Almost Purchased; Try Demo and Almost Gave Up on SA; Now Balking at Purchase: Need Some Input

[Francis Stellitano]

To make a long story short, saw all the incredible images created and post to the gallery and I almost bought SA but thought what the heck, try the demo first. Now i am unsure. The concept and interface of SA is difficult. Of course, what one expects has impact to this. Although I am a techie, engineer, I am doing my best to not let my left-brain/logical side not dominate my attempt at art. Plus, and it sounds cliche', coming from Photoshop one tends to view all image software from that vantage or bias. Here are a list of questions/issues/misunderstandings: 1) I could not find brush configuration. I did sorta-kinda but cannot get back to it. I have arbitrarily tried some things but it is certainly unpredictable for me at this stage. 2) If only one Undo is allowed, is there a history, operations list, or other way to backup without starting over? 3) Ability to paint or operated on selected parts of an image? 3.1) At least a way to control working on specific parts of an image without spill? 4) Why is there a focus on animation or movies or automation? At this time my interest is in only static images or pictures for print; is there another purpose for the automatic painting that I am confusing with animation? 5) Unpredictable color flows out of the brush when I either change directions or start-stop again when an image is open but on white screen. I expected some variation of the sub-image or the image under the white screen/layer? 6) Terminology has me at a disadvantage. I am sure it is logical or makes sense but at this time, I am just guessing. Will this all make sense one day? The real crux of the matter #7, 8, 9. 7) I am looking for a program that allows me to feel that my creation was done based on skill and creativity. Think of this like a work ethic; something that you did based on experience, skill, and hard work. The opposite concept is taking a photo and pushing a few sliders and voila, instant art. I realize art happens by accident and serendipity sometimes but what I see in the galleries are not accidents. Does this program allow one to predict? I love the challenge of learning, almost too much, which is why I am asking all these questions. I want to do more than just make a photo look like a painting. 8) Based on my previous tryout and this mornings Demo experience, it appears that this program is a work in progress, invented by a genius with intense mathematical and programing skills, and an interface that is either crude at this time or I am not an experienced digital artist and therefore does not understand. I have read many of the forum threads and apparently you folks understand SA and its personality. I see a program that is awesome in its cool-factor but man-o-man, I cannot get my head around it. 9) I watched each video on Demo/Tut page and for a someone just starting out did, not find them much help. Probably should review them again now that I have spent several sessions with the Demo. Remember, the Demo allows 40 minutes per session and no saving, which I understand why. I will stop typing now because if this gets any longer, I would not read either. I appreciate any comments and if something is not clear please let me know. Thank you, Frank

[liveart]

Hi Frank.

There is no denying a steep learning curve in SA for what you want to do. Which is as I read your query, to paint with a bit of control (as opposed to the simple paint over of a reference image which is very simple nearly 0 learning curve).

I would note that version 4 is due out very soon this version has a different interface and multiple undos and thus will change some of the answers to your questions.

but quickly

1) brush configuration is different from what you are thinking coming from photoshop or painter. Because in SA we talk about paint presets which include information that instructs the brush how to auto paint. But if you want to quickly find the "nib" or brush as you might think about it do the following: In the operations panel scroll the first drop down menu from presets to paint synthesizer//advance the drop down menu across from the parameters label to Brush source.

there you will find what you might think of as the tip of the brush, and what is in SA just the tip of the iceberg.

In general you have also found the area for brush development or configuration: which is the paint synthesizer panel I directed you to at the beginning.

2) yes. and no. In SA there are always multiple ways to do something. Recording one's actions as you are asking would be done in the history sequence panel. One can also record in the Paint Action sequence panel and in fact one can drag sequences back and forth between these two. Look under the ACTION menu and you will see the commands to open the Paint Action Sequence and the History Sequence windows. That said the history sequence is not like Photoshop where you can back up one step. Rather it allows you to replay all your actions. so if you wanted to back up 1 step you would hit the undo button, but if you wanted to back up 2 steps // provided you had recorded your session the answer would be to mute the last 2 steps in your history and replay the actions. Again v4 has multiple undos.

3)yes again many different ways to paint a selected part. Essentially this involves masking, which can be as easy as selecting an area and setting mask to the selection. The more esoteric versions are too involved to describe here.

4) the animated part of SA has particular relevance to static images when it comes to making mosaics and other second order effects. The program is also a powerful rotoscoper and can be used to make animations, but it is not necessary for this to be your focus to enjoy the program. The auto paint aspect is not particularly related to animation.
Once you become familiar with the program the auto paint feels more like a collaborator in your artistic exploration that a machine making pretty pictures. Given your left brain focus I suspect that you will dig deep in to the paint synthesizer an discover that one can create a pretty specific instruction set for how you want the paint to be applied.

5) Some presets are sensitive to pressure/ velocity/ angle. Without knowing more it is difficult to help explain what you were experiencing. I am also not clear if you were working from the reference image or not. In SA only a few of the brushes (paint presets) are set up to clone the underlying image (though all can be set this way). One can also "turn off" the source and just paint freehand if one so desires.

6)terminology.. yes especially with your photoshop background. Unfortunately you will have to learn the lingo.. SA is doing things in a different way. It takes a bit of different language to describe it all.

7) SA will allow you as much control as you want.. or as little. THAT is up to you. To control the program you will have to learn more than the basics, but the whole point of SA it to give the artist free control over the image creation process.

8) I agree that John Dalton is a Genius, he also is very helpful and involved here in the forum. The interface is not the strongest part of the program v4 changes things around and is a good step forward. The best thing about John's involvement here is that he is VERY willing to listen to requests. If you eventually have a suggestion for improvement of the interface or functioning of the program, the odds are good that it will be implemented.

9)there are more vids that come with the package. I found that the best way was to watch the vids.. play in the program for a few hours (not necessarily all at once) then go back to the vids.




you are welcome to ask more..

[Synthetik]

There's a 'training movies for demo' link on the left side of the main www.synthetik.com website. if you click on that link there are a number of different short tutorial video experts you can watch that are a great help to getting started with the demo. We ship a rather extensive set of video tutorials with the full 3.5 release that are a great aid to getting started using studio artist. The feedback we get from customers is that watching the video tutorials is the best way to learn how to use the program.

There's also a link on the training movies for demo page that lets you download the 'studio artist pdf tutorial intro guide'. This guide is designed to help beginners like yourself get started using Studio Artist. It includes an explanation of the Studio Artist interface from the perspective of an absolute beginner and simple tutorial examples you can run through to help learn your way around the program.

Studio Artist 3.5 does have only one level of undo. There is something called a session history, so you can turn on history recording and record what you are doing. You could then play back a session history to reproduce something you created. This is not the same as having multiple levels of undo, since you have to playback the history from the beginning, but it is a pretty useful feature. We're working on finishing up version 4, and v4 does have multiple levels of undo. So that feature will be available in the future.

Studio Artist is based around different modal operation modes. There are operations modes for painting, for running image processing effects, for drawing or editing bezier curves, for region selection, etc. You can always use the main Operation menu to switch to any of Studio Artist's operation modes and their associated control panels. You can also use the popup menus in the left side control area to navigate the different operation modes and specific control panels.

You can paint on selected parts of the image. You use the region selection operation mode and select the area you want. You could use a lasso selection for example. Then, if you switch back to a paint synthesizer preset, you could use the mask popup above the canvas to turn on masking, and the canvas will be masked by your current selection if it's turned on. You can choose to hard mask or you can choose a path mask which allows for the nib of paint to spill over the mask (this looks more natural than a hard mask).

I don't feel that there is a primary focus on animation or movies. So i think you are mistaken in this perception you have. Studio Artist is unique among graphics programs in that it is designed for 2D painters as well as animators or video people. So you can totally focus on 2D painting and image manipulation if you wish. Or you can totally focus on animation and movie processing if you wish. The choice of how you use the program is up to you.

There are a million uses for automatic painting that have nothing to do with animation and everything to do with creating a 2D image. If you are a trained artist who loves to draw manually, great, you can do that. Studio Artist will provide you with a large range of unique expressive organic paint tools. Some of these paint tools may actually be using automatic painting internally to create the particular effect you are hand painting with. Automatic painting can also be great to generate hatching or shading patterns at high speed in a paint tool designed for hand drawing. You can also build up a painting by using a series of totally automatic paint steps. So even if you are a great manual painter, you might choose to use automatic paint tools because of the unique looks and styles that can be created using them. Just because you generate a finished painting using a series of automatic painting steps doesn't make it less artistic or flawed in some way.

I've posted a number of short tutorials on Studio Artist News in the past that discuss using the animation timeline as a way to build up an automatic paint or artistic process that works over time to build a single static artistic image. These examples are showing off how having access to what would traditionally be considered animation tools can be extremely useful for artists who are creating 2D artwork.

The color generated by any particular paint preset is a function of how it is programmed. Some paint presets will drag color, others clone colors with spatial tightness. You can control the amount of color randomness in any paint preset, so there could be no randomization or quite a bit depending on what you are trying to achieve. Some paint presets are designed to automatically generate impressionistic coloring effects, so they my be generating multiple analogous or opponent colors off of a static source color. So yes, some paint presets will generate wild colorings off of a given source image or fixed source color. This is a feature for styles of painting or art where those wild or varying colorings would be useful. You can either choose to ignore those particular presets, or you can edit them to change the way they generate or process color if you don't like it.

'I am looking for a program that allows me to feel that my creation was done based on skill and creativity'. To be honest, i don't think that statement has anything to do with whatever particular program you are using but is tied to how you as an individual are using the program.

You could say the same thing about a charcoal pencil and paper, how you use the charcoal pencil is up to you, you can choose to use it with skill or not. Maybe the skill has nothing to do with how you use it, but has to do with analyzing the results and keeping the good ones and throwing away the bad ones. This is more of an Eno approach to art, where you setup generative situations and then cull through the results, so the skill in this artistic scenario is about creating a good generative situation that can lead to interesting outcomes and selecting the most aesthetic outcomes. The point is that there are a lot of different successful approaches to using artistic tools.

So sure, you can use Studio Artist based on skill and creativity. That's how i would hope you would use it. And you have a huge range of possibilities to work with. You could use Studio Artist for years and still discover new things it is capable of doing or generating. The program is very deep on that level. The whole point of the Studio Artist approach is to provide an artist with the means to create very personal artwork. If there are a variety of ways of doing something that all look different, then they are provided as options for a particular paint synth or effect editable parameter. This is very unlike other digital art or graphics tools, where a marketing committee will narrow that range of choices down into 3 generic effects that are then overused and are totally the opposite of personal expression.

Studio Artist takes a lot of ideas that are very common in music synthesis software or hardware and bring them to computer graphics. The notion of an editable synthesizer. Patches or presets that store an editable effect or paint preset. Interactive modulation and signal flow. It's interesting because musicians who pick up Studio Artist grok the concepts behind the program very quickly, while more traditional graphic artists sometimes have a harder time getting initially started because some of the work metaphors are different then they are used to.

For example, the source image is not modified in Studio Artist, but is used as a visual reference, like an artist would work with a model when making a painting. But if you are used to a photo manipulation program like photoshop, then this can confuse you at first, since the source image you opened and your working canvas are 2 different things. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea, it just means it's a different way of working.

'Work in progress'. Every program is a work in progress. Or if it's not, then i think you need to consider your investment in it since it's a dead program if it's not a work in progress. Studio Artist has been available for 10 years at this point, and each version has seen significant refinements of the program's features as well as workflow and usability enhancements. This is all based on customer feedback. Synthetik Software goes to great lengths to listen to customer feedback, and is very responsive to making changes or adding features based on customer's suggestions and workflow requirements.

[Synthetik]

What kind of specific getting started documentation would make getting started easier for a beginning user such as yourself?

[Francis Stellitano]

Thank you for the responses. I have not read the first one since I saw that John had posted; I definitely will read the second one next.

John, I sent you an email on 5/8 where I explain a little more of my background. The email address used was General Product Info or something like that. In that and this post please note my intent to also be complimentary. Not only for the many rewards but also based on my own observation and knowledge of technology.

For the others to understand, I wrote John that as a Mechanical Engineer my brain is so left hemisphere or logical that I am surprised I do not list to the left when walking. Yes, more left-brained than the average engineer. This is another topic which I have written about in other threads but realize life is not that simple and have made much progress in the last 6 years since I left the work force. I am 53 years old and have struggled with producing art all my life. Not to say I am not creative for my creativity in problem solving skills was one of my reputable aspects while working.

Back to the issue at hand.

First a little clarification

Work in progress: not meant pejoratively. I tried to balance that in the context of stating a couple of times that I may not understand either terminology, the artistic process, or have not given it sufficient time and should review the tut/videos again.

'I am looking for a program that allows me to feel that my creation was done based on skill and creativity'. Uh oh, this is getting into what is art, everything is art, and lowbrow or no-brow applies.

Your response is excellent. "Maybe the skill has nothing to do with how you use it, but has to do with analyzing the results and keeping the good ones and throwing away the bad ones. This is more of an Eno approach to art, where you setup generative situations and then cull through the results, so the skill in this artistic scenario is about creating a good generative situation that can lead to interesting outcomes and selecting the most aesthetic outcomes. The point is that there are a lot of different successful approaches to using artistic tools."

This most likely goes back to my mind-set and hang-up in producing art. I have always loved art and is the reason why I am making a 180 degree turn in direction. So I will take your words as a reminder to keep my eyes and mind open.

Back to the questions. I will have to read again and complete reading the posts above. It is Mother's Day and duty calls just now.

Again, thank you. John a quick answer to your question in part is my habitual PS use. For example, brushes. I still am unsure about brush shape and dynamics and how to modify them, but naturally, I have a brush concept based on PS


Time to run but I will be back,

Frank

[Synthetik]

I don't see an email from you on my computer, which means it either got mixed in with the 1000 plus spam messages i get a day and missed for some reason, or you used an email address that goes to someone else at Synthetik. So sorry if i missed that or someone else has not gotten back to you if they received it.

I think people that expect Studio Artist to work like PhotoShop can run into some conceptual problems, since they are 2 different programs with different approaches and design metaphors.

For example, Studio Artist uses a source and canvas metaphor. The source acts like a reference model for painting and is not touched, its just used as a visual reference for the manipulation taking place in the canvas. In Photoshop you open an image and directly manipulate it.

PhotoShop also works with alpha channels very differently than Studio Artist. The range of layer compositing options are different in the 2 programs, as is the terminology associated with them.

Studio Artist paint presets are light years ahead of brushes in Photoshop. Both in terms of the large number of editable parameters available for them, and the extensive range of automatic or interactive paint capabilities associated with them. Fully understanding how to edit all the controls in the paint synthesizer (over 450 of them) takes some time and effort. That's part of the reason why we provide so many pre-built presets, so that people who don't want to get under the hood into detailed paint synth editing can just grab ones they like and use them or perform minimal editing on them.

Photoshop or other programs like it don't really do anything for you. You need to make everything happen within the program. Especially when you are talking about painting. Studio Artist can do things for you. Whether it's auto-painting or evolving MSG procedural art or generating creative surprises or whatever. Which if you are not used to this can be surprising or perhaps even potentially frustrating. But ultimately i think it's the big reason why Studio Artist is such a great art program. Every time i use other programs and then come back to Studio Artist this gets reinforced in my mind. Creating art in other programs for me is very tedious and time consuming and often not any fun, and i'm required to do all the work. But in Studio Artist i can very quickly create interesting artistic imagery, and can also be creatively stimulated or pushed down paths i may not have initially even anticipated. Sometimes that may require following where the program takes you rather than trying to fight that.

We also try to make a point of not making artistic decisions for people. So there may be a lot of paint or effect presets that do not resonate with you personally, but perhaps do resonate with someone else. You can change the organization of the presets to match your personal work style or aesthetics. I think it's a good thing for people to do, to take some time and run through the different presets, see which ones you like and don't like, make custom preset categories and copy the ones you do like to those custom categories.

[Jean Detheux]

"4) Why is there a focus on animation or movies or automation?"
Thank "god" (or John Dalton) for that!
Studio Artist is great with still images (and if you buy the program, you'll receive the tutorial CDs which will go a looong way towards answering your "how to" questions), but it is unmatched when working "in time" is concerned.
There's nothing even remotely close to it out there, at any price.
I've been a painter for well over 40 years (that's basically all I have ever done), yet I am absolutely convinced that the "future" of painting is not in "more of the same," but is to be found "in time."
In fact, as far as I am concerned, the "present" of "my" painting is "in time."
Thanks to Studio Artist.
So many artists, not "just" visual artists, have worked very hard to develop strategies precisely to reach beyond the confines of "left-brain thinking."
Studio Artist is a privileged tool/environment with which, in which, those strategies are/can be multiplied.
John Cage would have loved it.
The last thing we need is yet another "Photoshop-like" application!" We desperately need to get out from under all that plumbing.
The "Fine Art" world is choking from all that conceptual force-feeding, the digital world is caught in plumbing that parades as "art," yet Studio Artist provides many avenues by which we could escape both pitfalls.
There's nothing in the Studio Artist I know that would prevent anybody from doing still images, nothing, and it also offers so much to help one explore the time dimension. Any new feature John could add that would cater to the still image needs would likely find its way into working in time, just as many of the timeline functions can be applied to still images as still images.
One thing that Studio Artist can bring to both still images and "time art" making is that element of "indeterminacy" so very needed today, along the lines of that Picasso saying I have been quoting here many times: "What saved me is that I became more interested in what I found than in what I was looking for."

[Francis Stellitano]

Picasso is my favorite artist though not much as a human. And to paraphrase a Tao concept, "the true Tao cannot be told." I have found and truly believe that the naive mind is the most receptive mind and have worked hard in my life to keep a child-like naivety for learning. The best things in my life were never on a list.

I appreciate all that responded and I hope all understood my respect for my lack of knowledge in SA and arts-manship, the respect for the unknown and potential of SA, and if I were satisfied with Photoshop, I would not be here.

Not being infinitely wealthy and having spent enough in cameras and lenses, the cost of SA drives my analysis before spending. Of all the programs out there purporting to be artistic, this is the only one to catch my attention. Not judging its price in any way but in my universe, it is still money.

I also forgot and through this process have become aware of just how much time and effort I have put into PS. Therefore, I should not expect a shorter learning curve for SA. I cannot under estimate how much I struggle with creating or in other words, translating into tangible results the world in my head.

Thanks much again. O yes, thank you liveart for your input too. Those were answers I had hoped for.

[Donna Kuhn]

i sometimes wonder if i even have a left side of the brain so if you are an engineer you will probably learn how to use sa a lot quicker than i did. if you compare what sa can do to a lot of other very expensive software it is a bargain. it is a treasure.

[noach]

BRAVO to one and all in this thread.

... even if I am saving myself (as the actress said to the bishop visual musician ;-)) for SA 4

... this site and JD's evolving software is where it's at for visual music.

best

[Victor Ingrassia]

An overall comment here (not meant to diminish the importance of your concerns/questions because I had the same ones when I began using SA):

It's an amazing app which will re-form and reform parts of your brain (not so much left lobe or right lobe... more like you grow a new lobe), it is fun and confounding and, for what it can do, its price is beyond a bargain. It'd say, get it for your toolbox, and think of it as a tool that does things you never would have thought to do.

Victor