Reference images and files

Words only go so far. Attach images to show Perlin the look you're after, and files to give it something to work from: a brief, a brand guide, a deck, a web page, code or data. Perlin studies them and builds what it learns into the piece's own code.

There are three kinds of attachment, and each does a different job:

This page covers the first two. For your own files in the piece, see Using assets in a piece.

Attaching images or files

1. Open the attach menu

   Click the paperclip in the toolbar under the prompt box. Choose Upload reference images ("For style and ideas.") or Upload files ("PDFs, web pages, code: for Perlin to read."). The third choice, Choose from your assets, is for files that go into the piece.

2. Or drop or paste them

   Drag images or files anywhere onto the studio and let go when it says Drop references. You can also paste an image, a PDF or a text file into the prompt box. With the Assets panel open, dropped files go into your asset library instead.

3. Say what to take

   Attached images and files wait above the prompt box, and the box asks you to say what to take from them. Click an image to see it larger, or the cross to remove it. Perlin numbers images in the order you add them, so you can say "the palette from the first image and the light from the second".

4. Send

   Send with or without words. With none, Perlin makes a piece inspired by the images, or based on the files; with a piece already on the stage, it brings their look or their contents into it.

Reference images

Perlin looks at what makes each image work (its palette and values, light, composition, texture and grain, line quality, rhythm and mood) and recreates those qualities in code. The images themselves never go into the piece. What you get is an original piece in their spirit, unless you ask for a close match, and Perlin's reply says what it drew from them.

Good references include artworks, photos, palettes, textures, screenshots and your own sketches.

• Up to 6 images a message.
• Any image your browser can show, SVG included, up to 40 MB each. The studio resizes them before they're sent, so large photos are fine.
• The send button waits while images are being prepared and files are going up.

Images you attached earlier go along again with later messages, so a change still honours the look you set up. A request carries up to 12 images in all; past that the oldest are left out, and Perlin is told they were there.

Files

Files are for Perlin to read and base the piece on: a brand guide's palette, type and tone; a brief's story, copy and structure; a web page's layout, wording and look; code whose behaviour or visuals to recreate; data to visualise. Perlin takes exact values from them, such as hex colours, wording, numbers and timings, rather than approximating. It sees a PDF's pages as well as its text, so its pictures and layout count as references too.

Perlin can read:

• PDFs, such as brand guides, briefs, decks, scripts and storyboards.
• Text files: web pages (HTML), notes and Markdown, CSV and JSON, code and shaders, subtitles, and other plain text.

Anything else is turned away with a note that Perlin reads PDFs and text files, and that images go in as reference images.

File limits

A PDF over 100 pages is refused: export the pages that matter and attach those. A longer text file is read up to the cut, and Perlin is told where it was cut. Attaching a great many files in a minute or an hour asks you to wait a little.

Files you attached earlier go along again with later messages, newest first, up to 10 a request; older ones are mentioned where they were attached. Each file goes up as soon as you add it, its chip showing progress, then its format and its pages or size.

Web pages with images and fonts in them

A web page saved with its images and fonts written inside it is still read to the end: those embedded parts are left out of the text, and up to four of its images are shown to Perlin as pictures. Perlin never fetches a link a file points to.

When the piece needs the file itself

Files never reach the piece: Perlin builds what it needs from them into the code. If the piece should show your actual brand font or a photo, add it to your asset library and attach it from there. Until you do, Perlin builds the closest stand-in it can.

Related

• Using assets in a piece
• Your asset library
• Asking Perlin for a piece
• Changing a piece