Posted by Synthetik on September 25, 2011 at 5:19pm
Photo Mosaic image generated in the paint synthesizer using a 4000 frame graffiti movie brush. I was going for more of a collage look as opposed to an adaptive grid look with this. The movie frames are random indexed, so i'm using image processing brush load to colorize the individual movie frames.
Again, the trick to using large frame number movie brushes is to use Disk Load as opposed to PreLoad for the movie brush.
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John I love the collage image zzzz26 it's amazing. I'm completely new to Studio Artist and wonder how difficult it is to create such an image - are there any tutorials on the technique?
Once you know how to do it, it's actually quite easy to generate images like the one above. There are a few conceptual hoops you need to jump through to grasp the process behind making an image like this.
You start by collecting a folder of images you want to use for your collage or photo mosaic effect. You then convert that folder of images into a movie brush. What that means is that each image in the folder is added as a frame to a quicktime movie file.
This is easy to do in Studio Artist Here's a tip on how to make a movie brush. Here's an effects blog post on building your own custom movie brush.
Here's a short overview article on creating photo mosaic effects in Studio Artist.
Here's a link to a series of effects blog posts on different movie brush projects.
Here's a link to a series of effects blog posts on photo mosaic projects (some overlap with the above posts).
Here's a tutorial post that points to a large number of online resources for building different kinds of photo mosaic effects.
There are lots of different approaches you can use to painting an image using a movie brush. You can go for a traditional grid style photo mosaic effect, an adaptive grid photo mosaic effect, or something like above where the shapes are more rough and geometric.
There's a paint synthesizer process called path start regionization, that works by intelligently analyzing the current source image, breaking it up into regions, and then making those region shapes available for painting. Here are some articles on path start regionization.
the effect above is using the path start regionization to build the region shapes, and then using the region fill as brushpen mode to fill them in. Studio Artist painting has many different pen modes, and changing the pen mdoe for a paint preset can dramatically change the way it paints. Here's a quick overview of the different pen modes.
Note that most pen modes lay down a series of individual paint nibs along a path. The Region Fill as Brush pen mode is different, it uses the path to define a dynamic region that gets filled in with one dynamic region-shaped paint nib. The paint nib being a shape filled in with a movie brush frame image in the example above.
This article is a fun one that talks about the creative process of building an effect like above.
When working with a movie brush, you can index through the movie frames when painting in many different ways. Some indexing options try to choose the movie frame that best matches the source image where the movie brush is currently painting. For the approach taken above, i used random frame indexing, and then re-colorized the movie frames on the fly so that they were re-colorized to match the areas of the source image that corresponded to the region being filled in. There is a feature in the paint synthesizer called image processing brush load that i used to do this. Here is a post that discusses how to to the movie brush re-colorization.
So, building a movie brush from a folder of images involves running a single menu command with a 1 step paint action sequence to convert the folder of images into a movie file. You can then make a paint preset that uses your custom movie as a movie brush. One you have that, creating an image like above is a 1 step process. You just edit the paint synthesizer to set it up, and then press the action button to run it. All of the region shapes are generated automatically, and filled in with re-colorized images that are individual frames in your custom movie brush.
The other artistic step in the process of creating an image like the one above is putting together a good set of images for your custom movie brush. I'm using a set of 4000 street graffiti images taken in san francisco for my custom movie brush in the example above.
You can choose your collection of images to follow some kind of theme, to create a certain mood, to create some kind of intellectual juxtaposition against the subject matter of the image collection and the image they will be representing (like to create a sense of irony or political commentary).
Or you might be building an image collection and associated movie brush that is more textural, choosing images based on their textures, or their coloring. I've used closeup images of lava formations or brick wall textures for some pieces, they have a very different feel than using graffiti, or new photos, which are 2 other personal favorites of mine. I tend to go for a very flat look in the individual textural images i use to make my custom movie brushes.
Charis Tsevis takes a very different approach in his work for building his image collections. Here's a link to some articles on his work using Studio Artist. His flicker gallery is great, it really shows off how his personal sense of design influences the choice of images he uses to build his custom movie brushes for work in Studio Artist.
Wow! Thanks John that's one heck of an answer. I look forward to experimenting with the various techniques in the info above and hopefully when I'm good enough post the results.
Richard
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John I love the collage image zzzz26 it's amazing. I'm completely new to Studio Artist and wonder how difficult it is to create such an image - are there any tutorials on the technique?
Richard
Once you know how to do it, it's actually quite easy to generate images like the one above. There are a few conceptual hoops you need to jump through to grasp the process behind making an image like this.
You start by collecting a folder of images you want to use for your collage or photo mosaic effect. You then convert that folder of images into a movie brush. What that means is that each image in the folder is added as a frame to a quicktime movie file.
This is easy to do in Studio Artist Here's a tip on how to make a movie brush. Here's an effects blog post on building your own custom movie brush.
Here's a short overview article on creating photo mosaic effects in Studio Artist.
Here's a link to a series of effects blog posts on different movie brush projects.
Here's a link to a series of effects blog posts on photo mosaic projects (some overlap with the above posts).
Here's a tutorial post that points to a large number of online resources for building different kinds of photo mosaic effects.
There are lots of different approaches you can use to painting an image using a movie brush. You can go for a traditional grid style photo mosaic effect, an adaptive grid photo mosaic effect, or something like above where the shapes are more rough and geometric.
There's a paint synthesizer process called path start regionization, that works by intelligently analyzing the current source image, breaking it up into regions, and then making those region shapes available for painting. Here are some articles on path start regionization.
the effect above is using the path start regionization to build the region shapes, and then using the region fill as brush pen mode to fill them in. Studio Artist painting has many different pen modes, and changing the pen mdoe for a paint preset can dramatically change the way it paints. Here's a quick overview of the different pen modes.
Note that most pen modes lay down a series of individual paint nibs along a path. The Region Fill as Brush pen mode is different, it uses the path to define a dynamic region that gets filled in with one dynamic region-shaped paint nib. The paint nib being a shape filled in with a movie brush frame image in the example above.
This article is a fun one that talks about the creative process of building an effect like above.
When working with a movie brush, you can index through the movie frames when painting in many different ways. Some indexing options try to choose the movie frame that best matches the source image where the movie brush is currently painting. For the approach taken above, i used random frame indexing, and then re-colorized the movie frames on the fly so that they were re-colorized to match the areas of the source image that corresponded to the region being filled in. There is a feature in the paint synthesizer called image processing brush load that i used to do this. Here is a post that discusses how to to the movie brush re-colorization.
So, building a movie brush from a folder of images involves running a single menu command with a 1 step paint action sequence to convert the folder of images into a movie file. You can then make a paint preset that uses your custom movie as a movie brush. One you have that, creating an image like above is a 1 step process. You just edit the paint synthesizer to set it up, and then press the action button to run it. All of the region shapes are generated automatically, and filled in with re-colorized images that are individual frames in your custom movie brush.
The other artistic step in the process of creating an image like the one above is putting together a good set of images for your custom movie brush. I'm using a set of 4000 street graffiti images taken in san francisco for my custom movie brush in the example above.
You can choose your collection of images to follow some kind of theme, to create a certain mood, to create some kind of intellectual juxtaposition against the subject matter of the image collection and the image they will be representing (like to create a sense of irony or political commentary).
Or you might be building an image collection and associated movie brush that is more textural, choosing images based on their textures, or their coloring. I've used closeup images of lava formations or brick wall textures for some pieces, they have a very different feel than using graffiti, or new photos, which are 2 other personal favorites of mine. I tend to go for a very flat look in the individual textural images i use to make my custom movie brushes.
Charis Tsevis takes a very different approach in his work for building his image collections. Here's a link to some articles on his work using Studio Artist. His flicker gallery is great, it really shows off how his personal sense of design influences the choice of images he uses to build his custom movie brushes for work in Studio Artist.
Wow! Thanks John that's one heck of an answer. I look forward to experimenting with the various techniques in the info above and hopefully when I'm good enough post the results.
Richard