Posted by Synthetik on December 25, 2007 at 3:46pm
The ReRender Canvas menu command under the main canvas menu can be used in several different ways. You can use the associated ReRender Canvas Settings dialog that comes up when you run the ReRender Canvas menu to specify what you specifically want done in the re-rendering process. Typically you will use this menu command when you want to change the sizing of your existing canvas. There are numeric fields at the top of the settings dialog that let you see the size of the existing canvas as well as specify a new size and resolution for the canvas. there are also some check boxes at the bottom of the dialog that let you specify exactly what will happen in the re-render process.
One thing to keep in mind is that Studio Artist has a unique hybrid graphics model that paints with raster paint strokes that are based on underlying bezier paths. the bezier paths are resolution independent. And the editable parameters associated with a given paint preset can be scaled as well to paint at a different resolution. Other graphics programs based on raster paint run an image interpolation algorithm when the canvas is resized. This means the pixels in the canvas frame buffer are processed with an interpolation algorithm that resizes the existing canvas image.
The rerender dialog gives you the ability to do this kind of raster image interpolation. But it also provides the ability to rerender your recorded session history, which can then be played back into a higher resolution canvas to redo everything you did in your original painting at a higher resolution. This process is different than the standard image interpolation approach to creating a larger canvas size because all of the paint strokes are redrawn at the higher resolution.
You also can configure the settings to just rerender a PASeq or history sequence without physically changing the canvas size at all. Or, you can change the resolution of the raster paint settings in the paint synthesizer, again without changing the canvas size. This is something you will probably do less frequently than changing the size of the canvas, but it does have it's uses.
There is a video tutorial on tutorial disc #3 titled 'Rerendering the Canvas to a Higher Resolution' (Rerender canvas.mp4) that explains all of the settings in the Rerender Canvas dialog, so you should definitely watch this video tutorial to learn more about the rerender dialog and the various options it provides.
If you want to change the size of the physical canvas, you want to make sure the 2 check boxes titled 'Maintain existing canvas image' and 'Scale physical canvas size' are checked. There is a popup control below those 2 checkboxes that offers 2 different options for the raster interpolation algorithm used to resize the canvas. they are BiCubic and Supersizer. BiCubic is the standard interpolation algorithm offered by many different programs. Supersizer is a unique interpolation algorithm developed by Synthetik Software that can provide much higher quality if you are interpolating with a high magnification ratio.
As mentioned above, you also have the ability to rerender your session history (or a paseq if you recorded your painting actions there instead of the history sequence) to a higher resolution. You can then manually play back your rerendered paseq or history sequence into the interpolated larger canvas. This can potentially generate even higher quality output since all of your existing paint strokes are redrawn at the higher resolution. If you want to do this, you need to make sure the 'scale paint action sequence' and 'scale history sequence' checkboxes are checked. Then after pressing the ok button in the dialog, you will need to manually play back the re-rendered history or paseq, the dialog does not do this for you automatically.
The reason why we provide different approaches to creating a larger canvas is that depending on the specifics of what you are doing you may need or want to resize in different ways. If you already have a finished painting and you did not record your session history, then you will need to resize using one of the provided raster interpolation algorithms. You have no recorded session history you can rerender to higher resolution and then playback. Typically, you would use Supersizer interpolation for this, especially if you are resizing to a much higher resolution. But you can choose Bicubic if you like the results it generates better.
If you recorded your session history, then in addition to resizing the canvas you can also rerender the history sequence itself and then play it back into the resized canvas to recreate all of your painting steps at the higher resolution. this has the potential to create the sharpest and most detailed painting at the final high resolution.
but in the process of redrawing at the higher resolution, some small details may be different due to the organic nature of the individual paint presets, which can behave differently at different resolutions. some paint presets rerender better than others, you really need to experiment to get a handle on what works for your particular artistic style or not. individual paint presets can also be tweaked for the render process by editing the rerender option parameters in the vector output control panel of the paint synthesizer. Multi-pen and particle paint pen modes tend to be more problematic than some of the other pen modes in this regard. we're always looking to improve the rerender process, so if you do run into paint presets you feel could rerender better let us know about them at techsupport at synthetik.com.
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More answers to questions: Yes, depending on what you do with the settings in the rerender dialog you can generate different looking images at the higher resolution. As i explained above, running a raster interpolation algorithm is very different from playing back a rerendered history sequence into a higher resolution image. And you can choose from 2 different raster interpolation algorithms, bicubic and supersizer.
By adjusting the rerender option parameters for your individual paint preset used in a history sequence, you can also change the behavior of the rerendering process for that particular paint preset, resulting in additional image variations if necessary.
Depending on your source material, the kinds of paint presets you are using, etc, one of these different techniques may look better than the others. there may also be subtle differences in different runs of playing back a rerendered paseq into a resized canvas, similar to the subtle changes you would get when doing edition prints. This can be viewed as a feature or a drawback of the rerender process depending on your point of view. the variations can happen due to random processing you may have setup in your paint presets. You can always turn off those random features in the individual paint presets you are using if you don't want random behavior. You could also record a manual reset generator paseq step before each action paint step if you want your star points for action painted paths to be the same from run to run.
Here's some answers to a few more questions about the rerender process:
The settings associated with rerender (or with a paseq or history sequence) are not saved in an image file you would generate with the cave canvas file menu. They are also not saved in a studio artist session file. The nature of the existing paseq file format means that a paseq cannot be embedded in a session file, other wise we would save them there. This will be fixed in version 4, but it's a limitation of existing version 3.5 we need to live with.
A paseq and a history sequence are really the same thing as far as studio artist is concerned. They tend to be used in different ways, hence you have 2 of them named appropriately. they both save to the same file format, and you can import those saved files as a new paseq or a new history sequence.
If you want to save the results of rerendering a paseq or a history sequence, you need to manually export the rerendered paseq or history sequence. as i said above, they are not stored in an image itself or in a session file.
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By adjusting the rerender option parameters for your individual paint preset used in a history sequence, you can also change the behavior of the rerendering process for that particular paint preset, resulting in additional image variations if necessary.
Depending on your source material, the kinds of paint presets you are using, etc, one of these different techniques may look better than the others. there may also be subtle differences in different runs of playing back a rerendered paseq into a resized canvas, similar to the subtle changes you would get when doing edition prints. This can be viewed as a feature or a drawback of the rerender process depending on your point of view. the variations can happen due to random processing you may have setup in your paint presets. You can always turn off those random features in the individual paint presets you are using if you don't want random behavior. You could also record a manual reset generator paseq step before each action paint step if you want your star points for action painted paths to be the same from run to run.
The settings associated with rerender (or with a paseq or history sequence) are not saved in an image file you would generate with the cave canvas file menu. They are also not saved in a studio artist session file. The nature of the existing paseq file format means that a paseq cannot be embedded in a session file, other wise we would save them there. This will be fixed in version 4, but it's a limitation of existing version 3.5 we need to live with.
A paseq and a history sequence are really the same thing as far as studio artist is concerned. They tend to be used in different ways, hence you have 2 of them named appropriately. they both save to the same file format, and you can import those saved files as a new paseq or a new history sequence.
If you want to save the results of rerendering a paseq or a history sequence, you need to manually export the rerendered paseq or history sequence. as i said above, they are not stored in an image itself or in a session file.