MOVIE PIXEL INDEX BACKGROUND TEXTURE

[Yao Kuame]

Hi everyone,

I saw a post on movie pixel background texture used in making photo mosaics. Tried it but the results was really bad, i saw the movie frames combined (can't really see what frame in the movie is being used.

If you could help us on how to build movie brush that uses movie pixel index and its application for photo mosaic. An explanation on how to set up the paint synth will do since i'm new to this tool.

Searched the main synthetik website for some info but the tutorials/tip seems to focus on creating hatching patterns.

[Yao Kuame]

Hello, please can someone help me out. If it's not possible let me know.

[Synthetik]

There's a reason why the tutorials focus on hatching or halftone patterning. Because the pixel indexing of a set of hatch or halftone patterns allows for generation of partial dotting and increased detail rendition in the output.

For those of you unaware, normal movie background texture loads an image from the set of movie frames and then that frame stays loaded until the pen cursor moves out of range of the loaded frame time. then another one is loaded. Pixel indexing loads a new one for each pixel in the background texture.

So for stacked hatching patterns, it's going to lead to increased detail.

But if you are trying to generate a photo mosaic image, it's most likely going to lead to a very noisy output image. this is because the small image in the tile is going to be changing, potentially for each pixel or group of local pixels.

Part of the visual appeal of photo mosaic imagery is the wholeness of the individual image mosaic areas, so if they are filled with a noisy texture they aren't going to have the same visual appeal.

You could try pre-processing your source image prior to using it to get better results. So maybe vectorize it to a set of flat regions, or run some filtering like simplify or smooth ip op effects to get rid of texture noise.

There is a section in this tip that discusses movie pixel indexing for generat....

[Yao Kuame]

Movie Pixel Indexed background textures are a cool paint synthesizer feature i think a lot of people aren't aware of. I've tended to use them more for creating hatching patterns as opposed to photo mosaic work. But i've recently been playing around with this feature for photo mosaics and it's actually pretty powerful for that use as well.

Found this on a page and it seems to work with the person who tried

it. Please could you explain how to build a self tiling movie brush.

[Synthetik]

That person was me. Here are a few pixel indexing tagged posts from my blog.

So again, the trick to the image above is that large areas of the source image are fairly flat and lacking in textural detail. So those areas come out looking good (by good i mean that the tile blocks are essentially whole). SO you end up seeing the effect of the pixel indexing primarily in the edge areas.

So, if you use source images like the one i used, it will work out ok for you. If you use a very busy, or noisy, or highly textured source image, then the output is going to appear noisy because the pixel indexing to different tile blocks is going to be activated essentially all the time.

Do you understand what i'm saying about looking for appropriate source material to start out with? basically you want the pixel indexing of different mosaic blocks to really only happen at the edge portions of the image.

Again, you can help that process along by using appropriate pre-processing of your source before the pixel indexing photo mosaic step.

If you are having issues with the actual paint preset, attach what you are working with and i can take a look at it and make suggestions.

But if the problem is just that you are using really busy source images, or working with a super large database of images (which again is probably going to lead to way more pixel index different mosaic blocks triggering), try using a better source image for a test, or a smaller database.

[Yao Kuame]

Please thanks for the quick response. Please what about how to build self tiling movie brushes

[Synthetik]

Sure, here's a preset that generates a pixel indexed photo mosaic tiling using the pixel indexed background texture.

[Synthetik]

Looks like attachments still aren't working here, since the preset file didn't show up. I'll look into that.

[Yao Kuame]

Please you can send to me via [e-mail].

Thanks

[Yao Kuame]

Hi, thanks for the response but can't see the attached preset file.I only see the output file. The site you directed me to earlier on is really helpful. Thanks much.

[Yao Kuame]