a single paint action step recorded in a Paint Action Sequence (PASeq). The final animation is generated by animating the keyframed single…
This tutorial tip will discuss how to select an area of the canvas in Selection Mode. Once you have selected an area of the canvas you can then use your selection or it’s inversion as a mask. There are a number of different ways you can select portions of the canvas. Selection is performed while…
Directed evolution is a powerful technique that can be used to create an infinite variety of new abstract procedural art images or image and video processing effects. The Evolution Editor palette shown above is where you can perform directed evolution of MSG presets. Each of the 16 small images in the Evolution Editor is a…
There are several Sketch image operations (ip ops) in Studio Artis. These sketch ops are sophisticated processing effects that can be used separately or together to build a wide range of different black and white sketch effects. The Sketch ip ops can either be used to directly create raster or vector sketch effects or to generate bezier paths that…
3 Videos Addressing A User’s Request to Make Hi-Res Silhouettes from low-res Dog Images
This post will discuss the various features associated with layers. Layers Overview Each layer consists of a RGB image, an alpha channel, and a Bezier path frame. The RGB image is a raster frame buffer that you paint into. The associated alpha channel can act as an integral mask. The Bezier path frame stores Bezier…
The example above shows the output of a MSG preset that consists of 3 different MSG chaotic attractor processors composited together into a single colorized image. This post will discuss different coloring strategies you can use to build colorized MSG chaotic attractor presets.
The classic paint synthesizer was originally designed to draw with raster paint applied to vector paths. Some limited options for anti-aliased vector drawing that bypasses the traditional raster paint engine have been added to the v4 classic paint synthesizer. This post will explain the various vector and raster-vector hybrid drawing options in more depth.
Today’s post will rework the truchet patterning idea discussed in yesterday’s post. We’ll use MSG processors that generate color patterning based off of color palette streams, as opposed to generating a grayscale patterning grid that is then colorized. The truchet patterns are still being modulated by a source image, but since the global colors in…
Studio Artist has the ability to generate SVG vector output for any vectorized preset. Not only can all Vectorizer presets can be output as .svg but also a lot of Paint Synthesizer presets are vector as well as Image Operations presets especially a lot of the sketch effects. SVG is generally suggested over EPS for…
Studio Artist user Victor Ingrassia recently completed a music video called “China, My China” for the group “The Diving Bell”. “The Diving Bell” is out of Seattle, and the song and associated video were released on FIN Records.
The images above are some simple examples of abstract vector shapes that can be generated by MSG processor that overlays colored shapes based on a user definable color palette. We’ll take a look at this simple MSG processor and how to use it in this post.
The post talks about a Generator feature called Edge Scan. This post will take a quick look at how this paint synthesizer path start generator works.
We’ve been talking about different approaches to building symmetry in our recent posts. I wanted to conclude the discussions by taking a look at a piece I recently put together. We’ll take an overview look at how the above image was constructed in this post.
We’ve discussed building symmetry effects in the last 2 posts using a simple MSG preset. This post shows off a different approach to building symmetry effects using interactive Translate warps.
Today’s post continues the discussion I started yesterday about a moving symmetry effect based on temporal processing of a dancers motion. Yesterday’s post detailed the specifics of how I built a simple MSG preset to create the symmetry effect. Today’s post will take a look at the rest of the processing used to create the…
The image above is a frame capture from an animation i’m currently working on for scoring some music provided by Voice of Eye and Thomas Dimuzio. Today’s post will focus on some approaches you can use to generate the symmetry effect seen in the animation frame.
We’ll finish up our recent discussions of kaleidoscopic effects you can create in Studio Artist today by showing how to use a temporal generator to create a self-animating kaleidoscopic animation. The particular approach we will take in this example also creates a self-looping animation sequence. The image above is a single frame capture from the…
We’ve recently been discussing different approaches to building kaleidoscopic effects in Studio Artist. Two days ago we discussed symmetry vs breaking symmetry, and how breaking symmetry can lead to more organic looking effects that still maintain some of the perceptual trigger aspects introduced by symmetry in visual imagery. Today’s post will continue this discussion by…
Studio Artist provides a wide range of different and unique kaleidoscopic effects that extend beyond the limited range of typical kaleidoscopic effects seen in other digital effects programs. The image above shows off an inverse kaleidoscopic effect (something unique to Studio Artist). This post will take a look at some of the other kaleidoscopic effects…
The screen shot below shows 2 different approaches you can take to build kaleidoscopic effects in Studio Artist 4. The Interactive Warp operation mode provides a large number of different Kaleidoscopic effects that can be interactively manipulated in real time. The MSG operation mode also provides a vast range of different kaleidoscopic preset effects as…
Today’s post will take a detailed look at a MSG based animation created by one of our staff. Keep in mind that she was able to create this finished animation a few hours after being shown how to add temporal generators to MSG processor editable parameters to create self animating effects. I think this is…
The image below was generated from a very simple MSG preset. We’ll take a look at how it was constructed in this post. Tomorrow’s post will use multiple instances of this simple effect to build a very visually interesting abstract animation.
The image below shows off the behavior of a tilt-sensitive paint preset. I used a Wacom tablet and pen to paint a few air brush paint strokes. Note that depending on how I hold the pen in relation to the tablet surface, I can generate a circular air brush spray pattern, or use pen tilt…
The image below is a frame capture from a simple animation generated by running a single paint synthesizer water wash preset in loop action while streaming the output into an open movie stream. We will be using the wet preset as a part of a more complicated generative paint animation in tomorrow’s post. But today…
Studio Artist uses a special folder called the Brush folder as a container for storing individual image or movie files used in Studio Artist paint presets. This tip will discuss how to work with the Brush folder.
The following above is a snapshot of a recent work in progress. While working on this piece, I ran into a common problem. I wanted to be able to clone paint some imagery from a hidden layer into the current active layer, using a pressure sensitive clone paint tool. This post will describe how you…
Choose a preset then toggle to Paint Fill Apply – Adjust the Blend % Blend Modulators The Blend Mod parameter lets you apply a modulator to the Blend % setting. The modulator will modulate the blend of the application of paint onto the canvas from 0 to the specified Blend % setting. A common…
In this tutorial we’ll be exploring the use of Studio Artist Temporal Image Operations for processing movie files. Temporal or time based image operations are effects that use multiple frames in a source movie to build each effected output frame. The example above is a single output frame that was generated using a temporal rank…
Since we’ve been on a thread with recent posts discussing exotic halftone processing using space filling curves as halftone screens, I thought it would be instructional to put together a much simpler traditional line screen color halftone effect. This post will show you how to build this simple MSG effect, and might provide some additional…
The main canvas is located in the center of the main workspace window. Control palettes can be flexibly docked at the borders of the main workspace. You have a lot of flexibility to custom organize the workspace based on your personal preferences. To reconfigure your workspace just mouse down on the title bar of the…