Expresii Officially Launched! 【Expresii 寫意】正式推出！

Expresii is officially launched!!   (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧​

Download Expresii 軟件下載       (for Windows only)

It's been a long time. When MoXi was first unveiled in 2005, I was asked how soon it could become an actual product. I answered, 'could be two years'. In 2006, MoXi was licensed to Adobe, and I was even hired to do tech transfer. I was hoping MoXi would have good future there, but the story didn't evolve as I thought.  

Anyway, if they can't make it happen, we will.  

I know we all love free software but sorry that we need to start charging for the tool now (introductory price  US$59), since it took a lot of time and effort to create a tool with such advanced algorithms.  I think this is the most direct and healthy  way for Expresii to  grow without going down the path of showing ads or  telling you it's free but then charging you in  some funny way.  Your financial support would determine if small guys like us can survive or if we are left with tools coming from big companies only ​.

About Expresii

Expresii is a ground-breaking paint app featuring:

• ​Yibi  Brush  Engine -  giving you power to create organic shapes like wielding a real brush
• Moxi  Paint Engine   -  with fluid dynamics   bringing water-based paint sim to a whole new level
• Youji  Rendering Engine -  allowing ultra-deep zoom with hybrid  vector-raster representation

The development of Expresii traces back to 1999 when Computer Graphics researcher Nelson Chu first designed a 3D deformable virtual Chinese (sumi-e) brush.  Subsequently he devised fluid-dynamics-based ink simulation, which was presented at SIGGRAPH 2005 under the name of  MoXi .  The MoXi  brush and ink tech was licensed to Adobe in 2006.
Expresii  is a successor of MoXi  developed   by Nelson Chu over the past four years  with improved simulation and rendering.  Expresii for Windows is now offered at an introductory price of $59 with trial license key  available.  

Notes to Users/Reviewers

Here are a few points we would like to make  sure you are aware of:

• Expresii currently focuses     on mimicking Eastern ink painting/calligraphy only.   
• Eastern ink   is similar to but not  exactly like Western watercolor.  e.g.  a drop of  watery paint  on most Eastern painting  paper s would absorbed and spread out immediately; on Western watercolor paper the drop   would just sit there without spreading.

For long-time digital painters, picking up Expresii requires some mind-shifting or getting used to:

•  Paint with a Gradient -  In contrast to traditional paint apps, picking up of colors in Expresii is pressure-sensitive.  The harder you press, the color  goes more into the tuft. This way, you can get a multi-color loading similar to how you do it in real-life Eastern ink painting. Expand your skill set by learning to  use the side of the brush to paint with a gradient instead of one color at a time.
• Economy of Strokes  -  Try to reduce the number of strokes you make.  More for less.  In Expresii, we make it possible to appreciate even one individual stroke.  
• Rhythm is Everything -  in some  paint apps,  you may be  stamping  scanned  bitmaps of real  strokes.  At an extreme,  this is close  to  how a designer works where you position design elements to form a composition .  In Expresii, we want to promote another way of painting -  one that  is almost a   record of the movement of the brush driven by your hand.  It's gestural.  It's more like  a  serendipity where you can't create the exact same thing twice.
• Choice and Chance - You  make some strokes  and let the wet ink  do its thing.   It's not just  simple put-that-color-there thing.  The ink reacts to your action and   could inspire your next stroke.  
• Limited layers -  Currently Expresii  only supports two layers.  We'll  support for more layers in the future. In the meantime,  the Snap-Down (rasterizing) to  Underlay  acts as a  temporary    solution when you run out of layers.   Given only two layers, we usually do linework   on one, and color/fills on the  other.

To tablet users:   Expresii is not yet optimized for tablet use yet since  for quick operation, you still need a keyboard.  In addition,  most tablet computers  today still don't support pen tilt sensing.  For now, we recommend  using a desktop with a graphics tablet  that supports tilt sensing. 

​重拾筆的感覺

現在一般繪圖軟件，思想較近西方傳統，’brush'  一般就是用來‘塗’的，比較像‘刷子’。但東方毛筆是書寫工具，經多年發展表現力尤佳，東方繪畫的基礎訓練是書法，其正是要訓練操控筆的能力。在我們Expresii 軟件裡，您可以重拾筆的感覺：透過手的動作自然地做出不同的點、線、面。Expresii 的筆，也是眾多繪圖軟件中，最能充份利用帶側鋒感應的專業級電繪筆的。

水墨淋漓 

當然還有我們的水墨。我們是應用了流體力學來模擬水墨流動，以做到目前為止世界上最自然的實時水墨效果。
We use  Computational Fluid  Dynamics  for our ink flow simulation to give you the most  natural results. ​

突破像素局限

現在的繪圖軟件還有個問題，就是圖不能放很大，放太大會看到一粒粒的像素。 所以我們一再革新，用混合向量像素（hybrid-vector-raster）的方式來儲存繪畫數據，讓Expresii 的圖可以放很大。
​We  use  a novel  hybrid-vector-raster   representation to allow  high degree of zooming in.

作者感言

老套點講，製作Expresii 真是嘔心瀝血。現在終於正式推出了，儘管還有不完善的地方。

感謝【狐朦大叔】作者Tom 一直支持。他也剛出書了（用Expresii 畫），感覺是一起生了小孩。還有感謝一直支持的Shuen Leung, Mark Lam, 日本的 Kuroda-san ，和盧生、李生和最近認識的飯主等前輩的經驗分享和幫忙，還有Wacom 台灣總經理Martin的推介和其他高層的賞識，和其他曾經給予鼓勵支持的朋友。
​
從美國辭職回來已五年，也一直沒收入五年^。長期沒收入，在亞洲社會是很難理解的（一直以為李安只待家兩年，原來六年才對），我前幾天還真的被問 ‘還未找工作？’，也曾被問回來後悔否。其實在哪發展最好，難說，但肯定的是，在這邊比較近父母，還有可以在外婆的最後幾年多點看她。

2002年去北京發表虛擬毛筆的論文，時年二十五當是個交代。現在趕在四十歲前把Expresii 推出了，也算是個交代。我的青春都放在這電腦繪畫的研發了。 作為一個東方人，我覺得有責任去把我們最好的東西，承傳並發展下去。筆有千秋業！

-  Nelson Chu
2016.07.24
^ 感謝去年澳門的學會請我演講給了點講費，幾年前香港Poly 的Wilson 找我也有一點點講費