Xtreme & Illustrator mesh & twist tools

[masque]

If we want opinions of a mesh tool then I would say its fairly pointless. You can emulate the effects obtainable with colour/transparent overlays to build up the effect your after which are more flexible and easier to edit in the long run. In saying this I might be missing some esoteric function of a mesh tool but as far as complex fills are concerned Xara can already do it without yet another tool being added for the sake of it.
As has already been said adding it wouldn't be that difficult, Drawplus8 already has it, rather pointlessly, so if it were important enough I think it would have been there a while ago.
Derek

[williamdruid]

This was a good forum but nobody has any right to put down somebody's country, seeing that in any country it is the higher ups that make the laws and unfortunately we have to follow them. Don't blame the common folks that don't have a choice. We are all human beings trying to live our lives the best we can. This is not the place for political arrogance and stupidity. This is a forum (or was) for questions and helping fellow human beings learn. Deflate your political egos and use this forum for what it is intended. Willy

[williamdruid]

My apologies for coming in here and spouting off. It was not my place and I'm sorry. Willy

[RTK]

As on any board, some people tend to wander a bit in their thoughts and posts. The good thing is that you get an idea of how someone is thinking, and why they formed their opinion. The bad - well, sometimes it creates a bit of "confusion"...

As Albacore said, "This getting Silly now..." The thread is about a mesh tool in Xara X.

Just because it according to most people is not brilliantly implemented in Illustrator, it doesn't mean that someone clever can implement it in a better way in Xara X. It might not be on the top of the list if things to pour man-hours into, but Charles has recognized the fact that it's on "the wish" list, and that the feature has been on his mind on occasion.

So instead of world echonomics/politics - why not spend some time thinking about a better way of implementing it?

This thread is about a mesh tool.

[jamesmc]

Yep Risto and Albacore, right on target.

I was being verbose and way off topic. My apologies to the forum looking for ways to improve Xara graphic software or learn about Xara in general.

I'll be civil and on the point in the future!
(notices a large shoe rapidly approaching his buttocks.

[RTK]

I'll be civil and on the point in the future!
(notices a large shoe rapidly approaching his buttocks.

No shoe needed... In ALL, this thread is more of an intelligent exchange of ideas than you will see anywhere. There's no "fight" here - how could there possibly be one - when everyone is one THE SAME "TEAM"!?

Do voice your opinion - about "a" mesh tool...

[Grafixman]

A vector airbrush tool. Where you just click your cursor inside the shape and spray colors, with the mesh generated and updated from it. Now that would save you the trouble of moving those nodes around (unless you really want to). And a smudge and blur tool for further tweaking the mesh gradient. Maybe borrowing ideas from 3d programs for mesh creation (Zbrush ?) The mesh created would probably be very complex, though. Specially if you went really wild with the colors...

[Sheff]

Rather than a vector airbrush tool, how about allowing users to NOT use XPE and instead use Photoshop or Painter, or whatever bitmap editor they choose? I would much rather click on a bitmap in Xtreme and have it open in Photoshop to be edited than to accidently open XPE when I accidently double click on a bitmap.

A mesh tool might be nice, but it's not natural to use like painting in Photoshop or Painter.

You're all whining about bloat. XPE is bloat. It's not powerful enough to be practical, nor is it useful enough to be sold on it's own.

Most people here have a bitmap editor of some kind, so why not allow users to use what they have and what they prefer?

I'm not concerned about XPE saving on filesize by recording slight changes to one bitmap. I would much rather have the bitmap I need and not include the ones I don't need in the file.

[Grafixman]

True, vector mesh fills do not approach the versatility of bitmap brushes yet, at least as far as I see on posted artworks, at forums like in CGTalk, and I'm not really sure if creating such really dense mesh gradients such as the above method is practicable or feasible. What I am adding to the discussion is that IF Xara were to implement mesh gradients, it should do so with the aim of becoming the Zbrush of gradient meshes. In the 3d world, most programs handles meshes by manipulating vertices, edges or faces, like Illustrator is doing now with gradient meshes. It is slow going. Zbrush goes beyond that and lets you play around with meshes like putty. The result is more artistic control. But the mesh gets really dense. That would probably be also be the outcome if gradient mesh is handled the way I said, but Xara can handle that... can it? Exporting such things to Illustrator would probably choke it, but thats the fun part... . And they're vectors, still...
Nothing serious. Just for the sake of discussion. Hey, I'm all for tossing ideas around...
Consider this, maybe if Xara developed a really kick ass mesh gradient workflow, you'd be able to create a single rectangle, mesh fill it and draw an entire vector artwork inside one single shape. What do you think of that? Export that to Illustrator and drop their collective jaws...

[Mukkinese]

A fill mesh does seem to be using a sledgehammer to squash a fly. Xtreme already has an airbrush along a path-no need for complex transparencies or (for those who aren't comfortable working freehand) even bitmap airbrush tools.

Now I personally use a mesh-warp tool very frequently (it's about the only tool I use in Acrylic Designer), my work calls for the wrapping of textures around objects and while I have tried 3D programs (including Zbrush) and using combinations of envelopes in Xtreme, they cannot match the speed and intuitive control of directly manipulating a pattern with a mesh.

This is not laziness or lack of creativity, it is simply streamlining my workflow, I would be quite happy if paint and brush were still the prefered industry tools, but I have to compete with others who are relentlessly improving thier workflow, so it is part of the job.

Having said that, I can see the beauty of the reletively clean and simple interface Xtreme has, it is, by far, the easiest vector program to learn I have used. Yes, all the variants and 'extras' would be best left as plugins and entirely optional. That way we can each build the program that best suits our needs.