HeroCanvas

HeroCanvas is a software tool for artists and content creators wanting to focus more on creating and less on managing the finished content.

A big part of being a creator is to present your work to the world. Images need cropping, videos need converting and files need naming and saving. It’s a constant back and forth between creating and getting the content in a presentable state. While HeroCanvas can’t post on social media (yet) it can significantly cut down on the time wasted on getting the content ready to be published.

Currently there is no official release available for HeroCanvas. It’s a piece of software we developed for ourselves out of necessity. Still, we think it’s a great idea and a useful tool for artists and content creators. Check back to see where we take HeroCanvas in the future or reach out to us if you have any questions or business proposals.

Here is a brief outline of the workflow using HeroCanvas and how it operates.

Painting

The Artist paints in Photoshop on a square canvas. Trying to keep the focal point somewhere in the middle, avoiding placing anything important in the four corners. This is to ensure that the finished painting will work in both a horizontal and a vertical orientation.

Folders

Images are saved in a sequenced number for each new painting.

Image Files

At the end of every file a version number is added on to keep track of its order. The artist can stop and later continue painting again, each time adding to the version numbering.

Recording

During the painting process everything is recorded using a screen recorder software. In this case a software called OBS. It has the ability to capture a specific window application. In Photoshop this will capture and record just the canvas area and at the same time ignore distracting tools and popup dialogs.

Video files

Video files are saved in the same sequenced manner as images for consistency. The artist can pause the recording or stop and later resume, again adding to the version numbering to keep track.

Video files are optional and not a requirement. Perhaps the artist forgot to record or just chose not to. HeroCanvas will detect if there are video capture files available and if not, skip and continue to the next step.

Exporting

When the artist is finished for the day, that’s when HeroCanvas goes to work using the content that was created. During this time HeroCanvas will crop, convert, merge and generate everything needed to later present it to the world. This entire process can be scheduled to run at night when the artist is asleep or manually whenever needed.

Images

The first task is to scale and crop the artwork and then generate all the different versions used in high quality printing. HeroCanvas creates squared, landscape and portrait versions all in a range of small, medium and high resolutions.

Next, smaller versions that are more suited for social media and the web are created.

And lastly, images used in the videos to show the finished painting called plates are generated. These are inserted at the beginning and the end of the video.

Speedpaintings

Creating art can be a lengthy process and the total runtime of all captured video can be several hours. Usually too long for the average viewer to sit through. To present this in a more convenient way, HeroCanvas can create a sped up version often called a speedpainting video. This is a complicated process that will merge all captured video files into a single file and then based on predefined values, calculate the target length and speed of the video.

By default, HeroCanvas will generate two different versions. A quick one minute video for fast viewing and a longer ten minutes video suited for a more in-depth look. All these time values are fully customizable by the user.

A watermark is added to both images and videos based on predefined templates. The sequence and version numbers are also added on top of the templates for easy identification.

If days later the artist wants to pick up a previous painting to continue creating further iterations, HeroCanvas will detect this and again start generating new updated content.

“HeroCanvas is the perfect companion ensuring time is spent on what really matters. Automating the boring and tedious parts leaving the human to focus on creating the art, just the way it should be.”

– Jörgen “gurkoz” Alexandersson, Founder