The CD_vect2020 collection are a wide range of experiments with vector Paint Synth Presets.
These are all about drawing/painting pictures with a stylus. None are good as “auto” presets.
Some of these are riff off of previously posted Presets others are just oddball results of experiments.
All use Paint Synth/Editor/Vector Output.
When I play with Vector Output, I am looking to create “brushes” that will paint what will eventually be output as SVG. Editable vector content.
Most of these are either marking - like using a pen - or variations on a splatter or spreading effect. The splatter and spreading stuff was just for kicks. The “marking” Presets are experiments in a textured ink or crayon look.
The VERY interesting effect when applying the “cd_spray_vect01_giantmess_wet” Presets is their applied water like effect on underlying vector. I am not at al sure what is going on here. None of these use the DualAlgFillOpt options that can spread and diffuse vectors.
What I do like about these is the way they blur and spread vectors and export as editable vectors. I haven’t encountered anything like this in any other vector application.
When I can start to see vectors behaving like raster - I get excited.
There are several things I don’t know how to control about the cd_spray_vect01_giantmess_wet set:
1.
Touching down flair. Basically when I first touch my stylus down there is a preliminary flair that I can’t seem to control. This is probably an artifact of one of the Randomize settings like Path Randomize and some setting I have no control over that registers a first touch behavior that is different from continuously applying the stylus. Occasionally I see this same effect as a dot in the shape of the Brush Source.
The "cd_vect_crawlingchaos" preset has a spectacular flair when touching down - then eventually follows a smaller drawn line.
The preset: cd_vect_growfungi - has a smaller flair and a truly interesting pulsating growth effects - when drawing a line continuously around the canvas. I would love the effect that results from the line long after the flair - but do not know how to separate the flair from the later effects.
2.
The wet flow effect runs up and left in an image. I can’t find a control for this. The Preset “…wet05” is set to flow with tilt - and starts to work that way - but this only slightly interrupts the flow to the top left.
3.
The flow effect tints towards a pink color. This same pink appears related to alpha rather than as an artifact of blending to canvas or white. I can’t figure out where this could be controlled either (yet)
4.
I have done some tests with recording and playing a PAS of a drawing using these vector Presets and find there seems to be an upper limit to how much SA can export. I get a crash with some PAS’s when run to export to SVG. I haven’t done enough experiments to get an idea of where the limit might be.
SA's vector options are really exciting.
Hope you all find them interesting and useful!
Replies
So i'm adding some Live Extension features to the Studio Artist V5.5 Quick Edit commands for the paint synthesizer.
Quick example below. Time to generate = 1 sec of manual drawing.
Here's a tip on live extension paint presets. They are kind of a special case paint synthesizer effect.
So about #1:
It's another live extension (path shape) one. Which means it's going to be a weirdo.
So if you use Path Length for the Displace Mod for Displace 1 in the Path Randomize control panel, it's more controllable at the beginning.
If you want to stay with the Path Pressure, then you can adjust the pressure override controls in the Miscellaneous control panel to dampen down the behavior at the beginning.
John,
I do use Live Extension a lot. That option makes for great, sort of multi pass, flowing application of - uh - paint. Super awesome effects come out of Autodraw Interactive - with Live Extension as Path Shape/Path Type with adjustments in length.
I agree. The "touchdown flair" effect I have been encountering can be spectacular and fun - but having that not happen would also be very good. An on/off option would be great. If there are ways to enhance the live extension option as a drawing tool enhancement - that would be a top of the list request for me (to Santa!) : )
I am all about working with SA as a manual painting/drawing application. The Live Extension feature is a great enhancement to the painting/drawing experience.
I agree live extension is a cool effect. You just have to keep in mind that it kind of circumvents some of the normal paint synth control.
So maybe a 'ramp up of the path randomization amount' option at the beginning of the path would do it. Since that is what is driving it. I'll try to find some time to mess with it tomorrow.
You can add in some additional path randomization using something like uniform random to break up any directional drift in live extension presets. So that's one way to modify what you want to modify.
Cool. Thanks for posting these.
I'll play with them n SA V5.5 later today, and comment more specifically about the questions you asked about.
We do know why svg output eventually punks out if you try to generate too much, it's a function of how the framework people wrote their SVG generator code (they don't spool things they are bufffering internally out to disk, but assume their String variable can handle it even if that is not going to be the case. They probably did all of their tests on super simple sv graphics, SA pushes the envelope of what you can encode in svg files.
So if it was my code, i could just change that. Little bit less straightforward when it's a framework routine.
But we are interested in fixing this in some way.
Another option we're thinking about is providing a vector graphics spool file in our own format. The SVG file format as some major problems when you use it the way we di (it's very inefficient and redundant, again eating up memory when their is no need to do so).
John,
Related to the "touchdown flair" - The attached Paint Synth Preset really shows this phenomena off. The preset drops a dot or in this case a rim on touching down with the stylus. Interesting that the "dot" also seems to be semi transparent. After that the preset draws as I would expect.
I am looking for a way to turn that first "dot" or flair off - or ignore it. I swear this has actually been discussed in the past - something about suppressing a first "touch down" event.
I draw/paint with a stylus. But this particular preset shows the same effect with a mouse click. When running auto - the dot does not appear. At any rate - this particular preset is a great example for showing off the dot or flair.
cd_vect_strangefeather_dotStart.zip
As always - MANY thanks for looking into thee things and forging ahead with Studio Artist! You ROCK!
In general, in the Pen Mode control panel, you can setup the Start Delay for Interactive Pen pen mode to get rid of the junk at the beginning.
But not for this particular preset. I think the issue might be something to do with the live extension path shape option and a default pressure override setting. Will keep investigating. It's a fun effect, but i agree you'd want to be able to not have it there.