Talk - Practical Pigment Mixing for Digital Painting

[@secretweapons1199]

Hey guys, thanks a lot for your comments and interest! To those asking how to get Mixbox in their favorite painting software - Mixbox is a module for developers, it needs to be implemented within the software. The integration is fairly easy and quick but it has to be done by the creators of the software themselves. So, the best way to get Mixbox into Photoshop, Clip Paint Studio, etc. is to tell them that you want it there! If they see the demand, they might get it for you :) If you don't know where to write, we have a list of contact links on our website: scrtwpns.com/mixbox

[@nekkowe]

Krita isn't able to implement Mixbox because the license is incompatible with GPL :(

[@BobStarship]

@CLIPSTUDIOPAINTchannel 👀

[@CVerse]

This is a tremendous achievement in digital painting that I’m hoping other software will incorporate this natively in the future. We REALLY need this as artists! I’ll be sharing this around my SIGGRAPH student chapter, CSUF ACM SIGGRAPH

[@pastuh]

Look at old videos "Adobe Playful Palette" for me its very strange, why it was forgotten..

[@artaccelerator167]

This almost made me cry with joy! I also really enjoyed the entire video and explanation! Thank you so much for sharing your experience with this process and for advancing digital art through your results!

[@fiser87]

A small, self-contained problem with such an impact. Love it!

[@TheMokeleMbembe]

This is so cool. I have been experimenting w the Rebelle demo and noticed this feature/difference. Despite years of using physical oils & gouache as well as Photoshop, Krita, Corel Painter, I had never been able to put that fine a point on this difference (I used the digital tools much differently than the traditional media, which accounts for that in part). I am so glad someone figured out how to do this and then was able to get it implemented!

[@danceloco]

how can i install it. also what program are you using??

[@davirosa]

AMAZING GUYS! I smiled a lot when you applied the phatalo blue over a bright background... You Know? That´s the exact effect of transparent pigments painted in a thin wash... I got here cause I´m sick of digital oil brushes! LoL - But my wish is far away more simple. I just wish that they pull and mix just a little more consistently - to "grab" more paint from canvas... I´m looking forward to see your source in a painting software!!

[@dv6165]

FINALLY! I've been wishing for this for soooo long! I will be forever grateful that you have crossed that frontier and broken the barriers!

[@cyanidebass6519]

Finally one pertinent and practical view about this topic we hardly find informations about ! thanks

[@nikolaikai940]

Thank you for all the hard work you've put into this! I love digital painting but the old color mixing system where everything gets dull and grey has always been a huge source of frustration. This is a big step towards bridging the digital/analog gap. Tremendous work! 👍

[@Halefall]

16:24 Look at that!! this is absolutely fantastic, thank you so so much for researching and developing this!

[@volotat]

Wow, what an amazing work. I never thought the problem of color mixing might be so complex.

[@secretweapons1199]

Same here, it was a deep rabbit hole!

[@caddywampa6602]

@@secretweapons1199 Am I correct in my understanding here: because your technique relies on every RGB color corresponding 1:1 to a mix of those 4 pigments (hansa yellow opaque, pthalo blue green shade, quinacridone magenta and titanium white) it cannot account for the different mixing behaviors of colors that are metamers- those have different spectral distributions but the same tristimulus response and therefore appear the same to the eye. So if Rebelle, using your system, has a color called "cobalt blue", and one called "cadmium red", each of these is actually a blend of your 4 pigments that simply appear to the eye like cobalt blue and cadmium red, but will not behave like real cobalt blue and cadmium red when combined. Is that correct? Your system does look amazing, is a huge improvement over standard linear RGB interpolation, and appears extremely usable. But I feel like Rebelle is overselling it a bit by describing it as "physical color mixing based on the light spectrum of the pigments" (direct quote) without mentioning that its only using those 4. Traditional painters are accustomed to using a wider pallette of pigments for their varied blending effects, and are liable to be confused and disappointed when named pure pigments in the program don't act like their real world counterparts. Most won't know the physics of what's wrong, but they'll know it intuitively.

[@secretweapons1199]

@@caddywampa6602 Hi Caddy! You're right, this is the limitation of the method described in our paper. Luckily, we were able to extend the palette of pigments that Mixbox is based on to a wider range, about 8 pigments now. But yes, the palette of pigments from which each RGB color is internally mixed is still limited and if the Kubelka-Munk physics is performed on a 3-channel RGB canvas, it will always be limited. But the good thing is that we can produce more variations of Mixboxes. This is the first version, if artists demand a different palette, we can make an alternate Mixbox. We just wanted to introduce the pigment behavior into the digital world - saturated gradients to white, hue shifts, and of course, the correct secondary colors, because we didn't see any software that could actually do all this. We tried so many of them and all we came across were just hacks to push some green between blue and yellow. This is a start, we hope the color mixing in digital painting will improve over time even more :)

[@bowreshma5517]

Is the version of rebelle you tested/showed Rebelle 5? That version has natural pigment mixing.

[@benjaminlehmann]

This was an excellent video. Thank you.

[@gingerfreak01]

Great video. This was from 2021 and Rebelle (in 5 Pro) introduced their pigments functionality in 2022, which while not perfect is pretty good. Did they use Mixbox for this?

[@mazetrap3230]

Well, I see the video is from December 2021 when Rebelle already announced the pigments in their Rebelle 5, a bit later CSP 2.0 also added it and I heard some other programs have it too, like Corel or one other but I don't remember the name (I never used it but my friend does).

[@laniakeas92]

Corel doesn't have it. Current programms who work with these engines are: - Rebelle 6 pro (best in terms of color mixing right now) - Clip Studio Paint 2 (slightly worse mixing. They have problem in mixing blue and red still, because they didn't buy Mixbox engine from programmers, instead they decided to recreate it themselves and slightly failed) - Artstudio Pro - Realistic Paint Studio

[@KazuAnki]

THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH ! I finally understand why my digital painting look disgusting after blending🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 The math examples are so cool !! And this's why we always wonder why real oil paintings look better than digital ones even if there are professional !

[@erevanayen]

These people are single-handedly revolutionizing the cgi industry and it's awesome to watch. Great work!

[@theblowupdollsmusic]

Thank you for pushing digital art forward.

[@_spartan11796]

I never thought about this problem before.

[@KazuAnki]

This's crazy. You guys are amazing!!!

[@Kavukamari]

curious about a light and pigment based painting rendering engine now which stores the reflectance in every pixel, then you can shine different colors of light at it and get physically correct reflections, so you can use mixbox to accurately mix the colors, then use this renderer to accurately represent the result in any simulated light

[@PiercingSight]

Honestly this should have been a common standard since day one! I'm actually surprised it hasn't been implemented yet. I could have sworn there were already such algorithms out there. Also, I am a bit sad that the code isn't under a Creative Commons or GPL license. Don't get me wrong, y'all deserve a lot of credit for this! But this feels like something that should belong to everyone, especially considering the algorithm itself has been around since 1931. I'm certain other implementations will eventually pop up under more open licenses. But again, y'all are awesome for this!

[@jame5j]

Game changer. Kudos on the excellent work.

[@JanPospisilArt]

Cool to see, hopefully it gets adopted into more software. (ArtRage has had a real color mixing mode for a while and it does pretty much the same thing. Or at least the output is similar, obviously the inner workings might be different.)

[@gibson2623]

Rebelle 7 addresses this topic with some success. Clip Studio Paint introduced perception mixing to improve this as well :)

[@ranjanjoshi3454]

Thanks it’s difficult yet insightful the light theory and pigment theory

[@tr1ph0p]

Excellent job on distributing code for this. It was very doable to implement into my project, even inside of an obscure language with many lacking features.

[@BigRobAustria]

Wow amazing! Will you guys be making this into an actual iPad app? This would be amazing!

[@lucabonini2233]

Super cool and great explanation!

[@mozartwa1]

this is a strange and illusory correct idea that leads to an unpredictable result in practice. (tested by users) if you mix real paints for a long time, you will get an even and identical tone and shade, but if you mix it in a digital palette, it will lead to endless mixing and colors that should not be obtained under any circumstances. for example, when mixing blue and yellow, you will eventually get purple and red, which cannot happen in life. the fallacy of the idea is not in the use of mathematical formulas, but in the idea of ​​such mixing. it is easier to program the values ​​of shades mechanically, especially since many artists simply do not need the real behavior of pigments. with a mechanical solution to the problem, you just need to enter a coefficient that will give the desired shade in the interval between the selected colors.

[@ymidt]

very well explained, thank you!

[@BrianLife]

Sarka is Awesome!

[@rocamonde]

This is perfectly wonderful.

[@avrahamvofsi]

Amazing!!! Has this been implemented in any professional programs yet?

[@laniakeas92]

The more my color understanding became better the more I realised how much I disliked other drawing software programs. Your product is the closest now on the market for natural color mixing. Though there is no end to perfection as we all used to say. Amazing stuff. Can we mix that way any color from color square/circle or only a specific amount ot fixed pigments in the newer version? Edit: Yep. We can mix all colors like that. Not only specific pigments. Checked. So go and buy Rebelle 5.

[@wuketuke6601]

This is mindblowing

[@ronnykhalil]

mind blown. I love you wizards

[@marceloaguirree]

im kinda confused this is a new program or a plug in for other programs

[@StrayVertex]

What a great presentation of a super interesting problem!

[@fernsehdesign]

wow. is this going to be a plugin or so, AfterEffects, photoshop?

[@secretweapons1199]

Hi, thanks for your question. Mixbox is actually a tool for developers, it needs to be implemented within the software. But the integration is fairly easy and we'd be happy to license it to Adobe, I personally would love it in Photoshop, so if you want it in any of your favorite software, make sure to let the creators know in a forum or via e-mail :)

[@fernsehdesign]

@@secretweapons1199 as if like Adobe cares about customers wishes… so sad..

[@fernsehdesign]

@@secretweapons1199 Maybe you could contact Serif.

[@michelfrance75]

ArtRage software has long offered a realistic color mixing mode that meets your needs. But the reality is even more complex because you do not take into account the chemical reactions between pigments. This is the reason why it is difficult to achieve by mixing violet, green ash tones or Veronese green, etc. No real or digital mixture will be able to simulate mercury sulfide red PR106 (true vermillion prohibited), arsenic pigment green forbidden (true green ash) or cobalt violet PV14. And often the kinetics of these reactions are slow (example of chrome yellow PY34 lead chromate used by Van Gogh which is fades over the years).

[@katokianimation]

Great video. This should be industry standard

[@marblizor]

I have 0 faith on adobe. if adobe or other application developers wont adapt it, would it be possible to have this to be developed as a color mixing plug-in in future? like a separate plug-in inside photoshop where we could mix colors and sample from there?

[@dColorOfBoom]

What did you study to be able to approach the solution from a mathematical angle?

[@_Geist]

how the heck do i get from where i am, to designing stuff like this?? i have only studied the python language, and am a beginner, but.. this video right here is such a cool overlap of science and art, i wanna get into whatever field this is.

[@callmedeno]

Math, math, math. programming is one of the easiest things to do but if you don't have the mathematical background (preferably in proof-based approach) you don't have a toolbox from which novel ideas like this can be built. You can hack away at stuff, and maybe research the math behind things as they go, but if you have a deeper understanding of math then you get more ideas and just implement them using programming. Basic Mathematics - Serg Lang Calculus - Tom Apostol Linear Algebra - Georgi Shilov

[@foxandvelvet]

Mind blowing, well done!

[@UliTroyo]

This is so awesome! Can't wait to try real digital color mixing.

[@JWLearning]

Are you familiar with the app Realistic Paint Studio? It's been out for about 3 years and seems to have already solved the digital 'mixing' problem. That software mixes paint like it would with real pigments, very similar to the demo here. Very lifelike results.

Very impresive stuff!

[@pockypurse]

So... h-how exactly do I install this?

[@RickOShay]

How do you measure absorption and scatter coef - with different types of surfaces? I assume you would need a look up table LUT with weights for each surface type. This would then presumably also work well with 3D render engines, digital image/video conversions and bw recolouring.

[@secretweapons1199]

Actually, the absorption and scatter were measured on paints that fully cover the surface. To mix or layer paints properly, we need the coefficients of their mass tone form. Layering them on different types of surfaces can then be handled with another Kubelka & Munk equation for pigments compositing.

[@RickOShay]

@@secretweapons1199 Thanks a lot for info and a very interesting video!

[@secretweapons1199]

If you're interested in how spectral measuring of paints work, we definitely recommend the work of Yoshio Okumura - Developing a Spectral and Colorimetric Database of Artist Paint, he explains everything in much greater detail than I could ever do in a simple comment :) www.researchgate.net/publication/36183327_Developing_a_Spectral_and_Colorimetric_Database_of_Artist_Paint

[@OmegaFalcon]

Woah this is so cool!!

[@Taronites]

Nobody in the digital painter world, except for Verve Painter! 😁 ...I've done that about 10 years ago, because it annoyed me, too. It wasn't "perfect", but quite natural and adjustable on top of it. I'd just be careful with throwing around the "nobody" claim, but I've never in all the years advertised my painter...so....mea culpa.

[@Kavukamari]

oh hey it's taron from verve, i remember using your program a while ago

[@Taronites]

@@Kavukamari Hehe, thanks! Working on an online version right now, but quite evolved. I'm still gnawing on a better color mixing concept and this here is quite a nice motivator! 😄

[@Onderwish]

how about into procreate?

[@c2thaj2tha71]

WHOOOA is this why Clip Studio Paint now lets you blend colors naturally??

[@chongillespie]

This is fascinating! Maybe a stupid question, but does anyone know if this could be applied to krita via a python plugin?

[@mz5347]

So......we can't install this feature on our own? I don't know how to install this thing.

[@mz5347]

@@laniakeas92 Thanks for replying, but I check the price, it's too expensive for me, I use clip stuido paint for now, they can also blending color this way now.

[@aylix2137]

Beautiful and intelligent work! How would I go about using this in Krita? Is that doable?

[@schwipsy]

Doesnt artrage already do this with their real color mix mode?

[@damienwise1626]

Also mypaint, and it's open source, though it only works on some brushes and some colors

[@damienwise1626]

But they both don't behave like in the video except for mixing yellow and blue

[@AwesTube]

Absolutely phenomenal!

[@KazuAnki]

Are you going to make a paint app? 😭😭

[@abrahamwondafrash7549]

@3:31 you have swaped properties long and short must be short and long.

[@teinili]

We are only a little more than a month away from CSP finally implementing this I think :O

[@laniakeas92]

Not really. Rebelle has perfected version of this feature. Csp 2 still suсks at mixing red and blue pigments specifically. Several people on KZbin made comparisons of rebelle 6 and csp2.

[@Armlesscrayon]

I downloaded the Rebelle5 demo, and although it has the best watercolours of everyone, I can’t get oil to mix like you describe. But I can in ArtRage! I’d like to buy Rebelle5 but at 200.00 Canadian that’s crazy! Lol…thanks for this.

[@Kavukamari]

it has to be rebelle pro, and you have to turn on "pigment" mode, i imagine soon more free software will include this and rebelle will have to move the feature to personal edition to keep up

[@callmedeno]

@@Kavukamari is pigment mode implementing results comparable to this?

[@Kavukamari]

@@callmedeno it is yes

[@Muthukaviyarasan]

Try Rebelle 5 pigment 🙋🏻‍♂️

[@johnkon2810]

Well done. Cheers!

[@gholamrezadar]

Cool!

[@ahermartin1]

Fantastic explanation

[@FunctionStore]

beautiful work!

[@Tsakadragon]

this is cool as hell, but as a non-programmer i'm totally lost on how to implement the github files!

[@rodrigop.9071]

Bravo! 👏🏼

[@ChristopherHemsworthCreative]

Truly fascinating! Also I noticed that you did not mention ArtRage which SEEMS to do this out of the box? I can't paste a screenshot here obviously, but it has a "true color mixing" option and seems to produce the expected mix from two colours. Now, having said that, it's quite possible that it's not as accurate as your model, but I thought it was worth bringing up. My painting programs of choice are Photoshop, Krita, Realistic, HeavyPaint, and ArtRage. Thanks again for this!

[@laniakeas92]

No. ArtRage doesn't have correct colors. I actually compared it with rebelle5/6 and narural mixing For now, Rebelle has the most perfected color mixing engine

[@Automatik234]

Just wow!

[@nope.goback]

Interesting!

[@matiasreba]

HOLY COWWWWW

[@Mentalbox52]

You cover rgb, but hsv is a very different story for those willing to implement it.

[@Kavukamari]

RGB and HSV are just two different ways to represent the same information, same with LAB, HSL, Hex, etc, internally in most programs the colors are stored in RGB or RGBA with a certain number of bits for each channel, i don't know of any programs which store colors in HSV natively

[@wisherfox]

Paint tool sai can do it

[@D3athW1ng]

Crazy ... but cool. Why not just make add ons for all the existing software. Folks would eat that up. :D

[@johnkon2810]

To be fair, Rebelle/Mix-box (sorry, I forgot the name), isn't the first or the only, software to have digital paint mixing and/or have good results. * In fact, you left out a software's feature, that you used for comparison: Fresco's live brushes. Their watercolor live brushes mix digital paint very well. * That said... your doing an extremely good job. Your digital paint pigments mix very well. It isn't a gimmick also. The paint mixing is wonderfully intuitive and useful. There is still, room for improvement though. I look forward to seeing this technology improve. You have a good parter in Escape Emotions' Rebelle. Keep up the great work 👍

[@dallas88b]

Now, ArtStudio Pro supports Pigment engine. Blue and yellow make green etc... kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqqXZXagZ9dsidk

[@Avisponnn]

You’re using wrong colors 😭. Which you can OBVIOUSLY see by the undertones. The irl “blue” is more cyan. When you mix cyan and yellow you get green. But on digital you actually used blue. Since blue and yellow are opposites, they make grey or black.

[@moritzsur997]

Bob Ross would be proud...

[@aLittlePal]

wow. this is good stuff!