Xtreme & Illustrator mesh & twist tools

[GroWeb]

I would like to respectfully add to this discussion something I have said in past threads in which this concern re: "bloatware" has come up -- and such threads have arisen periodically since I started lurking at Talkgraphics, a year or so prior to joining.

We now have 80GB hard drives and 1GB RAM as standard equipment on low-end computers; the concern about an over-large software "footprint" is thus obsolete. The only concern that is at all reasonable in this regard is whether the software's (not the hardware's) performance would be reduced or slowed by the addition of new tools. Xara Xtreme is one of the fastest pieces of powerful software in existence, because speed and efficiency are priorities of its creators. As long as these priorities hold true, there is no reason to expect added tools to slow the program down, or otherwise reduce its performance. Xara's record shows that efficiency results not from avoiding the implementation of tools, but from how the implementation is carried out.

So, let the brainstorming resume.

Glen

[jens g.r. benthien]

My point is, that it's easier to disassemble something, including people's response in a thread than to design. As far as I know all design starts with a concept and then perhaps brainstorming if you have a team of thought promoters.

I don't disassemble anything, I just try to show you that there is much more in xtreme than 99% of the users know. However, they expect buttons with automated creativity - point and click, because they are lazy and think it's a burden to use their brains and hands to add or modify elements.

BTW, I've never ended up in a court, because I have a different approach to design products. But I know how American engineers design products - without using their brains, not looking left or right, not questioning any component or buying too cheap (NASA - cheap screws!).

The point is: if you want 3D or meshes, go get a software that meets your specs. If xtreme doesn't do what you need, get something else. If you don't know how to handle it, read the manuals (the ones who can read are really in a much better position). If you want to master xtreme, post your questions here, but please don't ask for features that are already built-in but require some work with your brain and hands.

Would you ask Ferrari to include an off road button for more clearance and morphing tires for better grip in mud terrain?

See what I mean?

[atomota]

I may be way off base here, I have never done anything remotely like this, but sometimes that's a good thing.

Forget about using a mesh for the UI. Allow color points to be added, moved, and deleted arbitrarily, and use some kind of bezier surfaces or contour mapping algorithm or whatever to interpolate between them. Added points are initialized to the current color at that point and can then be tweaked. Add as many or as few points as necessary to get the effect you want.

[Albacore]

Just want to come back in here, there seems to be a wish for this tool by a with who answered here. Why don't you go and have a look on Illustrators World site and see how many of the users there use this tool from the drawings displayed there. I think there are only two or three of the major artists that demostrate that they use the mesh too. I have a few Serif programmes with this mesh tool included I would never think of using it as it is even harder to use than it is in AI and to use Kman's way of thinking about the Bump Tool in Xara well I would have thought instead of including the mesh tool and getting rid of the bump tool he would rather see "layered PDF's, a slection of really useable brushes and a programme that you don't have to jump through hoops to get to the printers.

A mesh tool may have some place rendering a face but as Risto has pointed out in another thread what a certain ohter artist from Russia can do with feathered trans. from a girl dancing with a top hat to a drawing called unshaven is tremendious. What also Jen is stating is that you can have all the tools that you want unless you have the talent to use these tools they are a waste of time. This is what I tried to get across with my copied drawing that that drawing took me a full 20 hours to get it the way I wanted it which is very unecconomic and if I had to charge a client and also make a profit my self that would be a weeks work of charge to the client. No self employed graphic designer could charge that amount of money unless he was sub contracted out to a very large design house.

With a few to many small transparencies used on a face we all can get the effects that we want without the use of a cumbersome mesh tool.

[jamesmc]

I don't disassemble anything, I just try to show you that there is much more in xtreme than 99% of the users know. However, they expect buttons with automated creativity - point and click, because they are lazy and think it's a burden to use their brains and hands to add or modify elements.

BTW, I've never ended up in a court, because I have a different approach to design products. But I know how American engineers design products - without using their brains, not looking left or right, not questioning any component or buying too cheap (NASA - cheap screws!).

The point is: if you want 3D or meshes, go get a software that meets your specs. If xtreme doesn't do what you need, get something else. If you don't know how to handle it, read the manuals (the ones who can read are really in a much better position). If you want to master xtreme, post your questions here, but please don't ask for features that are already built-in but require some work with your brain and hands.

Would you ask Ferrari to include an off road button for more clearance and morphing tires for better grip in mud terrain?

See what I mean?

I don't think use a mesh tool is exactly pushing a button now is it? Classifying people as lazy is not a wise thing to do, but perhaps insults are the norm in your part of the world?

Insulting the entire American Engineering world? heh. Most people still refuse to see what America really is. That is, we are composed of the world's population. We have English, Scot, Irish, Spanish, Italian Indian, Russian, Czech, French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Saudi and whatever country you want to name type of engineers. America is not a single race country. So, if you insult that America this or America that, you are most likely insulting a part of your own country.

As far as never being in court, you probably don't sell in the U.S. or you'd be acutely aware as an Engineer of Consumer Protection Laws and OSHA. I would say at least thirty percent of law cases I was involved with were foreign engineers or of foreign design/build that didn't understand the need or care for consumer product safety.

Ferrari? A Ferrari is a specialized car meant for racing and it is not a generalist all terrain car. I would consider Xara Xtreme as a generalist program, a very good one, perhaps a Land Rover . The sports car/Ferrari of 3D painting would be DeepPaint3D. Xara is however, the Ferrari of Vector programs.

As far as I know you don't make the rules for this forum or have the authority to tell people what to post or not to post about ideas. Must be frustrating huh? So since you have no real power here, you hurl out the insults by claiming they must be of low intelligence, can't read or are lazy.

I will probably go to another software like Zbrush2 to handle my 3D needs. But it won't stop me from making suggestions.

I'm sure Xara software developers know exactly what they want or not want to do. They've been programming long enough to know the market and will binary the decison when it comes along.

BTW, I programmed my first 'distributed' software in 1983 with assembly language. (A simple drawing and flood fill program using screen coordinates.) I didn't call it flood fill because no one had heard of that yet. It was popular among the bulletin boards for awhile. People could make red, green, blue or yellow circles/squares and place them anywhere on the screen with text over, around or near it. Quite the rage back then. heh heh

[sallybode]

I can see where Jens is coming from, because there is a lot easier way to get from point a to b in Xara because of graduated transparency and soft vector edges which allow you to fade one color into another in a way that to me resembles a working in water colors and building up a wash.

Of course this technique also applies to oils and other media.

The whole point of mesh is to create something without the above process. In Illustrator, trying to select one item from the next, is a lesson in frustration, select one thing, you often get everything. So if you could use one tool to get what you want, namely the mesh tool, it sure would seem like a miracle.

When you can easily select what you want, that is a concept, too long ignored by Adobe.

I have to remind myself that there are things I like about Illustrator. But as far as doing things in such a method, I enjoy too much a looser approach, blending more like with real tools.

I'd rather draw and stay out of dialogue boxes.

If other people want to use these things, that's up to them. Unfortunately, with the hold that Adobe has on graphics in higher education, any other methods, are hush, hush. What are they afraid of? And highly disdained, it seems. When anyone becomes too convinced of their own argument that they can see no other point than there own, they have created themselves a comfort zone and for others, an un-comfort zone.

What is so bad about accepting others as they are. Xara does not have to be Illustrator. But it is friendly enough to be able to work together without sacrificing what Xara can do. Why Illustrator for all of its expense is not able to do what Xara can do, now that is a good question. Shouldn't you get better value for all those upgrades and all that shelled out hard cash?

Xara, the mouse that roared?!?!?

[jens g.r. benthien]

Insulting the entire American Engineering world?

Let's face it: more than 90% of the consumer products sold in the US are made in Far East - you guys have managed to lay off your own people in favor of transfering or 'outsourcing' the production or value adding process to Far East, mainly China, your biggest enemy.

Last year the last jeans manufacturer in the US closed down. Most small cars with a US label are actually manufactured in Korea or Japan.

Nothing against America - I really appreciated my time over there, but I also appreciated my time in Far East, Canada and Europe.

But Americans had been the first to 'cut off the branch of the tree they were sitting on' as we say. The Germans are second place. A very dangerous development, don't you think? Who's going to pay your retirement, if there are no value adding processes anymore in the US?

Daimler Chrysler 'listened' to the customer's wishes. The result: declining sales because the electronic components are far too complex, causing more than 50% of the cars to malfunction. Feature overkill.

I just don't want to see Xara running into the same dead end road.

Me a wanna-be-moderator? God help me, no, thanks, I have other stuff to do.

I am really willing to help users, but I think those endless wish lists come from the lazy attitude of not reading manuals, not watching the movies, etc.

OK, I agree, I am **not** politically correct as you guys, but if everybody would favor political correctness the world would run amok.

I know that I am not comfortable to deal with, but that's my 'style'. The 'advocat diabolo', the critical voice in a streamlined and wanna-be-lean society.

If I would be the nice guy I would end up in court as well - which is not my goal. I just want to put some salt into the bruises and wounds to make people start to *think* instead of requesting more and more superfluous features or benefits, or just give a 'go' for the production of an unsafe product.

And I will never ask Cunard Line to develop a Queen Mary V which can fly to the moon or ask Boing to develop a 848 which can swim from coast to coast.

Xara is however, the Ferrari of Vector programs.

Aha. And you guys want to turn it into a slow heavyweight tractor...

Maybe you should ask the Xara team to develop xtreme into a complete open operating system with gazillions of features nobody would be able to handle anymore!

[jamesmc]

Interesting Jens,

Do you get your news from the Daily Misinformer or the Partial Truth Press?

[jens g.r. benthien]

I don't read the American yellow press

My favorite newspapers are International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Die Welt, Der Spiegel, Süddeutsche Zeitung, El País, El Mundo, DIARIO 16, to name the most important ones. In addition I'm in the lucky position to watch CNN, BBC, German and Far East news and documentaries.

Because I want more than a single minded opinion and limited horizon.

Information is the key for the step ahead.

[Albacore]

This getting Silly now. I thought we were discussing the pro's & con's of the mesh tool?