As we begin a new year i thought it might be fun to reflect for a minute on why Studio Artist is such an awesome art program.
So, What is Studio Artist?
Studio Artist transcends a lot of existing graphics software product categories. It’s a digital paint program. Its an image processing and photo manipulation program. It’s a video processing program. It’s a paint animation program. It’s a procedural art generation program. You can create 2D imagery, but you can also create time based animation or video processing effects. By straddling existing product boundaries it isn’t restricted by the artificial marketing categories that have been created by restricting software products to be just a photo manipulation or digital paint or video processing program. Studio Artist is all of these things and more.
Studio Artist is a Graphics Synthesizer. This means it’s a tool for synthesizing artistic visual imagery as well as a tool for building an infinite variety of custom visual effects.
Studio Artist takes working metaphors from music synthesis and applies them to digital painting, photo manipulation, and video processing. Studio Artist also incorporates advanced visual modeling based on human perception of imagery in the brain and applies that visual intelligence to control automatic painting as well as image and video processing effects. Studio Artist provides intelligent assistance that helps you create artistic imagery much faster and with more fun than other programs.
You can do everything in Studio Artist manually by hand if you wish. Or you can select a preset, press a button and let Studio Artist do all the work. You can also work interactively while Studio Artist intelligently works behind the scenes to dynamically assist your manual hand work.
What i love about Studio Artist is that it helps you create artistic imagery. So you can quickly generate an infinite variety of different artistic images or processing effects. You’re still in the loop as an artist, making decisions about what you like and don’t like. But at the same time you don’t have to do all the work. Unless you really want to, and even then intelligent assistance is working behind the scenes to make your work more organic, visually complex and compelling.
When i sit down to use other digital painting or visual effects programs i tend to get frustrated very quickly. I also tend to get very little accomplished, even after putting a lot of work into a project. Because nothing happens in those other programs that isn’t directly instigated and driven by the user. So creating a single painting or artistic image or visual effect is a very tedious and time consuming task. One that is limited by the physical motor skills you have available to you. One that is limited by your internal energy and concentration to preserver until the job is finished. What should be a fun and creative process quickly becomes a chore. A marathon of internal energy is required to actually create something.
After using one of these other digital art program, returning to Studio Artist is like a breath of fresh air. I can immediately start generating an infinite variety of different artistic images very quickly.
My work could be derived off of source images, source video, or it could be complete visual abstraction generated from no prior imagery. Work derived from source imagery could be realistic, or very abstracted output that is nothing like a conventional clone effect and has no direct relationship to the content of the original source imagery.
I can try out different pre-built intelligent presets to stimulate my visual creativity. When i find something i like i can then edit it to customize or further enhance the visual effect. When i create something new i like i can then save it as a new custom preset for use at a later date. I can do detailed editing, potentially adjusting hundreds of different parameters that affect the look and feel of a digital paint tool. Or i can press a button and have Studio Artist generate new sets of presets automatically for me to cull through looking for keepers.
I can generate sets of procedural abstractions or modular image processing effects at the click of the mouse, working with directed evolution over time to build amazing artistic imagery i could never have created or even conceived of if i had to manually build them from scratch. At the same time i have the ability to get under the hood and fine tune modular image processing or procedural art effects via detailed editing if i wish to refine or fine tune a particular effect or image. With over 500 modular image processing modules that can be combined together in an unlimited number of different ways i have access to an endless supply of different visual effects.
I can generate free running gallery shows that generate new artwork and visual effects unattended. Gallery show can be used to build dynamic customized art displays, visual performance pieces, or as a way to automatically generate new presets effects or sets of art images that can be culled through later for keepers.
I can work with live visual synthesis in real time. Building recursive visual effects that feed back on themselves. Processing live video captures. Changing between different preset effects on the fly without interrupting my visual performance. Live editing effects and watching them adjust in real time. Streaming my live visual performance out to a video file to capture a visual performance.
Studio Artist is all this and more.
Stay tuned for amazing new Studio Artist developments over the upcoming year.
