Animate a lighting effect

Hi,

I want to create an animation to capture changes that I make using the Gradiant Multi Lighting tool, in Image Operations.

For instance, I want to be able to animate what happens when I change the Angle value from 0 to 360, in steps of 10 degrees.  Or animate changes to elevation when the value increases from 45 to 70, in steps of 5. Or animate changes combination of changes made to  multiple parameters.

Some of the images I make, often look startling different when I make slight modifications to multple tools,. Being able to animate changes, would give me a much faster way of figuring out what light settings look best for any particular project. Is this a simple thing to do? What is the best way for me to go about doing this?

Is there a tutorial on this sort of animation?

 

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  • What you are proposing is very easy to do.

    All of the parameter settings in Studio Artist as well as any interactive or automatic actions you perform can be recorded and then keyframe interpolated over time using the Paint Action Sequence Timeline.

    Lets take the example of animating the Angle of the Gradient Multi Lighting image operation (Ip Op) effect.

    Animating the Angle from 0 to 360 degrees in 10 degree steps is a 36 step animation.

    I start by recording the Ip Op effect as an action step in a Paint Action Sequence.

    To do that i turn on PASeq recorded by clicking the Rec checkbox at the top of the PASeq window, then i press the action button to run the current Ip Op effect (Gradient Multi Lighting in this example).

    10846298064?profile=RESIZE_930x

    Note that i set the Angle to 0 when i recorded this first action step in the PASeq.

    I then turn off the Rec checkbox in the PASeq editor.

    I now need to record a keyframe at frame 36 for that single Ip Op action step in the PASeq.

    So i change the Angle setting to 360, and then option click the keyframe cell at frame time 36 in the PASeq timeline.

    10846300701?profile=RESIZE_930x

    The new keyframe will show up as a red square in the timeline for that action step.

    If you just want to preview the animation in the canvas you can just press the Animate button at the top of the PASeq window.

    If you want to output the animation to a movie file you can run the menu command shown below.

    10846302052?profile=RESIZE_400x

    Note that i setup the Ip Source control of the Ip Op effect so that the source image was processed.

    I also set the Cleanup control to Denoise to smooth out the inherent noise int he effect a little bit.

    A fun experiment to learn more about recursive processing is to erase the canvas to the source image (don't record this step in the PASeq), and then run this animation experiment with Ip Source set to Current Layer rather than Source.

     

    Here is an Introduction to Paint Action Sequences tip that explains how PASeqs work (including working with the PASeq Timeline).

    Introduction to Paint Action Sequences - Studio Artist Tips
      Paint Action Sequences (PASeq) are the heart and soul of Studio Artist.  Studio Artist is built around using PASeq’s instead of layers.  Studio Art…
    • What seems to be happening is that the gradient Lighting is getting applied to the results of each previous frame.

      What I'm for is to apply each change of lighting angle applied to the original frame and not the previous  frame.

      Putting in an, "erase canvas to original image",  step, in the paseq didn't work.

      • It sounds like you are running my 'a fun experiment to learn more about recursive processing' experiment i mentioned at the end of the post.

        Take a look at the Ip Source setting for your Gradient Multi Lighting action step keyframes.

        They should both look like below for the Ip Source setting.

        10846948081?profile=RESIZE_400x

        My 'fun little experiment' suggestion was all about changing the Ip Source setting to Current Layer.

        If you do that, then what is in the canvas will get repeatably processed by the Multi Gradient Lighting Ip Op effect.

        So for your original request, where you want to keep processing the original source image for each frame, you want the Ip Source set to Source Image.

         

        It's a very simple editing change, but it totally changes what happens when you run the processing step over time.

        • Indeed it does!

          I animated changes to mutiple parameters. What a great way, to quickly see what lighting solution first best.

  • You had asked in an email about using animation to visualize paint synthesizer parameter changes.  And you can certainly do that.

    As i mentioned before, basically everything in Studio Artist is key-frame animatable over time in the Paint Action Sequence (PASeq) timeline.

    Here's a real simple example. I started with the default init paint synthesizer setting (shift click the Init button at the bottom of the Editor), but you could use any paint preset you wanted.

    To make it super simple and also get across that you literally can animate anything you do, lets start with a single manually drawn paint stroke.  I turned on recording in the Paint Action Sequence window before i did this, and then turned it off afterwards.

    10859246278?profile=RESIZE_930x

    So then i manually changed the source color to be something different, and i adjusted the brush size (Horz Size, Vert Size) in the Brush Source control panel in the paint synthesizer to be different. 

    I then option clicked the keyframe cell at frame time 20 for that single Interactive Pen action step i recored above in the PASeq.  Note that i didn't turn on PASeq recording for this second 'add a keyframe to an existing action step' operation.  I just edited the interface appropriately, and then option clicked the keyframe cell i wanted to record.  It turns red when the recording happens.

    10859256883?profile=RESIZE_930x

    I then erased the canvas to white, and pressed the Animate button at the top of the docked Paint Action Sequence window.  I have that configured for a 20 frame timeline, so when i press Animate the animation will run for 20 cycles.

    10859258065?profile=RESIZE_930x

    Note that multiple things are being interpolated across the course of this 20 frame animation.  The path of the manually drawn paint stroke is interpolating, the color of the paint stroke is interpolating, and the size of the brush is interpolating.  If you wanted to get crazy, you could be changing every parameter inside of the paint synthesizer across the course of the animation.

    Note that because i'm doing no erasing or other modification of the contents of the canvas, i overdraw on top of the previous output frame.

    If i record a second action step that erases the canvas to white, and drag that to the top of the PASeq action list, and then Animate, this is what i get.

    10859259875?profile=RESIZE_930x

    When you run this, you will see a single paint stroke move across the canvas, changing in color and size over the course of the movement.

    Paint Action Sequences are very explicit.  They do exactly what you ask them to do, and nothing more.  So you want to think through what you are trying to achieve.  Do you want to overdraw on the previous frame, or do you want the canvas to erase so you see just the movement of the individual paint strokes (one paint stroke in this simple example).

    You can get way more elaborate in terms of how you modify or treat the previous output frame currently int he canvas before doing new over-painting on top of this modified canvas.  This is the approach one takes to build up all kinds of different visual effects in paint animations.  A really simple example is shown below.

    10859261661?profile=RESIZE_930x

    I wanted the previously painted canvas to fade out over several frames as the animation progresses.

    i also wanted to explicitly setup the initial white canvas starting point for the animation.

    So i made a 3 step PASeq. 

    In the first action step, i erase to white.  I then added a mute keyframe (the black one at frame time 2 by option m clicking that keyframe cell.  This action step now erases the canvas to white for frame 1 only.

    In the second action step i used the Fixed Color IpOp effect with the fixed color set to white, and a 20% Mix.  This action step effectively does a 20% mix to white of the last frame before we paint in a new paint path in the 3rd action step.

    The 3rd action step is the one we used initially, that is keyframe interpolating a manually drawn paint stroke over 20 frames.

     

    You can use this keyframe animation approach to visualize paint synthesizer parameter adjustments over time using manually drawn paint strokes or automatic action painting.  I'll run through a simple example of action painting in a subsequent post to this thread.

    • Thanks!

      That was really helpful

      Animating simple brushes works really well, but when I started using some of the more complex brushes, things got a bit weird.

      When I used the Acrylic Vector Paint Abstract brush, from the Paint Synthesizer Classis menu, most of the brush strokes took a long time to draw. SA seemed to stop    the brush at random locations and jitter in place for 5 or 6 seconds before moving on

      Wet Splatter did the same thing.

      Most brushes I tried, dont have this issue, and work well when I animate them.

      I have to say, that using the animation method, is a great way to see what happens when one makes chganges to parameters. BUT, dont make too many changes, ( more than two). It becomes difficult to see what parameter was responsible for the brush stroke

      • One thing to be aware of is that if you are interpolating a parameter that is a popup control, then you will probably get very abrupt changes as the popup switches from one menu item to another one.

        It's also possible to end up in weird situations if you are interpolating parameters that constrain painting in some way.  Things based on visual error or specific conditions in the canvas or source image could lead to painting dropping out or stopping.

         

  • Let's continue exploring using animation to visualize paint synthesizer parameter changes.  The previous post discussed how to do this with manually drawn paint strokes.  This post will talk about auto-painting (pressing the Acton button).

    I started with the same default init raster tube paint i used before.  I did a quick edit in the Brush Modulation control panel to modulate the brush size based on the inverse path length.  I also decreased the overall brush size in the Brush Source control panel. I then went to the Path Start control panel and set Max Stroke to use 400 paint strokes for my auto-painting.

    I also set the Reset Generator parameter to On.  By doing this, the same sequence of pseudo-random numbers will be used for the Smooth Random path start generator for each frame.  This means the same number of paint strokes will be drawn from the exact same start positions for each frame.

    I turned on PASeq recorded, erased the canvas to white, and then presse Action to record my AutoPaint action step.  I then turned off PASeq recording.

    10859319667?profile=RESIZE_930x

    I wanted to key-frame interpolate the path angle offset for the autopainting from 0 to 180 degrees.  I went to the Path Angle control panel, and changed the Angle Offset to 180 degrees.  I then option clicked the keyframe cell at frame time 20 for my AutoPaint action Step in the PASeq Timeline.  Note that my recorded keyframe cell turned red. 

    Also note that i didn't run on PASeq recording when i did this.  This is because i'm not adding any additional action steps to my PASeq.  I'm just adding a parameter change keyframe to an existing action step.

    If i then press Animate to run my simple paint animation, i get what is shown below at frame time 20.  Note that the directions of the paint strokes (which decrease in size as the paint path progresses) are now reversed.  When you run the actual animation you will see what happens for different angle offsets between 0 and 180 degrees.

    10859320252?profile=RESIZE_930x

    A fun experiment to try is to mute the SetCanvas-white action step at frame time 2.  So the canvas is only erased to white for the first frame.  This means that all of the painting will be overdrawing on top of the existing canvas contents.  You can see the results below.

    10859320659?profile=RESIZE_930x

    What is interesting about this kind of animation is that you can use it to automate the painting in of a single static 2D painted canvas if you want to do that.  So we used paint animation in this last example to build up the paint density in an interesting way.  A way that looks very different than if you had just let the initial paint preset we started with run 20 times as long (Max Stroke set to 20 x 400 = 8000).  Try out that experiment yourself and see the difference between the 2 approaches.

    You could also use key-framed movement of manually drawn paint strokes to build up a single static painting.  The key-framing can be thought of as an automated way to speed up manual paint hatching or shading effects.  This is a way for digital painters who want to be very hands on to still use automated Studio Artist features to speed up their work.

     

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