Here’s some exciting news: we made a short film! I worked on this for much of last year, alongside a multitalented and diverse group of artists, engineers, researchers, and musicians. Everyone wore several hats on this project, and for me it was a welcome return to character animation. I got to supervise a small but mighty team of animators (both 2D and 3D) and even animate a few shots myself! This was also a chance for me to dive into working with generative models, discover what they’re actually good for, and help the researchers developing them make them useful to us, so we could wield them as artistic tools. The process was full of really interesting surprises! You can read more about how we did it here…
We’ve been invited to screen the film, and do an hour-long panel about how we made it, at the Sundance Institute’s Story Forum today. I’m thrilled to be back at Sundance (the last time I was here was for Word Wars back in 2004!)
Raquel practices guitar while my watercolor simulation paints her portrait.
Here you can also see a first glimpse of the GUI I’m building for live performance. This was my first dry run of the whole system, including webcam and external monitor. Still could use some optimization: the frame rate dropped to 16fps, I think due to thermal throttling. (You can hear how hard the poor laptop is working… just listen to that fan!)
Spent some time refining control of the instrument: a richer parameter space for stroke planning; new colorspace mapping that handles poor camera conditions (over- or underexposure); two new types of limited color palette (inspired by the gorgeous plein air experiments of my friend Susan Hayden). I’ve also exposed a bunch of fluid sim parameters so they can be tweaked on the fly for maximum effect. This is starting to feel almost robust enough to play live on stage. Lots more work to do though…
Here are some portraits of friends and family I’ve made over the past few months. I love seeing people through this strange lens. Originally I imagined this system as something that would stand on its own in a gallery, automatically painting whoever stopped by. But there’s something special about the way people react in real time as the machine paints their portrait. There’s a feedback loop between subject, painter, and machine. So now I’m working on making the system more interactive, so people can see what’s going on inside the black box, and I can play the controls like a musical instrument.
I’m midway through a (major, long overdue) overhaul of the fluid transport layer of my watercolor simulation. Made some good progress over the weekend. But more importantly: I made lots of new bugs. Glorious, unrepentant, face-eating bugs. I almost don’t have the heart to squash them.
Continuing to explore the parameter space of this watercolor simulation. Enjoying the contrast between natural and artificial, accidental and planned. Really enjoying what’s starting to happen with color. Finding bugs, fixing bugs, creating new bugs. This is getting close to the point where I’d use it to paint someone’s portrait.
Some refinements on the Chuck Close homage, and then a left turn into something very different. The bugs in my code are a source of unending joy and frustration. Someday, maybe, I’ll fix them, but where’s the fun in that?
Cassidy Curtis's splendid display of colorful things.
