In order to record this simple PASeq, you bring up the Paint Action Sequence floating palette using either the 'cmnd 2' menu shortcut or you can use the 'Action : Paint Action Sequence Window' menu. Then you press the 'Rec' checkbox to turn on recording. Goto the Vectorizer in Studio Artist. Remember you can get to any operation mode and it's associated control panels by using the main Operation menu or by using the operation mode popup on the left side of the Studio Artist interface right below the source area. Once you have the 'Generation' paramter control panel for the vectorizer up in the interface, setup the controls to match the following screen shot:
Note that the Vectorizer Source popup is set to Source, this means that the vectorizer will use the source image as it's input (as opposed to the current canvas layer). There are a large number of different Generator options for the Image main technique. By trying out the different generator options you can get a feel for the different kinds of vectorizer effects you can generate. We chose the Color Simplify generator so that we could get a solid color cartoon style vectorizer image. Decreasing the '# Colors' slider will lead to fewer color regions, increasing it will lead to more color regions and more associated image detail.
Since we will be processing video with the vectorizer, we set the andomization popup in the secondary control area below the main control area to the 'Use Seed' setting. What this means is that the vectorizer will use the same random number seed for each frame it processes. using the same random number seed will lead to a processed video with less flicker.
Our original video was 24 frames per second. We decided to use an output fps similar to what would be used in hand animation, so we chose 12 fps. In the Action:Process File Settings dialog box, we set the 'Source Frame to Duplicate' parameter to 1, and the Timing popup to 'Preferences FPS'. In the 'File:Preferences:Movie Compression' dialog we set the Motion Frames per Second to 12. If you want your source video timing to be passed through unchanged, you can set the Source Frames to Duplicate parameter to 0 and the Timing popup to 'Source Movie Pass Through'.
A simple example of an output movie created with this set of vectorizer parameters is here. An example of a different vectorizer preset designed to create a cubist style effect can be seen here.
There's a tutorial video on tutorial disk#1 that discusses the Vectorizer control panels in great detail. And all of the individual editable parameters are discussed in the Studio Artist User Guide.
There's a number of different tutorials on tutorial disk#2 that explain in more details how to record and edit PASeq's as well as how to use them to process movie files. Watching the videos on the tutorial disks is the best way to learn how to get started using Studio Artist. There's also a series of tutorials on disk#2 that discuss creating tween animations using the vectorizer. The old studio artist blog also has some information and examples on additional ways to create tween animations.
The simplest way to process a loaded source movie with a PASeq is to run the 'Action:Process Source Movie with Paint Action Sequence to a Movie' menu command. The current source movie is used as the source for processing, and the current canvas dimensions are used for the size of the output movie, and you will be asked to name the output movie before processing begins.
If you are interested in creating cartoon style effects in Studio Artist, the vectorizer is one of many different approaches you can take. You should also check out Image Operations such as Color Simplify, Simplify, and Smooth. Depending on the look you are trying to create, the Ip Ops might be a better choice.
You can add black outlines to any kind of cartoon style animation with a large number of different approaches, including using Ip Ops that generate black edge effects and min compositing them onto your color regions, or by using a black paint preset from the paint synthesizer.
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