iWave

[Synthetik]

I'm very interested in this notion of creating digital moving art paintings that could be hung on a wall in a digital picture frame.  So you are creating an animation that plays out over time. But something designed to be viewed like a painting would be viewed on a wall surface.  It is a very different way to think about building an animation (compared to what you are thinking about with normal video processing).  And i think it gives you more room for creativity when it comes to things like abstraction and bending the rules of image synthesis sideways.

This whole thing is built from a small folder of still photos taken on Waikiki beach on Oahu.  It is meant to convey the feeling of being in the place, or one feeling of many possible interpretations of physically being there.  So it is an artistic example of the Metaverse that facebook keeps barking about.  I think we can do better than Pixar film inspired emoji avatars when it comes to envisioning Metaverse content.

I key-framed the Waikiki beach still images in a Transition Context in a PASeq.  I expanded the timeline (probably not enough) to build transitions between the individual keyframes.  I routed the Transition Context output to the Source.  I then used visual attribute modulation to manipulate that artificial metaverse source imagery in several different ways. 

I used the Style buffer to build a recursive image synthesis process that plays out in the canvas while allowing me to pile on additional 'boost' and 'shape' effects afterwards in the PASeq that did not influence the inner recursive processing 'cook loop' in the PASeq.  So you set the Style to the current layer at the end of your inner recursive processing loop, and then add a Fixed Image Ip Op action step at the beginning of the recursive processing loop with lets say a 50% Mix feeding the Style as the Ip Source for the Fixed Image effect.  Could be 100%, could be 30%, you should experiment to see what the different effects are when you change it.  You could also keyframe those changes over time if it suits the mood of what you are trying to create.

I then used the Source Variance to modulate a direction warp effect.  You can do this in V5.5.5 using multiple PASeq action steps although it is way easier in pre-V6 because it is now a part of the SideChain IpOp effect (along with some additional SideChain modulation channel treatment effects).

I overuse MultiOctave Gradient Lighting effects on a regular basis, so they are sprinkled on here.  I cranked the DeNoise option up all the way for these.

I use SmartBlur IpOp effect with a canvas local orientation modulation and full symmetry curve tracking to adaptively smooth the canvas.

I use multiple applications of the Image Compressor with less than 100% Mix settings at different local adaptations to build the adaptive contrast boost recursively over time.  You want your contrast boost to occur over 10 frames or so, at least you want to think about it that way when setting up the Mix ratios for the individual processing steps.