To start things off, I thought
I'd dive into the thing that first got me interested in Studio Artist, namely
the ways in which Paint Patches interact on the canvas. "Paint Patch,"
for those of you unfamiliar, is another way of saying "brush," except,
in the case of Studio Artist, it means a lot more, the actual "brush"
being only one element out of many that make up the process of applying color
onto the canvas. By analogy, you can think of a brush in Photoshop as a sort of
limited paint patch because it uses color, brush shape, opacity, apply mode and
a few other factors that you generally take for granted because you probably don't
do all that much painting in Photoshop. In Studio Artist, there are literally
hundreds of parameters—sliders, numeric entry fields, pull-down menus, etc.—that
can be tweaked for creating an infinite variety of effects. Take a look at the
movie below to get an idea of what I'm trying to get across.
You can see that what's
happening here is quite sophisticated. Color's not only pouring out onto my tiny
canvas, but it's also interacting with the colors that were applied earlier. This
particular Paint Patch uses pressure input from my Wacom tablet to determine the
size of the area affected, as well as the amount of interaction between the colors.
The more pressure I apply, the more area I cover up. With less pressure, I cover
a smaller area and create more of a blending (or bleeding) effect.
The Paint Patch I used for
this is one of the hundreds of presets that ship with Studio Artist. I used it
only because it's one of the few Patches relevant to this discussion whose strokes
I can record as a movie while I paint. But it's easy enough to create this "blending"
effect in any homegrown Patches you feel like creating.
Whether you're starting
with a fresh Paint Patch or simply modifying an existing Patch, you can add this
blending effect and several variations on blending just by adjusting a single
parameter in the Paint Synthesizer. In your tool palette on the left, switch from
Presets to Paint Synthesizer using the pull-down menu next to the Action button.
Now, right below this pull-down menu, you'll see another menu labeled "Parameters."
From this menu, select "Paint Fill." You'll see the setting "Algorithm"
near the center of the palette. It's probably set to "Apply." (See below,
left.) To add some blending, simply choose one of the other options listed in
the Algorithm menu. (See below, right.)
Typically,
"Mix Apply / Displace Out" will give you the setting you want, particularly
if you'd like to use a neutral color to achieve the effect of a wash over a dry
chalk or charcoal Patch. Of course, each setting in Studio Artist is affected
by a number of other settings, but, in general, the following are true of the
Algorithm settings in the Paint Synthesizer:
Apply
simply lets you draw one Patch over another, without a mingling of colors. Certain
other parameters in the Paint Synthesizer will allow colors to mingle, but not
in the same way.
Path Displace
Out will allow you to nudge areas on your canvas without applying new color
to the canvas, kind of like the Smudge tool in Adobe Photoshop.
Path Displace
In takes pieces of color from your canvas and pushes them together. A few
strokes can create a spotty effect, while lengthy strokes will average the two
colors together.
Mix Apply
/ Displace Out, as stated earlier, will add color from your source (depending
on your color setting), push and pull the colors on your canvas and start to blend
them together.
Brush Displace
might have no effect at all, depending on the rest of your parameter settings.
But for certain brushes, it will create a displacement effect based on the brush.
The final result is dependent heavily upon other parameters, but, when it does
work, it produces striations with some noise mixed in.
Mix Apply
/ Brush Displace can also have some strange effects. Like Brush Displace,
it creates striation effects, but it also mixes in your source color. It works
great with certain Paint Patches, but, with others, it just creates blotches.
So there's
a quick look at Algorithms in the Paint Fill parameter. There are other ways for
strokes to interact on the canvas, and we'll look at these and other functions
in future installments.
Be sure to stay tuned for
further installments in this series. In the meantime, check out our Studio Artist
user/support forum at http://216.246.51.202/forums/studio-artist/index.htm.
We also have some Paint Patches available for download at our sister site, Creative
Mac: http://www.creativemac.com/downloads/downloads.htm.
Creative Mac also has a few specific tutorials on Studio Artists for more advanced
users, including some work on motion graphics in the program. Visit http://www.creativemac.com,
and click on the "Tutorials" button in the left menu.
Dave Nagel
is the producer of Creative
Mac and Digital
Media Designer; host of the Creative
Mac, Adobe
InDesign, Adobe
LiveMotion and Synthetik
Studio Artist WWUGs; and executive producer of Creative
Mac, Digital Media
Designer, Digital Pro
Sound, Digital Webcast,
Plug-in Central, Presentation
Master, ProAudio.net and
Video Systems sites. All
are part of the Digital
Media Net family of online industry hubs.
