Neue Testversion 18.90b9

[photoken]

True, Expression lacks the variable width control after drawing the stroke. Expression 3.3 did have more control after drawing a stroke.

I didn't find that capability in ClipStudio Paint Pro, either. Am I missing something?

Have you seen Illustrator's variable width tool in action? It is far more user friendly than a hidden curve display in two modal dialogs. In Illustrator the overall width can be easily controlled, as well as for specific parts of the stroke.
http://www.macprovideo.com/hub/illustra ... th-strokes

I just fail to see or understand how on-canvas controls are supposedly inferior to a curves display that is hidden two layer deep in a model dialog, and which forces the user to abide by trial and error to control the thickness of a specific part of the stroke. That dialog is completely disconnected from the stroke that is displayed in the view.

Yes, I was aware of the "width points" tool introduced in Illustrator CS6. When I first broached the subject of variable width lines in PL a couple of months ago, that was what I was thinking of. However, the Hubers outdid my paltry idea -- shows that it pays to ignore my attempts at prescribing a solution!

IMO, Illustrator's "width points" method is inferior to PL's method because AFAIK you can't draw variable width lines using pen pressure in Illustrator.

You're wrong about PL forcing "trial and error" and being "completely disconnected". Now that we have a live preview in the main editing window, everything is great.

And before the user can return to drawing, those dreaded modal dialogs must be closed again! In illustrator a quick shortcut key switches to the variable width tool, and it is completely interactive and fully controllable as well, because a double-click allows for precise values in dialog.

Modal dialogs are a somewhat different matter than the implementation of the variable width. It's really no big deal to simply click twice to return to the main editing window. If using the dialogs is the price to pay for having the ability to draw variable width vector lines directly with pen pressure, it's well worth the cost.

Now, how can PL's approach ever be called intuitive or efficient compared to that? This is the reason why I was stating it is a logical implementation seen from a programmer's mind, not from a user perspective.

Don't misstate my argument -- I couldn't care less about what some consider "intuitive" or "efficient". Intuitiveness and efficiency are not the most important things. Functionality is. You do a variable width line once in PL and now you know how to do it. No problem. Same as editing a colour.

If anything PL NEEDS a non-model panel that controls the stroke options. Better would be a dedicated tool, or expanding the current vector point tool to allow us to control the width of a stroke. Modal dialogs should be avoided as much as possible, in my opinion. And it would be great if we could assign different brushes to a vector stroke (like expression, illustrator, and many other illustration tools).

I agree that it would be nice to avoid the modal dialogs. I haven't thought this through very thoroughly, but here's my right panel (this is on my notebook PC, so it's probably close to the maximum available space -- I had to reduce this image by 5% to conform to the forum's posting regs):

right panels.png

It looks like the obvious place for a modal dialog replacement would be that the "Tool Settings" panel could have another tab called "Edit Tool Properties" or something that would be where all the functions now done by modal dialogs would occur. Obviously, it would have to be a "smart" tab whose content would change as appropriate for the item being edited. Come to think of it, its width would also have to expand past the width of the right panel to accommodate things like the Curves adjustments, etc. Sounds complicated....

[bkh]

Have you seen Illustrator's variable width tool in action? It is far more user friendly than a hidden curve display in two modal dialogs. In Illustrator the overall width can be easily controlled, as well as for specific parts of the stroke.

I think that both approaches have their pros and cons. Presumably, the difference is most obvious when you modify an existing curve. With the curves approach, the width at individual curve points will change, and the overall transition will remain the same. If you have width points, it's the opposite, I suppose.

(More technically speaking, the two approaches aren't that different – in PL's current setup, the control points for the width are relative to the path length, while the width points in Illustrator are at fixed path positions.)

IMO, Illustrator's "width points" method is inferior to PL's method because AFAIK you can't draw variable width lines using pen pressure in Illustrator.

That's not a genuine problem, imo – changing pen pressure might just add width points along the way. In fact, it's one of the cases where width points make more sense – in PL's current setup, if you delete curve points at one end of the stroke, the width along the remaining stroke will change.

From a UI perspective, I'd prefer width points – with complex shapes, it's difficult to place width control points in PL's curve at the right position.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

From a UI perspective, I'd prefer width points – with complex shapes, it's difficult to place width control points in PL's curve at the right position.

I din't find it difficult to get the widest points at the convex parts of the line using the live preview:

var width line.png

var width setting.png

Maybe we could get an "eyedropper" in the Variable Width dialog to allow us to click in the main editing window to set the point on the width graph. Similar to the point-setting eyedropper in the Curves adjustment dialog, etc.

One huge advantage of PL's method is that those little arrows at the right of the graph allow modifying the "contrast" between the thinnest and widest values for the line as a whole. Nice!

[Hoogo]

Why don't you just close the line?

If I close the shape, the thin end will butt up against the thick end and the shape will look strange. Also, when drawing a cartoon, there are cases where it's more expressive to leave a gap in the black line -- for example, in the eyes.

What if you use variable width to reduce the width to zero?

[photoken]

Why don't you just close the line?

If I close the shape, the thin end will butt up against the thick end and the shape will look strange. Also, when drawing a cartoon, there are cases where it's more expressive to leave a gap in the black line -- for example, in the eyes.

What if you use variable width to reduce the width to zero?

Sometimes that would work, often it wouldn't -- the problem is maintaining the end caps and line endings....

[Herbert123]

From a UI perspective, I'd prefer width points – with complex shapes, it's difficult to place width control points in PL's curve at the right position.

I din't find it difficult to get the widest points at the convex parts of the line using the live preview:

var width line.png

var width setting.png

Maybe we could get an "eyedropper" in the Variable Width dialog to allow us to click in the main editing window to set the point on the width graph. Similar to the point-setting eyedropper in the Curves adjustment dialog, etc.

One huge advantage of PL's method is that those little arrows at the right of the graph allow modifying the "contrast" between the thinnest and widest values for the line as a whole. Nice!

If you go as far as including an eye dropper to click in the main editing window to control points in the width graph, I would say it is time to just create a variable width tool that works on-canvas ;-P And keep the curve window for overall adjustments.

[Herbert123]

Btw, here is a real practical issue with the graph dialog approach: when working with lengthy curves, and when there is need for a lot of width control along that stroke, then the graph becomes unusable. Too many points, and points that are too close together cannot be controlled easily anymore.

Untitled.jpg

An on-canvas tool with handles, such as Illustrator's variable width tool, has no such issues at all.

[photoken]

If you go as far as including an eye dropper to click in the main editing window to control points in the width graph, I would say it is time to just create a variable width tool that works on-canvas ;-P And keep the curve window for overall adjustments.

I don't see the logic in that -- the eyedropper as used in various adjustment dialogs works just fine. You don't want to clutter the main editing window with a lot of different types of anchor points and control handles.

[photoken]

An on-canvas tool with handles, such as Illustrator's variable width tool, has no such issues at all.

It also doesn't allow drawing variable width vector lines using pen pressure, which is the most important feature to have. If you really need an excruciatingly complicated line width, you're better off simply converting the line to a path (Layout...Vector...Vector Outline) as Eurgail pointed out.

Also, as I mentioned earlier, PL's method keeps the main editing window uncluttered -- no additional anchor points and control handles -- all without needing a separate new "Width Point" tool.

[bkh]

It also doesn't allow drawing variable width vector lines using pen pressure, which is the most important feature to have.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. There's no reason why it shouldn't work. In fact, as I wrote above, PL's current approach is the one which doesn't work as it should when you start editing the curve.

Cheers

Burkhard.

[photoken]

It also doesn't allow drawing variable width vector lines using pen pressure, which is the most important feature to have.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. There's no reason why it shouldn't work.

Then why hasn't Adobe added that to Illustrator?

[Eurgail]

It also doesn't allow drawing variable width vector lines using pen pressure, which is the most important feature to have.

Sorry, but that's nonsense. There's no reason why it shouldn't work.

Then why hasn't Adobe added that to Illustrator?

There doesn't seem to be any technical reason: http://www.astutegraphics.com/software/dynamicsketch/

[photoken]

There doesn't seem to be any technical reason: http://www.astutegraphics.com/software/dynamicsketch/

Interesting, but although they mention that variable widths can be controlled by pen pressure, without actually using the tool there's no way of knowing if they implemented that using width points or using PL's curves method....

[photoken]

Win7 x64 SP1
PL 18.90b9 x64

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a new RGB image.
2. Choose the Vector Drawing tool, setting its option to draw "In Active Layer".
3. Using a graphics tablet, draw a variable width line from thin to thick.
4. Add more lines to the same layer, varying the spacing between the lines.

Result:
When the lines are very close together, the previously drawn line is automatically connected to the newly drawn line.

Expected result:
All the lines should be separately drawn.

vector strokes.png

In this example, the long line at the far left was the first line drawn and it sets the variable width parameters for all subsequent lines drawn on that layer. The left group of shorter lines shows the expected behavior of lines maintaining individual strokes. The other two groups of shorter lines show that lines drawn very close together (as when creating shading) become connected. Changing the Brush Options in the program Options to Connect Brush Positions or not has no effect.

[Hoogo]

...without actually using the tool there's no way of knowing if they implemented that using width points or using PL's curves method....

I don't think the mathematics are not that different that it matters. I'm quite sure it's just a matter of the GUI. Both ways have to care about a lot of things if a point within the vector is moved or deleted.