Wire Mesh

[sgiff]

I also would like to chime in for a mesh tool. It is true that Xara has really left out any new and innovative development from their vector tools for far to long. There is some really cool stuff happening out there and it should be happening inside XARA. The only way that XARA will stay viable as an app is if it continues to be innovative like it was in the beginning. I know for a fact that the XARA team could make a much more innovative and easier to use mesh tool than what Illustrator has. It seems that XARA has added more and more tools or effects that actually use pixel based data like most of the non-destructive filters that were recently added. A while back I proposed another innovative way that would in my opinion really eliminate the mesh tool if done properly. What if there were a tool in the tool pallete that actually was a smooth pixel based airbrush and if you had a shape selected you could select the airbrush tool and paint smooth gradients or shading right inside the shape. The shape would act as a mask automatically and clip the painted area. This way you could control exactly your blends and shading and do it very quickly.

Also one other thing I have seen very cool recently in a tool called Paint SAI that I mentioned here is that when editing vectors outlines, you can select a tool which allows you to drag on a node and it thins or thickens the line at that point. Very cool idea!!

[handrawn]

Also one other thing I have seen very cool recently in a tool called Paint SAI that I mentioned here is that when editing vectors outlines, you can select a tool which allows you to drag on a node and it thins or thickens the line at that point. Very cool idea!!

Yes that would be great - now if you could convert a line to shape, reshape it and then convert it back to line [so you can manipulate it as a line] - you could do this in xara - 'non' destuctive lines' - but better if you didn't have to and could thicken a line on the hoof from the word go.

What if there were a tool in the tool pallete that actually was a smooth pixel based airbrush and if you had a shape selected you could select the airbrush tool and paint smooth gradients or shading right inside the shape. The shape would act as a mask automatically and clip the painted area. This way you could control exactly your blends and shading and do it very quickly.

You can do this now with vector - in theory, its tiresome in practice because the brushes are so cumbersome - better to overhaul those and keep it vector?

I know for a fact that the XARA team could make a much more innovative and easier to use mesh tool than what Illustrator has.

you have studied the code then? I hope it is that simple but I have my doubts because of the way xara fills actually work.

[JokeArtist]

I know for a fact that the XARA team could make a much more innovative and easier to use mesh tool than what Illustrator has.

you have studied the code then? I hope it is that simple but I have my doubts because of the way xara fills actually work.

I think this was based on the face that you can drag the middle of the lines on bezier curves with Xara and not with Illustrator (you have to use the handles). And that's what a mesh paint tool is based on - different gradients between bezier points, curves, lines. So I think it can be pretty much quoted as FACT!

[handrawn]

you cannot manipulate the fills that way [see David's post above] - this is because of the core way xara handles these things - try it - the boundaries of the shape move, but the fill does not

no offence, but a fact to me is proven not supposed from circumstance

[David O'Neil]

I've found that you can using blends, but they have their own problems as the attached file illustrates. (And closing this file resulted in an infamous 'internal program error' dialog box occurring. Fortunately, I'd already saved it.)

[handrawn]

good work around David - but as you say - problems with the blending and limitation[s] of mould tool.

all this I think comes down to the 'unitary/tiled fixed aspect' nature of xara fills

sometimes I think some members who say new vector tools would be 'easy' do not appreciate exactly what it is that makes xara so fast: As I understand it, not just the low level programming but the compromises/design constraints in the original implementation such as with the fills.

to change that I reckon will need a large amount of time/effort/money, but I'll not drivel on about that....it's already well covered I think

[David O'Neil]

good work around David...

I don't consider it to be, because it is basically unusable. You might need hundreds (thousands?) of these back-to-back to simulate a mould made by a proper mold tool, and the fact that you can't copy, paste, edit shape, and edit colors without removing the mould makes it worthless to me. The method I've outlined makes AI's method look like a panacea of user design goodness!

[sgiff]

you cannot manipulate the fills that way [see David's post above] - this is because of the core way xara handles these things - try it - the boundaries of the shape move, but the fill does not

no offence, but a fact to me is proven not supposed from circumstance

you cannot manipulate the fills that way [see David's post above] - this is because of the core way xara handles these things - try it - the boundaries of the shape move, but the fill does not

no offence, but a fact to me is proven not supposed from circumstance

Yes but you are assuming that a mesh fill in Illustrator is treated the same way as a gradient in Illustrator. It's not it's a completely different method of handling blends so just as it's not the same thing in Illustrator it would not have to be the same in XARA yet it would still work and still be done better by Xara simply because of the "dragging line in between points" way of doing it. The only thing painful about watching the Illustrator mesh video was how extruciating it was to see how many times you had to go back to the tool pallete to switch tools. So the XARA mesh tool would be a completely new tool yet it would still have the same functionality for editing beziers. This kind of thing is used a lot in 3D apps and Morphing apps today. You map an image against a mesh and the image sticks to the mesh based on the control points in the mesh. Not that groundbreaking technology wise.

s.g.

[handrawn]

I know how gradients and meshes work in illustrator

Trouble is just because xara has a "dragging line in between points" way of doing it for manipulating shape envelopes, does not mean this can somehow be transferred to manipulation of blends, easily.

I don't believe it can. I would love to be proved wrong, but I don't believe it.

Yes it can be done by manipulating mesh nodes - because that limits the variables to a descrete number - start saying you want to be able to do this at any point along the line between and, whilst of course there will still be a limit to the variables, their number and the complexity will shoot exponentially through the roof.

It would not be fast that way either - xara does not have a magic wand [in the fairy godmother sense].

So I hope to see a node manipulation mesh tool in due course - but much more innovative and easier to use than illustrator? - as you will have gathered I have serious doubts, and I certainly would not take it as a fact.

Manipulating envelopes and maipulating blends are worlds apart.

[David O'Neil]

...Trouble is just because xara has a "dragging line in between points" way of doing it for manipulating shape envelopes, does not mean this can somehow be transferred to manipulation of blends, easily.

I don't believe it can. I would love to be proved wrong, but I don't believe it...

The example blend file I gave shows that it isn't as difficult as you think it is. It is probably technically challenging, but it is doable. As I said earlier, though, it may require a core rewrite for Xtreme, and that may explain why it hasn't happened.