More tips for liquid and organic 2D/3D shapes

I will post some mini-tutorials here about the next steps of my exploration of organic like feathering because I am amazed by the interactive possibilities it offer!

Enjoy,

ivan

I will post some mini-tutorials here about the next steps of my exploration of organic like feathering because I am amazed by the interactive possibilities it offer!

Enjoy,

ivan

All objects or group of objects can be filled with other ones (bitmap or vector) in XaraX. But with ClipView, lines can be filled too. That may be particularly interesting for organic lines.

One blend for the body and another for the feets.
Above I have played with line width.

Enjoy,

ivan

I don't understand how you did it but it looks beautiful.

Cool effects, Ivan.

Gary

Gary Priester

Moderator Person

<a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~garypriester">
oh stub me believer</a>

No Shapes here; only stroked lines are used for this running woman.
The paths are figured by dotted lines. Three groups (see colors) are feathered separately to avoid too much smoothness under the arms and between the two legs. These three groups are grouped toghether afterwards.

And of course the posing can be modified easily; Ctrl+click on each limb separately, move the rotation center to the articulation, or move the points by groups or individually with the Shape Editor!

Have fun,

ivan

[This message was edited by ivan louette on August 12, 2001 at 14:03.

[This message was edited by ivan louette on August 12, 2001 at 14:03.]

The dino file:

The running file:

roman

Ivan,

I downloadad your dino and noticed something strange. Maybe you know why this happens:

I select the dino
Feathering is set to "10,8pt"
I set feathering to "0pt" and back to "10,8pt" again.

Now the dino does not look like before, but blurred. Why is that ??

Wolfgang

I didn't understand how you did it Ivan but now I got it. Profiles!!! Wolfgang slide the first slider to the left... ;-)))

Great technique Ivan!!!!

Thanks Roman,

that did the trick!
I never would have thought of profiles in this case.
One of the new functions in X that never really got through to me ..

Wolfgang

I have shown that in my first post about blobby shapes. I use the below slider and turn it to -0,98 or sometimes -0,96 to keep some amount of antialiasing. Afterwards one may use the above slider and it modifies the width of the line. But I don't know how that prints because my printer is out this time.

Thanks for the additional infos for everybody.

Kind regards, and I am glad that will be useful!

ivan

One can easily obtain a very neat outside shape with soft transitions between textures inside.

1° group the non feathered shapes
2° add an hard feathering to the group (turning the below feather profile slider close to -1)
3° select each inner shape separately , texturize it and add some soft feathering to it.

Superposing several level of individual or group feathering don't cause any problem!

ivan

It's possible to create some kind of "articulation" which change interactively where the different shapes are joining toghether.
But in this case some minor bug may occur (one white background corresponding to the outline of the group, but it disappears while exporting to bitmap.)
Interesting to create plugged cables or articulated insects!

ivan

That texture connecting technique could be especially seful when making panoramatic photos.

Roman

What a lot of great information! Thanks. Neil

Thanks Ivan for all the great explorations.

I think the resulting dino design and your running women are *very* strong graphic designs. The running women look like they should be developed into a logo for a marathon or even the Olympics! It is brilliant. (It reminds me of Alexander Calder's mobiles and prints - I'm sure he would have loved the image too).

Regards, Ross

<a href=http://www.designstop.com/>DesignStop.Com</a>

[This message was edited by Ross Macintosh on August 13, 2001 at 18:53.]

Ross, I didn't think to Calder and of course I didn't imaginate the structure of this technique would be so close to some of his ideas. Thanks for the link and the appreciation. For other things (colors but also structures and imagination) one of my great loves is Joan Mirò.

Kindly,

ivan

Or how to draw an octopus

1°draw a line
2°type a letter along the line
3°apply a stroke shape to the line and increase its width till it masks the below part of the letter
4°apply 100% transparency to the text
5°apply blur to the whole with the below blur profile setting to -0,98 (see above)

Here you have the tentacle and you may edit its shape interactively with the Shape Editor, and change the letter(s), the font, its size, its kerning...

Enjoy,

ivan