Spinners 3

Single frame from a Studio Artist dual paint animation experiment using some of the active spinner paint presets i've recently discussed here. Dual Paint operation mode is a really cool new feature in Studio Artist 4, and it's full potential is still largely unexplored.

Kahului, Venice of the Pacific 3

Another photo taken in the heart of the Venice of the Pacific.

When i look at vistas like this, i often imagine what a place like Kahului could have been with a little aesthetic forethought and planning. I mean here you have this little town next to the ocean on a beautiful island. With apparently a series of canals and waterways embedded within it.

Imagine a place filled with bike paths and picturesque walkways, and outdoor dining establishments located along the scenic canals. Thoughtfully planned housing interspersed with business establishments. The sea breeze blowing in as people lived out their lives in this picturesque and thoughtfully designed living place. The Kahului that could have been would have been a remarkable place.

The real Kahului is still remarkable, just in slightly different ways. Anyway, my journey on foot through the Venice of the Pacific continues, and i can dream of what might have been.

Spinners 2

Once i started editing the magic 'active spinner' preset i mentioned here the other day, things started getting even more interesting. By working with the editing controls in the paint synthesizer you can create an extreme variety of different variations on the effect.

Again, what's so great about this particular kind of active drawing paint preset is that it enables you to work extremely quickly to build up complexity in a painting. This example has some wet smear going on inside the paint itself in addition to the active spinning intelligent drawing component.

Kahului, Venice of the Pacific 2

Another shot taken of Kahului's remarkable series of scenic canals and waterways.

This view is actually processed video footage taken from a video pan in the heart of the Venice of the Pacific. Generated with the temporal scan tracker in Studio Artist 4.

Spinners

LiveArt sent me some Studio Artist dual paint presets recently for testing, and one of the paint synthesizer components from this set really blew my mind. I've been calling it an active spinner paint preset for lack of a better description, and it's amazing for generating abstract paintings very quickly.

Of course half the fun is just watching the thing draw. It's fascinating to watch it at work. You can use it with a pen manually or just press action. The results are very different, both very interesting.

Kahului, Venice of the Pacific

A little know fact about Maui's main town Kahului is that it contains a series of scenic canals and waterways. I recently stumbled onto this discovery during my journeys on foot through the heart of Kahului's charming and always entertaining central industrial area. Here's a view of my first observation of this series of scenic waterways and canals.

Perhaps there's some kind of tourist kayak expedition i can take to explore these island waterways more. That remains to be seen, but imagine my surprise to find out that Kahului is indeed the Venice of the Pacific.

The Mysteries of Puunene

I'm still trying to figure out Puunene. If you are one of those believers of mystical power spots there's no denying Puunene is one, you can't help noticing it's 'power'. Now what that 'power' might actually be is a whole other story. But there's no denying it grabs your attention. Here's another view taken while driving the secret shortcut road through the heart of Puunene.

I tried some online searching to get a better handle on Puunene but it still remains a mystery to me. One frightening statistic that popped up was that the ratio of residents to sex offenders in Puunene was 13 to 1. Wow, that seemed outragous to me. One in 13 people living in Puunene was a sex offender? To look at this in context, the ratio for Honolulu is 1262 to 1. Of course then i noticed that only 13 people actually lived in Puunene (this is based on 2007 city-data online statistics). Wow, and they get their own post office.

It's a Beautiful Day 3

Now i actually could have gone for some lunch at Ba-Le in Wailuku. I think it was only place actually open we ran into during our Sunday drive through tour. I practically live on Ba-Le food when on Oahu, so it has a special place in my heart. At least the particular establishment i frequent. But my wife would have none of it this particular afternoon. I did manage to snap a few photos of the Wailuku Ba-Le as we passed by.

It's a Beautiful Day 2

It's still a beautiful day in Wailuku. Still no lunch however, but we did drive by this interesting place.

It's a Beautiful Day

It's a beautiful day in Wailuku. Although since it's Sunday practically everything is closed as far as i can tell. The place is like a ghost town. We had high hopes of finding a cool place to eat lunch but ended up at Whole Foods in Kahului instead after our grand tour. An adventure to be repeated sometime on a weekday i guess.

Mr Pineapple Slit Scan

My typical visit to Mr Pineapple is through the window of a fast moving car. Some temporal slit scan processing in Studio Artist 4 perhaps best captures the real psychological sensation of the overall experience.

Mr Pineapple

No visit to Maui is complete without a visit to Mr Pineapple. In fact, i don't think it's possible to visit Maui without experiencing Mr Pineapple since he's located right at the exit to the airport.

I had to laugh, because Mr Pineapple was probably the first thing that caught my eye on a visit to Maui, and i always try to grab a picture whenever we are passing by in the car. To me it's like Dinosaur Land or Trees of Mystery, some kind of mystical cultural landmark totally unique to Maui. My wife on the other hand, had no idea what i was talking about when i mentioned i put together a series of awesome Studio Artist images based on processing Mr Pineapple video shots. I guess i should be more focused on taking in the view of Haleakala, or Iao Valley, which Mark Twain described as the Yosemite of the Pacific. Or perhaps the scenic wonders of Puunene as documented in the past few blog posts.

Of course i do stare at all that stuff, and it is stunning, and always changing. Maui is full of magical scenic vistas around every bend. But the little stuff, the dirty secrets, the grime and forgotten spaces are just as real to being in a place as the 'scenic tourist vistas', and my eye often wanders to the forgotten spaces rather than the more conventional stereotypical scenery. And in some sense the forgotten lands and industrial parks are just as beautiful as the more conventional tourist vistas, maybe more so in some ways.

I lived for years in South of Market in San Francisco (an extremely intense industrial urban area), which would be consider a hole of filth by many people, but it's easy to take a stroll through the neighborhood filled with grime and filth there and find all kinds of beauty both hidden and right out in the open. The secret graffiti messages, the feel of the Pacific ocean wafting in from the coast, the ever changing fog patterns, the amazing textural patterns, the utter craziness everywhere you look if you take the time to really look. Hawaii is no different. It's a very complex place, filled with both beauty and intense ugliness and vast craziness if you choose to pay attention.

Part of the point of my ongoing series of 'island tour' blog posts is to delve into the real Hawaii, at least the hidden part of it they don't put in the tourist brochures. Although Mr Pineapple is prominently featured on the tourist cable channel. So remember, no trip to Hana is complete without a stop at Mr Pineapple. After all, the Hana trip tape kiosk is right next store. Although to be honest, i'm unclear if anyone is actually in the kiosk or not. It has that abandoned for years look i seem to find so appealing.

Puunene and it's Sacred Energy

Hawaii is often considered by many people a place containing various locations of sacred energy. Special locations invested with some form of mystical or special power. Haleakala being the most commonly assumed one on the island of Maui. But many seekers of scared places forget the scenic gem of the pacific, Puunene. No matter where your journey on Maui takes you, the vision of Puunene in all it's stunning glory will often be in view during your journey to just about anywhere on the island.

Recently the mystic Braco visited Maui for a series of sacred gazing events at Studio Maui in Haiku. Perhaps best described by this informative article in the local Maui Time newspaper. However, we were able to capture this stunning image of Braco's secret visit to the sacred healing energy of Puunene, as witnessed in this photograph that captures the mystical power of this secret gazing event in all it's glory.

Puunene, Scenic Gem of the Pacific

No trip to Maui is complete without a glimpse of scenic Puunene, it's kind of hard to miss the billowing smoke stacks, the defining landmark of central Maui. Of course what really amazes me is that there's an old post office located there, since the surrounding area could be used as a backlot for the next road warrior movie, as long as it took place in dry and dusty cane fields.

Dual Mode

This one is pretty interesting to see auto paint, since it's based on a dual mode paint preset and the internal structure of the figures keeps evolving over time. I think it's a variation of one of Denis Miller's Studio Artist dual mode presets that he was kind enough to share with me. The use of auto-masking is a key factor in the shape maintaining continuity, it would quickly move to extreme abstraction without that additional feature.

Beach Walk

Some experiments with some new auto-masking techniques while working with the paint synthesizer and preset randomization.

Ovalation

More experiments alternating 2 different techniques in Studio Artist gallery show. I'm partial to water wash for the favorites folder used for the cycle starts, but there's really an infinite variety of different approaches you could take to build a custom favorites folder.

Paia Quicki-Mart

Re-contexturalization of the main intersection in the center of Paia next to the Quicki-Mart. I'm using the Studio Artist temporal scan tracker to process some video footage with a reverse scan direction from the actual video pan. And the coverage is setup to introduce a lot of visual stutter.

Abstract Color Wash

Abstract color wash texture field generated during some automated testing for the Studio Artist 4.03 update.

Vectorizer Washes

Alternating randomized vectorizer presets with paint synthesizer water washes during Studio Artist 4.03 gallery show testing.

Gallery Show Auto Masking 3

Another gallery show image grabbed during testing for the Studio Artist 4.03 update.

Gallery Show Auto Masking 2

More experiments fine tuning the auto-mask options for Studio Artist 4's gallery Show feature. I'm running dual techniques with most of these tests, so randomized paint presets alternated with a favorites folder of water washes.

Gallery Show Auto Masking

I'm doing some last minute tweaking to improving some of the auto-mask features in Studio Artist 4.03 gallery show. This popped out of some automated testing.

Source Granulator

Not my usual thing, but it worked out kind of fun. It's based on some source granulation in the Studio Artist paint synthesizer.

Paia Town Approach

Another moving video shot taken while driving into Paia town. Static image generated by processing a video feed into the Studio Artist 4 scan tracker.

Hough Sketch

Luck of the draw BW sketch effect. The overall effect needs some work but interesting generation approach. Building some of this stuff into some of the image operation effects in Studio Artist 4.

Hanging Streamers

Hanging MSG Streamers. More abstract MSG imagery created via directed evolution in the Studio Artist 4 evolution editor.

Space Filling Streamers

More experiments with MSG streamers along with space filling curve generation.

MSG Streamers 4

More experiments with MSG Streamer effects in Studio Artist 4.

Eye Detection 2

Another experiment using facial feature detection to modulate vector abstraction.

Hana Box Lunch

No trip to Hana is complete without picking up a Hana Box Lunch in Paia. Twisting some video footage into a static image using the experimental smart seam option in Scan Tracker2.