Live Video MSG Brush

[Thorrific]

OK, I will post some of these to the cool preset group, but since they involve MSG processors, it seemed like a good idea to post here in the MSG group first. I have been making Paint Synth presets that use my iSight camera. A little basic breakdown: 1. In the Paint Synthesizer, under "Background Texture", set the 'Texture Type' popup to "Live Video" 2. In Paint Synth, under "Paint Brush Load", set the 'Type' popup to "MSG". Set the "Source" popup to 'Background Texture". 3. In Paint Synth, under "Paint Fill Setup", set "Fill From" to "Background Texture" and "Mod Type" to "Add Brush Load" Note that these settings in #3 can be tweaked for different effects. For example, the "Fill From" and "Mod Type" settings can be reversed for a somewhat different effect. These brushes have been set up to use whatever MSG preset you have selected. The one called "ThorLiveVideoMSGbrush" has some masking tweaked, background texture I think. The one called "ThorLiveVidMSGnomask" has no masking built in and also the live video image is blown up to 800% in the Background Texture setting in the Paint Synth. Enjoy! I will post some actual MSG presets soon too.

ThorLiveVideoMSGbrush.zip

ThorLiveVidMSGnomask.zip

[Donna Kuhn]

thanks, thor. do these go in the live video brush folder in presets?

[Thorrific]

Thanks Donna, you should be able to put them in whatever category folder inside the presets folder you like... (not in front of my mac so I can't remember the exact folder heirarchy now) ... they should work in any paint presets folder.

[Synthetik]

Cool!

One thing to watch out for is that the Path End Blanking is turned on for interactive pen masking, so you can end with it not drawing depending on the state of the blanking buffer since it doesn't reset the blanking.

I know this paint preset doesn't have any msg embedded in it (it uses the current msg preset), but it did make me realize i should probably make msg evolver smart enough to open the embedded msg in a paint preset.

[Thorrific]

Thanks John, could you please explain "Blanking" in detail? I have been wondering about its uses. Thanks!

[Synthetik]

The blanking buffer is a hidden 1 bit/pixel frame buffer that can be configured in the paint synthesizer for different uses. The most typical use is as a buffer to keep track of brush or path coverage. There are controls in path start that determine how it is automatically filled in by painting, and whether it is erased before painting or not. You can then use the different blanking options in path start and path end to inhibit drawing.

You also have the ability to use it as a special kind of mask if you want to, or as a way to generate hard alpha masks for photos or processed movies.

[Thorrific]

Thanks John, I will play around with the blanking settings more.

[Synthetik]

The typical usage is to configure it so the preset will not overdraw on previous drawn areas of the canvas, as a way to speed up drawing a complete canvas.

The issue is that if you have it set up to do this and you don't set the checkbox in path start so it erases blanking before it starts drawing, then you can end up in a situation where it doesn't seem to be drawing and you don't know why if the blanking buffer is not empty.

[Thorrific]

thanks for the explanation, that helps a lot!