From: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!turtleva!ken Newsgroups: net.graphics Title: Re: art and c.g. Article-I.D.: turtleva.169 Posted: Tue Mar 1 01:58:28 1983 Received: Tue Mar 1 07:47:00 1983 References: cornell.4037 Pauline xxx made the statement that all computer graphic art could be done using conventional media. Well, I maintain that art composed with conventional media can be done with computer graphics, and challenge her to prove that her statement is right and mine is wrong. Simulation of artwork composed in a different medium is not the foremost desire of computer graphic art, although it has proved useful in bringing artists up to speed on computer graphic equipment. I was one of the engineers on the Ampex Video Art (AVA) project, which was a 2-dimensional graphic composition system designed especially for the artist: no switches, keyboards or knobs, because all interaction was through the use of the electronic stylus and menus. We invited all sorts of artists to use the equipment; others begged us to use it. They customized it by creating special brushes, favorite palettes, and useful sub-images. Their comments were extremely useful in enhancing the basic paint system. Some of the effects generated were similar to those of pen and watercolor, acrylic, and oil, in addition to surrealistic images "characteristic of computer graphics". One techno-artist even went so far as to simulate the low resolution graphics of the TRS-80 by blocking, or "pixellating". Scan-in capability was important to enter sketches that had been drawn in a more familiar environment. Magnify was important for details. Simple ways to create the color map suitable for anti-aliasing (although they didn't understand the theory, they liked the non-jagged lines), including random color map generation and reorganization, made choosing the palette less tedious. Grid overlays gave a reference for orientation and scale, whereas arbitrary overlays made it easier to do frame-to-frame animation. Powerful titling capability was indispensable for the television news graphic artists, including multiple fonts, sizes, colors. Of course, massive storage capability for intermediate drawings was a must. Some things which were not implemented, but were suggested as important factors in choosing to buy the equipment were: Support for animation including automatic generation of a series of size changes and translations. Full color to allow mixing of colors in a way that color-mapped systems cannot. Ken Turkowski {decvax,ucbvax}!decwrl!turtlevax!ken