I was using MSG to build some procedural canvas images to test the new Canvas : Canvas to: Style menu command , and bumped into a MSG preset that was working as a source abstractor. So i tweaked that factory preset a little bit, and got this one. I thought it woudl be fun to share the design process of the effect here, and share the new preset.
Here was my workspace setup in Studio Artist V5.5.
i wanted to show how i setup the MSG IO routing, since that is what people normally have a hard time understanding about MSG presets.
So let's run through how i did that for the various MSG processors in the MSG processor chain.
Ok, so below i'm running G Src (the green channel of the source input to the MSG effect) into the input port that modulates the random spheres generated by the RndSphereFill Mod processor. That is a monochrome processor, and the output is routed to the R Out image stream.
Ok, so then i inserted a GenAdvTurb processor as the second processor in the PChain (short for processor chain list). That processor was not in the original factory preset. I did this because i wanted to run the 3rd RGB Colorize processor on the output of the GenAdvTurb processor, which is a shortened name for generate advanced turbulence. It outputs a monochrome turbulence noise texture.
You can see i routed the single channel output of GenAdvTurb to the G Out image stream.
Ok, so then i setup the RGB Colorize processor as you see below.
Note how i'm passing the G Out stream set from the GenAdvTurb processor into the In R and In G ports, and I'm passing the B Src (blue channel of the src input) into the In B port of RGB Colorize processor effect.
The output of that RndSphereFill Mod processor that we routed to the R Out stream is passed into the In Mod port. So the colorize effect is being modulated by the output of that RndSphereFill Mod processor.
The next RGB MaxBin1Area processor just processes the 3 R Out, G Out, B Out image streams. Note how they are connected to the inout and output ports of that processor below.
This next one is a little bit insidious, since you can see that the B Out channel is being used to modulate the ICompressor2 effect (which is taking the R Out image stream, processing it with the modulated monochrome effect, and then dumping it out into the G Out channel.
So now we are on to the final processor, which implements a classic ForceColorMap 3 channel processing effect on the R Out, G Out, B Out image streams.
So there you have it. A MSG effect that takes a source input and uses it to modulate some procedural abstraction. Because i routed the B Src channel into the RGB Colorize, i'm also mixing in some of the original blue channel source input into the otherwise totally generative effect.
The Studio Artist V5.5 preset is attached below. If you click on it in the MSG Advanced Editor, you can generate endless mutated variations inside of the MSG Evolution Editor. You can see them both on the right side of my workspace screen shot above.
have fun.
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Thanks John!
I guess it might be fun to see what i was testing in a little bit more detail. The new Canvas to Style menu option in Studio Artist V5.5.2.
So here's a screen shot of one of the tests below.
I was using a different MSG preset for this, bottom of the MSG Evolution Editor, the middle one. I drag and dropped that into the canvas to record the first MSG action step in the PASeq.
The second action step is Canvas to Style.
Third action step erases the canvas to white.
Last action step is a very simple paint preset made from 2 Paint Synthesizer Quick Edit commands (Init and Tighten : Soft AutoMask Paint Nib On.
If you look up in the Source Area you can see that the popup in the Image tab in the source area is set to StylePaint. So the color for the painting is coming from the loaded style image rather than the source image (like it would normally do).
This is a really simple use of the new loaded style image feature in V5.5. You can get much more elaborate of course.