System and Method for Natural Media Painting Using Automatic Brush Cleaning and Filling Modes

Abstract

Systems, methods, and apparatus for simulating natural media painting in a digital painting application (or painting simulation module) may provide an automatic brush cleaning feature and an automatic brush filling feature, which may be separately selectable by a user. When enabled, these features may cause the digital painting application (or simulation module) to automatically clean a virtual paint brush (e.g., by emptying both a reservoir buffer and a pickup buffer of a brush model) and / or automatically fill the virtual paint brush with paint (e.g., by storing data representing paint in the reservoir buffer) between brush strokes. These automated actions may be performed in response to detecting the completion of a brush stroke, or in response to detecting the initiation of a next brush stroke. Settings for these automated actions may be overridden by initiating manual brush cleaning and / or filling operations between strokes (e.g., following any automated actions that are enabled).

Description

PRIORITY INFORMATION[0001]This application claims benefit of priority of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61 / 247,366 entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Simulating Natural Media Painting in Digital Media” filed Sep. 30, 2009, the content of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.BACKGROUNDDescription of the Related Art[0002]One component of the simulation of real natural media paint is the method by which paint moves between the brush and the canvas. There are a number of highly visible effects that depend on this interaction, and in order to provide a high-fidelity recreation of real paint strokes, this interaction should be accurately reproduced. Real natural paint media with thick paints such as oil paints, acrylics, gouache, etc., exhibit a variety of different behaviors that are important aspects of how painters achieve their results. Many of these behaviors come from the fact that paint deposition by a brush on a canvas is not a one-way transfer—that is...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes a system that can improve the accuracy and efficiency of simulating natural media painting in a digital painting application. It does this by using a two-layer model of a virtual paintbrush, which allows for a more accurate reproduction of realistic brush strokes than conventional methods. The system also automatically controls how the virtual paint moves between the layers and the digital canvas in response to user input, making the simulation more realistic. Additionally, the system provides settings for different painting workflows, making it easier for users to quickly clean and fill the brush. Overall, this system improves user efficiency and the quality of the painting simulation compared to conventional tools.

Problems solved by technology

This results in the dirtying of strokes as a brush passes through wet paint on the canvas.

Another effect of real natural media painting is the drying out of the paint on the brush during a stroke, which may result in streaky marks.

By this method, the surface could become dirty from the canvas, but could also be replenished by the reservoir, which could eventually run out of paint to cause dry strokes.

However, a limitation of Baxter's technique is that paint moves between the layers with a constant flow rate.

However, these conventional painting simulation tools typically do not mix or blend the colors on the canvas with the colors in the brush.

In addition, conventional painting simulation tools do not provide intuitive methods to control the manner in which the colors are mixed or the length of stroke that can be made.

As the paint on the canvas is often not all the same color, the physical paint brush may have paint of different colors loaded non-uniformly among and along each of the bristles.

These requirements add complexity to the workflow of a digital brush and make unclear the requirements of an ideal user interface mechanism that would both allow the organic experience of using a real paint brush and provide the flexibility of a digital paint brush.

However, in conventional painting simulation tools, these options tend to be difficult to use, non-intuitive to the user, and counter to the organic feeling of painting.

Furthermore, these conventional methods are not consistent when trying to load a static-tipped virtual brush as compared to a physically-based bristle brush, leading to user confusion.

For example, during painting, the brush will run out of paint and will get dirty.

These behaviors are important for creating realistic paint effects, but in many cases, these behaviors are annoyances that must be worked around.

Painters using conventional, natural paint may develop techniques for cleaning and loading physical paint brushes quickly and without losing focus on their artwork, but these reflexive actions take years to develop.

However, conventional digital painting applications generally model only real painting tools, and require users to manually reproduce the actions a real painter may perform to achieve the desired effects.

Most users only make use of a small percentage of the available tools in these conventional digital painting applications, and thus may be limited in the types of effects that they are able to create.

However, this approach may require the user to perform a significant amount of manual work for common painting tasks, just as with real natural media painting.

This creates a serious usability obstacle for novice users.

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