Studio Artist 5 and presets from previous versions

Replies

Synthetik February 1, 2017 at 8:34am

You can run V4 presets in Studio Artist 5.
- Ted Dinkel > Synthetik February 1, 2017 at 8:46am
  
  I too am moving from v4 to v5. I imported a couple of presets (v4 'factory') to v5 and they do not give the same results as in v4. Colors are different and line weights not the same. I've run the preset on the same photo at the same resolution in both versions.
  
  Thanks
  
  Ted
  - Synthetik > Ted Dinkel February 1, 2017 at 9:05am
    
    You should start a tech support ticket and attach a folder of presets you think are working differently in V5 as opposed to what you see in V4. We can then take a look at them, and comment appropriately.
    - Ted Dinkel > Synthetik February 1, 2017 at 9:06am
      
      Thanks, I should have thought of that. You didn't have much to go on in my initial note.
      
      Ted
    - Synthetik > Synthetik February 1, 2017 at 9:27am
      
      In most cases, older presets should work the same in V5.
      
      If you have really old presets from versions 1,2,3, you might need to open them in 3.5 first and then save them. But to be honest, i use really old ones all the time from the original SA 1 release that work fine in V5.
      
      Sometimes different behavior could be a function of us fixing a bug. So the old behavior was actually a mistake. In those situations, there is usually a way to reprogram it to get it to work the way you want.
      
      Some old user presets may have had a setting like internal selection nib masking turned on in Paint Fill Apply. So then their behavior would be dependent on the contents of the selection buffer.
      
      Some vector paint settings work differently now for manual drawing than they did in V4. Again, we made those changes because we felt the old behavior was actually incorrect in the context of how the paint synthesizer should have been drawing those presets.
      
      V5 has a new get info dialog that tries to provide an information overview about settings in the paint synthesizer. So that you can quickly get a sense of what is turned on without having to run through all of the control panels to figure it out. You access this via content menus when control clicking in the paint synth editor or preset browser, or by using the Edit : Preset : Get Info menu.
    - Synthetik > Synthetik February 1, 2017 at 5:18pm
      
      Ted passed on a V4 preset to us that draws a little bit differently in V5. It's using the AntiAliased Solid Brush Type with the Vector Type set to Line.
      
      The Size Scale is supposed to be a percent adjustment based off of the current Source Brush size (specified in the Brush Source control panel). However, in V4 this was not being computed correctly. The Size Scale is affecting just the vector component of this hybrid vector-raster paint preset.
      
      If you change the Dual Fill control to None you will just see the vector part draw. A Mix Apply setting for Dual Fill mens that the vector paint generated from the AntiAlias Solid brush type is also being mixed with the raster paint generated from the current Brush Source which is actually an image brush for this particular paint preset.
      
      Because the vector paint scaling was being done incorrectly in V4, the vector part of this paint effect was generating very thin lines. In V5, the 41 % Size Scale generates a much thicker vector paint, because it's now correctly based on the % size adjustment of the current Brush Source (which is 48x32 pixels for this particular preset). If you reduce the Size Scale to be a smaller value, you can dial in the vector paint thickness to match what you were getting in V4.
      
      I attached the V4 preset below.
      
      _Mod (Space bar to stop drawing)
      - Ted Dinkel > Synthetik February 2, 2017 at 5:37am
        
        Thanks for the speedy reply on my support ticket and your explanation here. Changing the size scale to a much lower number works to replicate the v4 results (from 41 to 4-6). I had also noticed the v5 colors were darker and muddier than the v4 paint colors. Emboldened by this experience I found that adjusting the Offset in the Paint Color Source control panel changes the lightness or darkness of the painted color. Positive numbers lighten the paint and negative numbers darken them.
        
        Well done, thanks.
        
        Ted
        
        Synthetik > Ted Dinkel February 2, 2017 at 10:44am
        
        You mentioned the Offset control in the Paint Color Source control panel.
        
        That does let you add a positive or negative offset to the color. The specific color offset is a function of the color space you have setup in the Start Option popup in this control panel.
        
        It's set to Clip Lum (luminance), so the offset will make the color lighter or darker by adding an offset to the luminance. But if you had set Start Option to something different (like Cycle Hue), then the offset adjustment would affect the hue of the color.
        
        The color space specified in the Start Option is also what is being used for the Randomize control in this control panel.
        
        The set of different color space options available in that Start Option control are used throughout the paint synthesizer. The give you control over how colors are being randomized in different control panels. Clip means the color is clipped at the range extent of whatever is being adjusted. Wrap means if the value is greater than the extent, it wraps back into range. Cycle means that the value out of range is modulo mapped, so something that extends above max range will appear increasing at the lower range. Like most controls in studio artist, playing with the different variations may give you a better feel for how they work if you aren't technically oriented in your thinking.
    - Bernard Bunner > Synthetik February 2, 2017 at 10:59am
      
      Hi John, I also discovered the new V5 presets pack. Very interesting ! I didn't have the time these last days to play with, was not at home.
      
      Here is a "drip" preset that works with V4 and not with V5...
      
      Coulures.zip
      - Synthetik > Bernard Bunner February 2, 2017 at 11:26am
        
        There were some bugs in the Path Diverge code in V4. In V4, it was located in the Path End control panel. But it really belongs in Path Angle, so it was moved there in V5. We also fixed the problems with it, so it works properly in V5 now.
        
        So, goto the Path Angle control panel, and turn off Path Diverge (set it to None). Now i think you will get the behavior you want for that old preset in V5.