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Tami25723363cgss
Participating Frequently
May 9, 2025
Answered

A pattern brush with variations in the distance between the tiles?

  • May 9, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 571 views

Anyone know if it's possible to make a pattern brush with tunable variations between the tiles? Imagine a pattern brush that's a string of lights. Is it possible to vary the distance between bulbs, but most importantly, without gaps, so the wire remains continuous.

 

Correct answer Monika Gause

As has already been pointed out, scatter brush is suitable for that. You can use a pattern brush or art brush for the wire and then have the light bulbs on a second brush that is created in the Appearance panel.

2 replies

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
May 9, 2025

As has already been pointed out, scatter brush is suitable for that. You can use a pattern brush or art brush for the wire and then have the light bulbs on a second brush that is created in the Appearance panel.

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Tami25723363cgssAuthor
Participating Frequently
May 12, 2025

Thanks for your ideas. Here's my draft pattern brush. I can't seem to make a scatter brush work due to the fact that the objects (the red cylinders) must alwasy sit on the bottom on the "wire" not in the center, as is what happens when I try a scatter brush. 

 

 

In addition, I'm noticing distortion of the objects on some angles. I've made several pattern brushes over the years and this type of distortion seems to be inherent to pattern brushes when there's an acute angle to a curve. Is that true? Is there always some distortion in pattern brushes?

 

Finally, I know it is possible to make custom corners. however that seems to be hard with this pattern. Would that take care of the distortion? It seems like it might not necessarily take care of this problem. Thank you!

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Tami25723363cgssAuthor
Participating Frequently
May 12, 2025

Maybe there's a way to offset the objects in the scatter brush so that they end up positioned at the bottom of the other stroke, using the appearance panel? I couldn't come up with a way myself.

Kurt Gold
Community Expert
Kurt GoldCommunity Expert
Community Expert
May 9, 2025

If by tunable variations you mean some kind of randomness, a custom scatter brush may be suitable.

 

If it means something else, you may want to clarify a bit and show a sketch.

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