It's darker because 3D Effect is trying to emulate shading in the rendering of a 3D model. As Jacob alludes, if all you are trying to do is create what looks like an extruded panel (especially one with no shading), you'd be better off just drawing it. You are creating a ridiculously complicated construct by using 3D Effect just for that. As a general rule, it's best to avoid strokes in path that you're using for 3D Effect whenever you can. Many beginners with 3D Effect don't realize that the plug-in is actually extruding both edges of a stroke as separate surfaces. That often generates unwanted artifacts and stacking-order problems. JET ... View more

Can someone guide what is happening? Not without seeing the file. JET ... View more

I was wondering if there was an easier way to make sure all text in my project is outlined? Select Menu: Objects>Text Objects Only actual text objects will be selected. That way, you can look over what is selected and judge whether there are any text objects that need to be converted to paths. Whenever we send projects out for print, I always try to convert all text into outlines. This is neither necessary nor best practice. Converting text to paths is appropriate for text that is an integral part of the "artwork" (e.g., the text in a product or company logo) or that serves primarily as a design element (e.g., large headlines, etc.) But illustration programs are quite often used for whole document designs (brochures, fliers, placement ads, etc.) which include paragraphs of body text, captions, contact information, copyright indicia, and so on. Just because it's not a thousand-page book doesn't mean you shouldn't care about quality typography. For example, outlining small text often makes it render slightly "heavier" than designed. Nowadays, the preferred delivery format for commercial printing is PDF with the fonts used in the document embedded. So the whole matter of outlining all text in a document, ostensibly for the benefit of the printer, is practically moot. In the three decades I've been electronically designing for commercial print, I've never found it necessary (even before PDF) to convert all text to paths for whole-document projects. JET ... View more

...not simple at all to discover or to explain! Welcome to Illustrator, the interface that makes everything seem more complicated than it is, so users will mistake it for "sophistication." 😉 JET ... View more

But yes, I've definitely encountered unclosed paths that are compound shapes in Illustrator. Cmscss, Just FYI, in Illustrator, a Compound Shape and a Compound Path are two different constructs. Compound Shapes are "live effects" created in the Pathfinder palette. Compound Paths are the ubiquitous "paths with a hole in them" constructs common to most any vector drawing program, font, etc., like you are accustomed to in FreeHand. FreeHand does not allow an open path to be a subpath in a compound path, nor (as I recall) a single path to be a compound path (but need to check). JET ... View more

You should know that you cant use the Join command for paths, you can use it just for anchor points You should know that has not been true since several versions predating CC. 1. Black pointer: Select two or more open simple (not compound) paths. 2. Ctrl-J. The selected paths join according to their nearest endpoints. 3. Undo. Deselect. 4. White pointer: ShiftAltClick a segment (not an Anchor) of each of the paths (i.e., select all of each path with the white pointer). 5. Ctrl-J. Again, the selected paths join according to their nearest endpoints. 6. Undo. Thus, you only need to tediously "directselect" the endpoints you want to join if they are not the nearest endpoints of the paths you are joining. 6. Black Pointer: Select all the paths. 7. Object Menu: Compound Path>Make. (Unlike FreeHand, open paths can be compounded.) 8. Deselect. 9. White pointer: ShiftAltClick a segment (not an Anchor) of each of the subpaths (i.e., select all of each subpath with the white pointer). 10. Ctrl-J. Nothing happens. Even though all of the selected subpaths are subpaths of the same Compound Path, Illustrator will not join them. 11. Deselect. 12. White pointer: Select just an endpoint of two different subpaths. 13. Ctrl-J. In typically inconsistent Illustrator behavior, the two subpaths will join, even though they are still subpaths of a Compound Path, and even though joining will not work when the "whole" subpaths are "direct selected". JET ... View more

Select > Same command...selects the paths on the drawing but does not select the "layer items" in the layer list ....for each item there is a little square showing it's selected, but the row is not highlighted... You can mousedown on any one of those little highlighted squares, drag it, and drop it into the desired Layer. All the other objects with highlighted will follow. JET ... View more

You are confusing "line art" with vector-based art. Screen printing requires line art. It does not require vector-based line art. (The screen isn't going to scale the drawing as it prints it.) Artwork for screen printing does need to be color separated. But that usually means opaque spot color separations, not translucent process color separations. And again, for best results, those color separations should be solid line art (not course halftone or tint screens). That image could probably be printed quite convincingly in four intelligently chosen spot inks. But there is no need (nor advantage) to trying to auto-trace those separations. There is no "conversion" of raster images to vector paths. It's not a "conversion." It's just a tracing. It's not called auto-tracing for nothing. There is only re-drawing the design, whether done intelligently or by an automated algorithm that has absolutely no idea of what it is drawing. Thinking of auto-tracing as a means by which to magically get the advantages of vector-based artwork out of raster-based artwork is like thinking tracing a watercolor painting with oil paint will give you the advantages of oil paint. They are two different mediums, with their own strengths and weaknesses. That's why they both exist. It's the same with raster- versus vector-based electronic art. Raster-based artwork is by its nature appropriate for high "texture" detail. Vector-based artwork is by its nature all about sharp, accurate edges and smooth fills. You can more easily mimic vector-based artwork at a particular fixed scale with a raster image than you can mimic a highly textured raster image with vector artwork. When delivering highly textured "distressed" artwork for screen printing, it is best done by building in a raster imaging program capable of displaying multi-channel artwork as spot colors. (Photoshop, PhotoPaint, etc.) JET ... View more

You need to describe what you intend to do with the vector drawing. Auto-tracing is seldom the way to proceed for optimal results. For example, if your purpose is to create additional stencils, cut sign vinyl, etc. on any kind of plotter-cutter, I would not recommend auto-tracing. There is no lossless "conversion" between raster-based graphics and vector-based graphics, in the sense of converting one file format to another. People need to stop using the term "conversion" in this content, because it is grossly misleading. Whether automated by an auto-tracing feature or not, it's still a process of completely re-drawing the image as vector paths; creating an entirely other version of the image using a different digital medium. So auto-tracing is just as subject to entropy as any other mechanical reproduction process; degradation occurs in each generation of copying. JET ... View more

The first thing to do when you see hairline sliver artifacts like that in vector-based artwork is this: In either Illustrator or Acrobat, Zoom in on the artifacts repeatedly and watch to see if they grow in width on your screen. If they remain hairline slivers, they are probably screen-rendering artifacts due to anti-aliasing, and will not appear in print. (You didn't say if the design is destined for print.) If they appear to be real, fixing them depends on how the specific areas of the artwork involved are built. JET ... View more

Thx Jet, but what I can say about inkscape... Obviously, if you are inflexibly "married" to a single program's exact interface, then you have to use it at the vendor's terms. Not a great stance for someone with "little to no money." I just pointed out that perfectly suitable alternatives exist. JET ... View more

I have a pinstriped G4 identical to that one. Don't use it, though; it just takes up space. Also have an original Mac Classic. I used to play Prince of Persia on it with my boys when they were little. JET ... View more

I have an image in a PDF file that is a Raster Image I want to convert that Raster Image to Vector You're probably talking about auto-tracing (called Live Trace or Image Trace, etc. in Illustrator, depending on version). But you must understand: Auto-tracing is not a lossless 1:1 "conversion" in the sense of "converting" between units of measure or "translating" between file formats. There is no such "conversion." There is only re-drawing the content of the raster image. I want it in a PDF file A PDF is just a container. It can contain any combination of raster, vector, or text objects. Putting the result of auto-tracing in a PDF file is like doing so with any other kind of content: Just a matter of saving the file as a PDF. If I open to original PDF file and zoom to 400% I expect pixelated lines If I open the new PDF file and open to 4))% I expect smooth non pixelated lines It is only the raster objects (images) which will appear pixelated when you zoom in. It has nothing to do with the file being a PDF. I want RGB colors Then you would do the auto-tracing in a file that is set to RGB color mode. How do I do this in Ai or id there a better Adobe program Basically, you would: Create an Illustrator file (or open an existing one). Import a raster image. Perform the auto-trace, using the settings that yield results most acceptable to you. Save the file as a PDF. The details are all in the documentation. If you want to understand what you're hoping to do, read on: If you zoom into a raster image in a PDF (or in any other file), yes, you should expect to see pixelation. But "smooth" and "non-pixelated" are not the same thing. Pixelation results from scaling (or zooming) a raster image sufficiently large that the square shape of the individual pixels that comprise the image become evident. That is not the only kind of ugly jaggedness that occurs in computer graphics. It is quite common that if you zoom into the entirely vector-based results of auto-tracing, you see a jumble of jagged, irregular paths. Think of it as the vector version of the "jaggies." Vector graphics can easily be just as jagged (and just as ugly) as pixels. And that is very often the case with the results of auto-tracing because it is done by an automatic algorithm completely devoid of human shape recognition or knowledge of what is considered "smooth." There is no auto-magic here. You don't get something for nothing with auto-tracing. "Garbage in; garbage out" still applies. Auto-tracing does not add any detail that will suddenly make an image look "smooth" when zoomed in. Very simple (and very real) example: Suppose you have a photo of your puppy. But the resolution of the photo is so low that when you view it at 400% zoom, it looks pixelated. The puppy's pupils, for example, don't even appear round. You've heard people say that "vector graphics are resolution-independent" and that you can zoom into them forever without their becoming "jagged." You've heard that programs can automatically "convert" a raster image into a vector graphic. So based on those two commonly-heard assertions (gross oversimplifications), you assume that auto-tracing will give you a graphic that can be zoomed or scaled to any amount and always look "smooth." So you auto-trace the image. You zoom into it and find that the pupils are not a bunch of square pixels, but now a fewer number of jagged irregular shapes. And it's just as ugly, if not more so. There is no increase in detail, so zooming into the vector-based result is just as ugly and "jagged" as was zooming into the raster image. It's just a different "style" of jaggedness. So you try the whole thing again, but trying supposedly "more accurate" tolerance settings. Now ask yourself: At the most technically accurate settings, what would you get? You would get one perfectly square vector path for each pixel in the raster image. In other words, effectively, there would be no difference, and zooming into or scaling the now all-vector result would be no improvement whatsoever. Auto-tracing quite often just trades vector jaggedness for raster jaggedness. And that defeats the whole resolution-independence advantage, reason, and intent of vector-based graphics. There is no free lunch. If you want a truly scaleable vector-based drawing of an image, you manually trace the raster image, using human discernment, and skill and understanding in drawing paths with economic efficiency. A puppy pupil auto-traced with high "accuracy" settings may be a tiny irregular shape with a dozen nodes, that looks just awful when enlarged beyond the size of a speck. A manually traced puppy pupil will be round, have no more than four nodes, and will appear just as round and smooth when enlarged to the size of the moon. Why? Because auto-tracing features (at the current state in mainstream drawing programs) don't know what a 3-year old does: that a puppy's pupils are round. So the advantages of vector-based graphics are not simply a matter of "being vector." It has to be a vector graphic that is drawn so as to be able to benefit from its being vector. JET ... View more

CS6 works just fine, by the way, on current Windows. But there's a simpler and easier solution than selling and supporting older versions. But don't hold your breath. It also isn't going to happen as long as Adobe makes more money through Captive Creatives paying rent. The current marketing scheme is all about Adobe, not the customer. As long as you think it "must be" Adobe software, Adobe holds all the cards. If the subscription scheme falls out of favor with too many users, there's nothing preventing Adobe from--at any time it wanted--simply selling the current version under a reasonably priced traditional perpetual license for a "limited time," and re-capture lost business of those of us who just aren't going to rent. It could do this every-other year, every five years, or never again (i.e., whatever works for Adobe). But the rental scheme is all-or-nothing, and Adobe knows that. It's based upon Captive Customers becoming acclimated to it, having no other choice. Choices exist; just not from Adobe. I got little to no money Inkscape, for one example, is free. JET ... View more

...I usually see people on youtube with a drawing tablet thats why I assume it would be much easier. I've occasional bought tablets over the years, including the very first model Wacom (with a serial bus connection). But throughout the intervening decades, I never use them beyond the occasional "natural media" emulation (Painter). I find them awkward and inaccurate, and long ago got over the novelty of "emulating" physical paint on a computer. Digital media is its own media. I don't try to emulate watercolor using oil paint. If I want to paint a watercolor, I'll use watercolor. My first-gen Surface Pro has a Wacom-based stylus. I haven't used it since Microsoft "took back" the Journal app that was bundled with it. I'm not a caveman, so I don't need a stick to draw with. And I gave up finger painting before kindergarten. And I hate fingerprints on my monitor. But that's just me. My son does very nice work painting in raster programs with Wacoms, and he's not a caveman either. 😉 JET ... View more

In CS6 (and some versions earlier), you can click your cursor in the Character field of the Control panel and tap the up or down arrow keys to run up or down the list of installed fonts. At least on Windows. JET ... View more

Define a paragraph style which has two tab stops; the first one right-aligned, the second left-aligned. JET ... View more

how long did it take you to draw it? Several days, working on it off-and-on in my free time. Did you draw it by hand first or start the project in the drawing program? The rat truck is an actual one built by a co-worker. He usually carries home a trophy when he shows it in the local and regional auto shows. (I'd like to have him build me a street-legal "rat dirt bike" some day.) I shot some reference photos of it in the parking lot one day (yeah, he actually drives it to and from work), because I thought it would be a good test subject for getting acquainted with Xara Designer. (It was my second drawing with that program.) I especially wanted something different from the usual glossy-paint reflections of most vehicle illustrations; so I liked it a lot for the rust and splotchy paint. 😉 I sometimes sketch very loosely on paper and scan the sketch. But I more often just do my "construction" in the drawing program. I find it curious when I see newcomers to vector drawing, who routinely and naturally do a lot of sketching very freely and lightly on paper, but then act almost "afraid" to create temporary paths in the drawing program, where "erasure" (hitting the delete button) is perfect and instantaneous. That's one of the things I stress when I have opportunity to "coach" newcomers: Do all the construction you want. It's not going to break anything, and you can delete it without a trace. JET ... View more

...the designer and client need to be on the same page before the project begins. that's all. Correct. If you're conducting business, do it in a business like manner. If you want happy customers, you need to make clear up-front what they're buying. I'm as infuriated by blatant copyright infringement as anyone. (Particularly when I see a supposed fellow creative commit it.) But a designer also needs to be practical and realistic about the quality and intrinsic value of what he produces. Everyone thinks his own design work is utterly brilliant and everyone else's is trash. But face it; the vast majority of graphic design (as opposed to illustration) is a rehash of something the designer has seen before; a mimicking of whatever is "trendy" at the moment. One also needs to consider the practical needs of the paying customer. For the most obvious example, a client needs full usage rights to a properly built identity package (logo and supportive graphic elements) he has paid good money for. And that's key; your work should be priced accordingly, and one of the criteria for that is the extent of usage rights. Again, it needs to be spelled out up-front. But the same practicality principle often applies to lesser projects, too. Paying customers do business in an increasingly data-driven world (and conventional-wisdom graphics software has a lot of catching up to do in that regard). I actually love it when a client wants to be able to reprint as-needed without having to come back to me for every little edit. Clients commonly think it's downright silly to have to, and depending on the nature of the project, I quite agree. I've often upsold a client from just a one-off set of designs to a solution which frees him from dependency upon me and empowers him. And that never lost me business; it kept the appreciative client coming back. Projects like business packages (stationery, envelopes, business cards, etc.), product labels, restaurant menus, certificates, name tags, and more, often need to be delivered in an editable form that can be updated as employees come and go and recipes and prices change. Solutions for such things can be as simple as leveraging the functionality of enabled form fields in the print-ready PDF. At the other end  of the client-editability scale are full-blown data-driven, network shared solutions. I've designed data-driven solutions for 1000 page product catalogs that are continually updated by non-designer data-entry clerks and that assemble themselves via scripts with no manual "desktop publishing" whatsoever. I've built data-driven marketing solutions to empower a whole dealership network to populate their own localized fliers, placement ads, mailers, and emails on-the-fly, without corrupting the centralized branding, thereby protecting the brand against the cheezy amateurish home-grown stuff that proliferated beforehand (and that you allude to). So give some thought to intentionally providing editable solutions to your customers who need it. It may surprise you when you see that it keeps them (and their referrals) coming back to you. JET ... View more

For example, I want to draw ocean waves or face portrait but there is so much details in those images that I feel like a pen tool can't execute. It sounds like you are new to vector-based drawing in general and just having the usual conceptual struggles. If so, just take your time, read the documentation, and keep at it. It's an entirely different world from painting with pixels so you have to get your head around it. But rest assured you can create detailed drawings, including ocean waves, faces, or anything else. Just don't expect the process to be anything like painting in a raster imaging program. A large part of the "art" of vector-based drawing is exploiting the functional elegance to achieve the appearance of detail with deceptively small object counts (kind of like water color as opposed to oil paint). Just an example drawn entirely with the Pen Tool, using a mouse (in another vector-based program, but that really doesn't matter; the principles are the same): The paths of the above drawing: It's very worthwhile to open some of the demo files that ship with the program and contain what appears to be "detailed" artwork. Tear them apart and study the stack of objects from which they are constructed. JET ... View more

It's a complete non-issue for me. I put countless miles on cordless laser mice all day, every day, and don't have any latency or accuracy problems with them. I prefer the smallish ones sized for laptops over full-size ones, no matter what computer I'm using. (I don't know about anyone else, but my hand doesn't shrink when I'm using a notebook or grow when I'm using a desktop.) Nothing chic or tech-trendy. Two buttons and a scroll wheel, thankyouverymuch. (None of that "if two buttons are good, then ten buttons must be GREAT!"" Microsoft logic for me.) Don't care for pucks, trackballs (although I much preferred trackballs on laptops over the now ubiquitous touch screens), or the latest gimmicky oddly-shaped "super ergo" mice, and I very seldom every use a stylus. (I do, however, prefer the curved Microsoft "ergo" keyboard on all my desktops.) Currently, I like the  Logitech cordless laser mouse you can find anywhere for under $20 just fine. This will probably turn into one of those "Which oil is best for my motorcycle?" threads. 😉 JET ... View more

However, the mere fact that you are building a document with text linked across four pages does not necessarily mean it would be more appropriate to build it in a page-layout app. Countless "four pager" whole-document brochures (single sheet, printed both sides, folded once) are more efficiently built in a drawing program than in a page-layout program because they often tend to be graphics-intensive and do not have repetitively looksame layouts. In such brochures, a page-layout program brings little benefit to the table, whereas having most (or all) of the graphic content native to the program is more convenient. JET ... View more

Technically, Example 1A is insignificantly "more efficient" in that it has one less node. Technically, Example 1B is more accurate when the precise height of the curve is important. Practically, 1A is "more supple" if a continuously smooth, "kink-free" curve is more important that the mathematically-precise height of the curve. Same principles apply to Examples 2A and 2B, but in reverse. If the S were being drawn for an actual font glyph, the nodes at the horizontal extrema are important because precise height of the characters is important for precise scaling and hinting. An S will also often have nodes at the middle of the diagonal sweeps to precisely control the greatest width of the character's "stroke." (You can learn a lot by converting quality fonts to curves and thinking about why nodes are placed as they are. Reading books on font design is a worthwhile thing for vector illustrators to do, even if they never intend to create fonts.) But if the S were not an actual glyph, but just an example of a smoothly flowing curve, then again, minimizing nodes along the middle of a curve lets a Bezier curve do what it is designed to do: mathematically generate supple, eye-pleasing curves by interpolating the curve at the granularity (resolution) of the rendering device. So as a general decision-guiding principle while drawing, continually think about whether interpolating a smoothly fluid curve is more important, or whether a particular position along that curve needs to be precisely "nailed down." But don't go nuts over it. As a very loose and broad rule-of-thumb, curve "handles" are usually somewhere in the range of 1/3 the segment length. For most shapes that's a practical balance between visual smoothness and manipulation precision. JET ... View more

Paul, All you have to do to select the object(s) you want to manipulate is simply select them on the page with a selection tool. You don't have to tediously dig through the so-called Layers palette. Selecting an object on the page will show it as selected in the Layers palette. But you don't have to select things "by Layer" anyway. It sounds like you are making things difficult by assuming too much dependency on the Layers palette, or even over-using Layers in the first place. This is one of the most common conceptual points of confusion among newcomers to vector-based drawing, having only experience in raster imaging. The best single piece of advice someone can offer a newcomer to vector graphics is this: Forget Photoshop. You're now in the "other half" of the computer graphics world, and those two separate "hemispheres" are radically and fundamentally different. Layers is one of the most common stumbling blocks because those only accustomed to raster imaging bring with them a preconception of what a Layer is, and assume it's the same thing in a vector-based program. It's not. For a physical analogy to raster imaging, think of this: Suppose you want to paint one of those "visible human" illustrations commonly found in physical encyclopedias. So you: Start with stack of same-size transparent plastic sheets, bound together along the left edge. On the rearmost sheet, you tediously paint each of the major structural bones. You flip over the previous sheet, and, on it, you paint a bunch of internal organs. Flip over the previous sheet, and, on it, you paint the bones of the rib cage. Flip over the previous sheet and paint the muscles. Flip over the previous sheet and paint the skin. And so on...Now what have you got? A stack of a few same-size "transparencies." Those are the only objects in the document. The individual bones and organs are not individual objects at all; they're just painted regions on a manageably few sheets of transparency film. Those "films" are necessary for the final appearance of the artwork. For a physical analogy to vector drawing think of this: Start with a deck of photos, a ball of string, a few sheets of colored paper, and a scissors, Using the scissors, cut the sheets of paper into randomly-shaped pieces. Cut holes in some of them. Cut some of them into the shapes of letters. Cut the string into a bunch of random-length pieces. Tie some of the pieces into closed loops, leave other pieces open-ended. Cut some of the photos in half. Cut some others into quarters. Toss all of the pieces and bits into a paper bag, Close and shake vigorously. Then dump the contents onto a table. Now what have you got? A pile of many individual objects made of different stuff, spread across an area. Some of them overlap, and are therefore partially hidden. Some of them are scattered away from the majority and are wholly visible. But none of them are attached to the same "transparency film" because there are no transparency films. You can individually rearrange, rotate, and restack (reorder) each and every colored shape, piece of string, letter, photo, or piece of photo. Now think of the difference here in terms of "layers." In the raster analogy, you've got a few transparency films. Each film looks like it has a bunch of individual objects, but it doesn't. Those are just painted regions on a single piece of film. So Layers have a direct bearing on the appearance of the composition. But in the "vector" analogy, each shape, each string, each photo, each piece of a photo is an actual, discrete object. They're not even attached to each other by film. There is no film. Now, think about the significance of that: In the vector environment there are no layers in the raster-based sense. There's just a stack of loose, independent objects created in a particular order and are "in front" of each other in that order. If you want, you can call each of those objects a "Layer," and list them in a palette, but what's the point? Compared to painting in a raster program, that's going to be a long list to scroll through, and whether portions of that same stack order are labeled "Layers" or not has no bearing on the appearance of the composition. Suppose you want a particular five of those independent objects to be on top of the rest of the stack. You can pick up those five, one at a time, and hold them in one hand. With your other hand, you can record that list of five objects and call the list a Group. In your hand, they are still individual objects stacked in a given order.  With that hand, you can then set them back down on top of the pile on the table in one move. You can later tell the software to refer to that list (the Group) and automatically select its other members whenever you select any one of the five, thereby making it automatic to move, rotate, scale, etc. that Group of objects all at once. Or, you could do this: You could select the same five objects, list them, call the List a "Layer" instead of a Group, and store that list name in another list called the Layers palette. Now when you select one of the five objects, the other four are not selected. To do that, you would have to refer to the list and "target" the Layer. But here's the thing: Whether you call it a "Group" or a "Layer," those five objects still have an order within that set of five. One of those five is still "above" the other four. One is still "below" the other four. And you can still re-order those five objects any way you wish, within that Group or Layer. Also, whether it's a Group or a Layer, the five objects are still next to each other (contiguous) within the overall object stack of the whole document. So logically, Layers and Groups are much the same thing: Just a pair of referential "brackets" or "parentheses" around a portion of a list of objects. One could say Layers is more geared toward document organization, while Groups is more geared toward manipulation convenience. But they're still the same kind of logical construct. Suppose your document contains 3000 objects. Suppose you don't use any Groups at all and you only use the one automatically-created (thereby "mandated") Layer. Your document still contains 3000 discrete objects and they are all still in an ordered stack. Using Groups and Layers is entirely optional. In fact, there is nothing at all wrong with building your entire document in one Layer. I (and I'm sure many other long-timers) quite commonly do so. This may come as a shock: For many years, mainstream vector drawing programs only listed Layers in their Layers palettes. (What a concept!) Somewhere along the way, some company got the bright-eyed idea to also list all the individual objects which are within the Layers in the Layer's palette...but kept its label unchanged. And other programs (stupidly) followed in lockstep. This faux pas leads newcomers to think that each object is a "Layer" just like in Photoshop. When a program insists on listing all objects in the Layers palette, it should be called the Object Stack, or just the Objects List, because the vast majority of what you see listed in the Layers palette are not Layers; they are just objects. This has led to endless confusion among new users, especially those engrained with the Layers concept of programs like Photoshop. JET ... View more

…I want to apply the technique to multiple types of surfaces, flat, angled, curved, in the same drawing.  I don't know if it'd be an effective approach to create many different brushes that could then be used in all future drawings/projects, or if brushes need to be created per drawing, or per project, to be able to perfectly fit that shape. Using the basic principles I demonstrated, I would devise a set of Art and Pattern Brushes, and then add them to all the New Document Profile files that I typically use for axonometric drawings. Just as a surprisingly small set of plastic templates (ellipses, hexes, springs, etc.) in pre-computer days facilitated drawing pretty much everything, one should be able to build a carefully-constructed set of Brushes that would facilitate quickly applying shading to most mechanical shapes. (I use such collections to automate drawing more ambitious things: threaded hex fasteners of any length, diameter, and axonometric orientation; wire rope, loom, terminals; round and square tubing, etc., etc.) For example, in my post, I: First created an Art Brush just for the base dash pattern. Then I created a few instances of that Art Brush to create an array of 4 parallel dash patterns. Then I applied that 4-path array to part of an ellipse. Then I created a single Pattern Brush from that construct. I did that to demonstrate that the resulting Pattern Brush can be used as laterally-shaded effects for any cylinder, of any length and any diameter.Well, I could have also just as easily used that same 4-path array as base art for a separate Art Brush which could be used as longitudinal shading lines for cylinders and other shapes.So there are more possibilities than just what I demonstrated. While exploring those possibilities, always consider whether there are other features that can be exploited to semi-automate the process. For example: One of the chronic frustrations about Illustrator's implementation of Brushes (and Symbols and Arrowheads) is that they don't provide an option to disallow scaling of stroke weights in the base art, when you scale the Brush by changing the stroke weight of the path to which the Brush it is applied. So to work around that, you could record an Action (macro) to run after using the Brush, that: Expands Appearance. Selects and deletes unpainted paths. Sets Stroke Weight. …so that all your "shading" constructs can be given the same stroke weight with the click of a button. In the first cylindrical example I showed, just the initial single-row "dashed" Brush was applied to a live Blend. Well, a few carefully thought-out similar Blend constructs could also be exploited to serve as a set of re-useable shading assets, and stored as Symbols (if you want to have them reside in a so-called "library"), or just put copies of them outside the Artboard(s) in your New Document Profile files. JET ... View more

CorelDraw even developed a new custom renderer for their technical suite that can dynamically generate vector outlines from 3D-CAD data inside their programs. As a licensed user of Technical Designer, I also would like to know what specific feature are you talking about that has to do with automating the kind of shading which is the subject of this thread. JET ... View more

Basic principle: Use Art Brushes and Pattern Brushes. Example: JET ... View more

Cally, There's a lot of talk in this thread about so-called "rich black," but you said: I designed a book in illustrator- completely black and white. Do you understand that the term "rich black" generally assumes process color? Do you understand that (assuming you're having it printed on an offset press) your "completely black and white" document would normally be printed with just one ink, and that by setting it up with so-called "rich black" swatches, you are effectively asking for it to be color-separated, involving up to four inks? JET ... View more

You do not have to use the white pointer to laboriously marquee select endpoints in order to join open paths in situations like this. That used to be the case, but the ability to join normally-selected paths was (very belatedly) added versions ago. You can just normally select the whole paths (as with the black pointer) and invoke the Join command (Object menu>Path>Join). Paths will join at their nearest endpoints. JET ... View more