Erik Natzke, Generative Artist

Replies

Synthetik November 22, 2013 at 5:57pm

You can use the Live Extension option for Path Shape to emulate Erik's work with generative painting.

Here's an effects blog post on live extension.

We used to ship a specific category of live extend example paint presets, but i believe that got dropped with the 4.05 changes to the factory presets. I can dig those up and post them to the preset sharing group.

As to the unpredictability of watercolor. The whole point of many of the features in the paint synthesizer is to generate different kinds of controllable unpredictable behavior. I'm happy to get into that in more detail, but just listing every way to do this in Studio Artist would be a several hundred page document. So it would help to delineate what specific kinds of unpredictability you are interested in.

And there are all kinds of different watercolor paint presets we have shipped with Studio Artist over the years. Here's a link to some of Craig Deeley's natural media paint presets for manual painting. Also, check out his Sumi Ink presets, which probably have some of the behavior you are looking for. And CD_Hand_drawn_media category is in the factory Manual paint collection, and includes a lot of different watercolor paint presets.

What specific watercolor paint attributes are you looking to work with? If you can be specific, we can try and point out different ways to use the paint synthesizer to generate what you are interested in. Since you're referencing a video that includes a lot of real world watercolor behavior, feel free to point to specific times in the video if that helps. Or links to specific paintings.

I'm happy to put some paint presets together targeting at specific watercolor or wet features you are interested in. So again, what specifically are you looking for?

Here's an alternative approach to building wet paint you might find interesting.

I'm kind of assuming you are interested in manual paint presets in my responses above. If you are also looking for auto-paint preset to emulate watercolor styles speak up.
- Michael OBannon > Synthetik November 23, 2013 at 2:18pm
  
  John,
  
  I'm interested in auto-paint presets for watercolor styles -- particularly those that might work well over multiple frames of video.
  - liveart > Michael OBannon November 26, 2013 at 8:22pm
    
    There are so many ways to create a watercolor look in SA. This for example is a few runs of the vectorizer then a sketching brush then a geodesic warp ImOp.
    
    Another way is to paint one stroke then go over it with a diffusing or melting brush.
    
    The Geodesic brushes are great in their own right but slow. The Geo ImOps are definitely worth becoming familiar with. I posted a few WC like PASeqs in the preset sharing room a few years back.
    
    Below are a few Liquid brushes. But again it is very limiting to think in terms of "brush strokes" when working with SA. To do so is to ignore 3/4 of the tool set.
    
    Liquid brush folder.zip
    - liveart > liveart November 26, 2013 at 8:33pm
      
      Note that a few of the liquid brushes (liquidbrush4 for example) were designed to work best as cmd-k draw on path brushes. If you want to hand paint switch the pen mode to freestyle. If you have not yet explored painting on paths... now would be a good time. :-)
      - liveart > liveart November 26, 2013 at 8:47pm
        
        A quick vid of a Dual mode preset that draws then melts using the Geo Warp ImOp
        
        meltvid.mov
- Alex Wencelblat > Synthetik November 23, 2013 at 3:07pm
  
  Thank you for your answer.
  
  "You can use the Live Extension option for Path Shape to emulate Erik's work with generative painting.
  
  Here's an effects blog post on live extension.
  
  We used to ship a specific category of live extend example paint presets, but i believe that got dropped with the 4.05 changes to the factory presets. I can dig those up and post them to the preset sharing group."
  
  I've got the idea looking at your examples.Definitively I am interested in having the presets.
  
  Regarding the watercolor unpredictability , I watched Natzke making trials (video at 4:00 to 5:00) and I thought that SA could have something similar. without going any further.
- Synthetik > Synthetik November 26, 2013 at 3:23pm
  
  If you take a look at how the Sumi Ink presets i mentioned above are programmed, they use an interesting approach to building a wet edged paint stroke that could be used to emulate the unpredictable wet spread behavior of the watercolor paint strokes show in the video.
  
  They use Repeat Stroke Index modulation to build the wet spreading edge of the paint stroke. Repeat Stroke is an option in the Path Application control panel, and when it's set to something other than 1 after a paint strokes is drawn, it is repeated (N - 1)extra times (if Repeat Stroke is set to N).
  
  There are Repeat Stroke Index and Repeat Stroke Index Inv modulator options throughout the paint synthesizer. Inv is short for Inverse. By modulating Path Randomize control panel Displacement and Paint Fill Apply control panel Blend and Mix Apply with the appropriate Repeat Stroke Index modulator you can generate wet spreading edges to paint strokes.
  
  I'm in the process of putting together some new watercolor presets that use this programming strategy, so i'll post them in a few days when i'm finished. It's a way to add a watery edge to a watercolor paint, and you can make it as regular or unpredictable as you want depending on how you program it.
  - Alex Wencelblat > Synthetik November 27, 2013 at 6:21am
    
    Thank you John.
liveart November 26, 2013 at 8:25pm

Check out Craig Deeley's watercolor dual mode presets. I have also posted a few over time in the Preset Sharing group-- a place that anyone looking for preset Ideas should become familiar with. There are tons of resources in there.

I also want to point out that SA can create the look you want in many different ways. Having it flow from the brush stroke is just one way to do it. Creating a Paint Action Sequence with different steps that lead to the result is also possible.

(edited to correct the Spelling of Craigs's last name)
- craig deeley > liveart December 2, 2013 at 10:54am
  
  I am adding a zip set of playful auto presets that generate a very wet (watercolor) effect.
  
  These would be takeoffs on some of the natural media presets which are meant to be applied manually (hand painting) - but this set is meant to be used with the "action" button.
  
  They do have as a (partly undesirable) feature - less predictable/precise(deliberate) results... But might be a good starting point for future development.
  
  Some create very broad wet coverage - some tighter.
  
  Some repeat WAY too much... You will want to experiment with them to see how many repeats give a desired effect.
  
  CD_waterstrokes_auto.zip