How do I create TV scan lines...

[danielM]

I have tried... boy have I tried... can someone tell me how to create the scan line effect that is on the top of the xara website where the seach text box is on.
I know it must be easy... just have not stumbled on the method... Thanks a lot!!!

Daniel

[danielM]

I have tried... boy have I tried... can someone tell me how to create the scan line effect that is on the top of the xara website where the seach text box is on.
I know it must be easy... just have not stumbled on the method... Thanks a lot!!!

Daniel

[Ross Macintosh]

Daniel - It has been noted previously by Xara Ltd. that all the graphics on their site were produced with their graphics software. That suggests it is possible with Xara - but how? If you want to produce a series of finely spaced lines in Xara X the easiest way to do it is with the blend tool. Draw a line and then drag&drop a copy using a right-click. Create a blend between the two lines adjusting the number of steps, your line thicknesses, and colour as appropriate for the effect you are after.

Hope that helps. Your question had me thinking about TV's so I created the animated tv I've attached. That's me looking at you!

Regards, Ross

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

[danielM]

Ross,
Thanks for your reply. I tried that but with mixed results... I created a line, made a copy, positioned the copy about 3/4 below, did a left alignment then blended it with the initial 5 steps. Looked good until I increased the steps to 20 then I get a banding effect. Nothing like what I see on the XaraX site. If you could point me in the right direction I would really appreciated it.
Thanks again,
Daniel

[Ross Macintosh]

First thing - you write of making a copy and then using the alignment function. Thought I should advise that you can do it with less steps. (Over the years this little tip will save you at least 15 minutes [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] ). When you have your first line, select it and drag it while holding down the ctrl key. It will constrain the movement. When you have dragged it to where you want the second line, with the left mouse button still depressed click the right button. This will drop a copy in that position - you can keep on dragging and dropping if you want to. If you don't need the movement constrained simply stop or don't hold the ctrl key. This simple technique can be very useful. It works well for people with at least one finger on their keyboard hand and a minimum of two fingers on their mouse hand [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

Second thing - I know what you mean about banding. Frustrating! I won't speculate as to the cause (because I'd likely be wrong) but I will say I believe xara *is* equally spacing all the lines in the blend even if it doesn't look that way. (Zoom in and you'll see they are equa-distant). You can work around some of these kinds of frustrations by thinking about and setting your grid snap. For the dot.xar file I've attached I set the grid snap to one pixel. The two lines that were blended are snapping to the grid and I set the number of steps so all the intermediate lines would also fall on the grid. This approach seems to work.

I hope this helps.

Regards, Ross

PS - Save the attachment and then edit the file name so there is no [1] appended to .xar - It should open then.

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

[ajreed]

I've just had a play and banding can be quite a problem, but try these steps.

Choose your line thickness first. Make your 2 lines at the top and the bottom of the area you wish to cover. Make the blend. Adjust the number of steps until it looks about right.

At this stage you may well have banding either in the form of an odd line looking like its missing or a couple of lines closer together than desired.

I have found this can best be solved by using ctrl/click to select the start or end line of the blend, then moving it up or down a bit (ie stretching or shrinking your blend) until the banding disappears. If you had to shrink your blend to get rid of the banding and its now too small, then increase the steps a few and stretch it. Bit of playing required, but I found it easier than constantly typing in new step numbers.

Even easier - once you have selected the end line, then use alt/arrows to move the line up or down by one pixel each press. This is much easier than dragging the mouse, and you get instant visual feedback as to how the banding is altering.

When you've finally got it looking right, change the blend to editable shapes and delete those lines that are now superfluous to your requirements, or intersect it with your other object or whatever.

[danielM]

Your help was much appreciated... Thanks again for all the suggestions... what a good forum group...

[Egg Bramhill]

Daniel,
If I read your question correctly you want to re-create the very fine lines used at the top of xara's home page. You have tried to recreate it but you get "banding" i.e. gaps or double lines where you don't want them. Is this correct?

If this is the case, this is due screen resolution. The smallest screen element is a pixel. So the thinest line you can have on screen is 1 pixel. If you want a set of horizontal lines then the lowest resolution you can get is 1 pixel lines with 1 pixel gaps between the lines.

Therefore if you want to reproduce the effect as required, set your grid in the options (under utilities) to 10 pix major spacing and 10 as the subdivisions.

Set snap to grid. Draw a rectangle (no line colour) 1 pixel in height.

Clone it and move it down 2 pixels, to give the 1 pixel gap.

Repeat as required. Select all and export as a gif

If you use the blend tool, which you could, you would still have to ensure that you maintain the 1 pixel height, 1 pixel gap rule, anything else gives you banding.

Egg

[Egg Bramhill]

If you wish to alter the intensity of the lines you can apply a 0.8 pixel feather to the lines (rectangles) and get the altered effect shown below.
Egg

[Egg Bramhill]

Regarding the posting above on feathering, I wondered why this would alter the effect if one pixel was the smallest screen unit.

In fact all the feathering does is lighten the value of the blue fill as shown in the image below.

Egg