This is a limited functionality demo version of Studio Artist.
The demo version does not allow you to save any of your work, and will time out. You can use the demo for 40 minutes before you will have to start again. A small number of Presets are included with the demo to give you a feel for the program. The complete release version includes over 700 different Paint Presets.
For technical support and upgrades you must purchase a copy of Studio Artist.
The list price of Studio Artist is $295 plus shipping and handling.
To order a full functionality version, call 1-888-808-4188 anytime.
If calling from outside of the continential US, call 1-415-864-6582 to order.
You can also fax us an order at 1-415-864-0433. Remember to include your credit card # and expiration date on any fax orders.
You can call Synthetik at 415-864-6582 For all other Business
Visit us on the web at www.synthetik.com
Installing Studio Artist Demo on your Harddisk
1. We'll assume you have already downloaded the demo and unstuffed it to get to this point.
2. Studio Artist is a PowerMac only application. You cannot run it on an old 68K Macintosh. Certain operations (like interactive warps or wet brushes will run slower on older PowerMac's (like 7100's).
3. You should adjust Studio Artist’s memory allocation (via the Get Info dialog in the Macintosh Finder). Select the application icon in the Finder and use the “File : Get Info...” menu command or Cmnd i. Depending on the amount of memory in your Macintosh, you may need to adjust the factory default memory allocation. Change the "preferred size" to suit your system and needs.
The more memory you can allocate to Studio Artist, the better. This is particularly true if you plan to work with uncompressed RAM movies, which are very memory intensive. The maximum size of Studio Artist’s working Canvas will also depend on the amount of memory you allocate to the application.
If you find yourself running out of memory, try working with smaller source images first and then try reducing your canvas size. You do not need a high resolution source image to generate a high resolution output canvas for many painting applications. The Set Canvas Size dialog has fields that give you feedback on the maximum canvas size that Studio Artist recommends for the particular memory partition size you have specified for the program.
4. Studio Artist needs QuickTime 3.0 or greater to be installed on your Macintosh in order to run properly. If you need to upgrade your version of QuickTime, you can download the latest version of QuickTime from www.apple.com.
5. Certain magic folders need to be located next to the application. They are in the Studio Artist folder.
Artist looks for paint presets in a 'Preset' folder located next to the application.
Artist looks for Paint Action Presets in the 'PASeq' folder located next to the application.
Artist looks for Workspace presets in the 'Workspace' folder located next to the application.
If it can't find an image brush on your harddisk (perhaps you moved it), it looks in the 'Brush' folder located next to the app for a file with the same name (beware of duplicate names). In general, it's a good idea to keep your image brushes in this folder.
How to Launch Studio Artist
Double-click on the Studio Artist application icon.
A standard file dialog will come up and you should select the Source Image you wish to work with.
To get started, choose the “A Sunflower” image located in the “A Few Source Images” folder.
After you choose your source image and click OK, a dialog will come up that allows you to specify the working Canvas size.
Typically, you might choose a Canvas size different then the original Source Image.
The Source Image is not modified in any way. The Canvas Image will be the final output image.
The Sunflower demo image is 640x480 pixels, which is an adequate Canvas size to get started. So, click OK for the default 100% Canvas size.
After you click OK in the Set Canvas Size dialog, the cursor will spin for a short period of time while Studio Artist examines your Source Image. Then, the main Studio Artist Canvas window will appear. Studio Artist boots into the Paint Preset Operation control pane. This is where you can choose Paint Synthesizer Preset Patches.
Patches
A Preset Patch is a pre-edited set of Paint Synthesizer parameters. Presets are an easy way to switch between different paint looks or drawing styles quickly while you work.
There are several Categories of Patches located on the left-hand panel.
Choose a catagory and either:
1: Mouse down on a Patch Icon or
2. Pull down the Patch Menu Bar right above the Patch Icons
Painting and Drawing
Use the mouse or pressure sensitive pen to start drawing into the Canvas.
Watch how the thickness of the paint stroke changes as you press the pen harder or softer.
Each Preset Paint Patch contains a large set of editable parameters that determine the look and feel of the paint and interactive drawing brush. By changing these parameters, you can completely change the visual appearance and tactile feel of the resulting interactive paint brush
Auto-Paint
Click the Action button ( or use the Cmnd-spacebar hot key ) and watch Studio Artist autopaint without any manual assistance. To stop autopainting, either use the spacebar key or mouse down anywhere in the interface. Each Preset Paint Patch also contains a large set of editable parameters that determine how Studio Artist autopaints.
See The PDF Tutorial and User Guide for these and other advanced Features:
Image Process
Auto Rotoscoping
Paint Action Sequences
Paint History
Interactive Warping
Layers
Morphing
Animation
Region Selection
New Features in Version 1.1
Highlights:
Limited alpha channel support now available. Embedded alpha channels in movie files or source images and image or movie brushes can be now be accessed. The current selection region can be generated from the source alpha channel. The brush mask can be derived from the brush source using the new brush type "Source Alpha Brush". Generated or Processed movie files can also have an embedded alpha channel that can be derived from several different sources. More complete integral alpha channel support is planned for future releases. Selection based on color keying is now supported within Paint Action Sequences for movie processing. Soft selection or keying options are now available.
Movie brush support has been extended. The combination of alpha brush support and movie brush playback from disk allows movie brushes to be used to composite multiple movie file sources into a destination movie file with all of the visual properties associated with the paint engine (movement, rotation, scaling, colorization, smear, texturing, etc.).
Additional indexing options have been added to movie brushes to support perceptual attribute mapping. This can be used to create paint tools that generate photo mosaic or photomontage effects in real time while you paint.
Additional support for batch file processing. Movie files can be processed to a movie file or a folder of processed frame image files, or a folder, or processed EPS files for vector output. Folders of images can be processed to a movie file or a folder or processed output images.
Limited support for EPS file export and movie to EPS vector file conversion. More complete support in this area is planned for future versions.
The KeyFrame Timeline can be used to generate animated Bezier masking regions that change shape over time for use in movie generation or processing.
Support is now provided for tilt sensitive paint tools that have conical spreading properties based on pen tilt. This can be used to simulate natural paint tools like Air Brush tools whose ink spread flow has directional properties based on how the tool is tilted and positionally oriented in relation to the canvas. This support is built into the paint synthesizer in several different areas, including path generation symmetry, path application, the computational brush source, and a new brush type. The combination of all of these different additional tilt sensitive parameters allows for a whole new dimension in interactive painting with the Wacom pen tools.
A new autopath generation type based on the path generation algorithms used in the Region Draw mouse mode is now available for autodrawn paths. This is a whole new way to generate paint tools that auto-cross hatch.
The paint synthesizer has a whole new control pane called Time Particles. Time Particles provide a mechanism for individual paint strokes to have temporal continuity as well as movement properties over time in generated or processed movies.
Individual paint paths associated with individual paint action sequence action steps can now be directly edited in Bezier Edit Operation mode. This provides another mechanism to edit hand drawn painting directly in a recorded paint action or history sequence.
Many additional Paint Synthesizer enhancements.
Some new Image Operations have been added.
Additional Paint and PASeq Presets have been added.
New Features in Version 1.01
Highlights:
Full Support for Wacom's Intuos Dual Track. You can use a second tool (like the 4D mouse of a second pen) to modulate paint synthesizer parameters in real time while you draw. For example, adjust paint parameters with your left hand while drawing with your right hand. This is a great way to add a lot more expressive control to your drawing and painting.
Enhanced interactive warp and Bezier timeline warp image quality. You can now choose two different settings in the Preferences dialog (under File menu) for warp effects. Low memory uses less memory, is faster, but has lower image quality. High quality uses more memory, but will render the effect to a much higher anti-aliased quality when you are done interactively defining the warp.
Timeline warps now work properly with multiple layers and compositing between layers. You can have a separate set of Bezier keyframes for each layer in the canvas.
Paint Action Sequences can now be applied as a batch process to folders of images. Individual movie frames can also be written out as separate image files when processing movies.
Some new Image Operations have been added.
Some new Bezier path edit operations have been added.
Trouble Shooting FAQs
I try to open an image and get an assert error message.
I try to save an image and get an assert error message.
The message is an error from QuickTime stating that it can't find the graphics import components. You probably either have a version of QuickTime prior to version 3.0, or you are missing some QuickTime extensions. Studio Artist needs QuickTime 3.0 or greater to be installed on your Macintosh in order to run properly. Some QuickTime 4.0 users have experienced file corruption or incomplete extension installs using Apple's network installer. Try reinstalling QuickTime to fix this problem. If you need to upgrade or reinstall your version of QuickTime, you can download the latest version of QuickTime from www.apple.com. or use the installer we have provided on the cd-rom.
Everyone who has had this problem we have talked to has seen it go away when they reinstall QuickTime.
Why can't I save the Canvas?
Why can't I save a Movie File?
This demo version of Studio Artist does not allow you to save your work. You need to purchase a copy of Studio Artist to access this functionality. This includes all the export functionality in the program. To order a full functionality version, call 1-888-808-4188 anytime.
The demo does not let you save a movie file, so any command functionality associated with saving movie frames will be grayed out in the Movie menu. You can Process a source movie file with a Paint Action Sequence to demo auto-rotoscoping, but will not be able to save the processed frames to disk or load them into ram for ram movie playback.
Studio Artist reads and writes all the image formats that QuickTime supports, including photoshop, jpeg, pict, tiff, targa, bmp, sgi, etc.
The program doesn't seem to be drawing.
You may have specified a paint patch that is logically inconsistent.
There are a number of possible ways to do this. Check the Technical Questions Chapter of the Studio Artist User Guide for possible scenerios to watch out for.
Why don't I have any Presets?
Why does the application take forever to boot?
The application needs to live on your hard disk next to the 'Preset', 'PASeq'. 'Workspace', and 'Brush' folders. It doesn't know how to find the presets unless these folders are in the same folder as the application. It will spend a long time searching for them on your entire harddisk if they aren't there.
I try to open an image and get an assert error message.
The message is an error from QuickTime stating that it can't find the graphics import components. You probably either have a version of QuickTime prior to version 3.0, or you are missing some QuickTime extensions. Studio Artist needs QuickTime 3.0 or greater to be installed on your Macintosh in order to run properly. Some QuickTime 4.0 users have experienced file corruption from the network installer. Try reinstalling QuickTime to fix this problem. If you need to upgrade or reinstall your version of QuickTime, you can download the latest version of QuickTime from www.apple.com.
What happened to my Bezier frames, current Layers, etc.
Opening a RAM movie will erase all of your current layers, Bezier frames, etc. The program asks you if you want to save before it does this.
Why are some popup interface elements missing?
You are running a very early version of the Appearance manager extension, and need to update it to version 8.1 or later.
Why am I running out of memory after running the
program for a long time?
History recording may be turned on. The history file does not spool to disk with this version. This means that your Paint Action history will grow over time as you do things with the program, taking up more and more memory. If you are working close to the memory edge, you will eventually run out.
You might want to turn off history recording if you run Studio Artist in a low memory partition or are working with big files. You can do this by going to 'Preferences...' located under the 'File' menu, and turning off default history recording.
Caution:
1. Do not work with canvas and/or source image sizes that are near the limit of your memory partition. The same applies for long memory intensive RAM movies. If you do, the application will run out of working memory.
The list price of Studio Artist 1.1 is $295 plus shipping and handling.
To order a full functionality version, call 1-888-808-4188 anytime.
If calling from outside of the continential US, call 1-415-864-6582 to order.
Or, you can fax us an order at 1-415-864-0433. Remember to include your credit card # and expiration date on any fax orders.
Check out our web site at www.synthetik.com for information regarding on-line ordering or any changes to the information in this document.
