Hello,

Just a link to show you what's up with illustrator cs4.
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1555v1706

I ask for the " blob brush" some time ago, to inkscape developers, but adobe did it before.

David wrote:I ask for the " blob brush" some time ago, to inkscape developers, but adobe did it before.

In what way is it different from Calligraphic pen drawing with Shift?

Does anybody know if they have improved SVG support in this version? I mean especially problems with alpha transparency and SVG filters (or rather lack of those) when moving files betwen Illy and Inkscape.

I also can't find any information about "pixel bender" thing. This whould be a killer feature - like SVG filter effects, but much more powerfull and rendered by GPU.

bbyak wrote:In what way is it different from Calligraphic pen drawing with Shift?

You don't have to hold Shift? Although, to be fair, I was going to attempt to code a feature to not have to hold shift myself I did like how intelligently Illustrator smoothed the path after it was drawen. I think auto-simplification could be desireable for the calligraphy tool in Inkscape.

I wonder if Inkscape has had any influence on the development of Illustrator? Illustrator has been around forever and only now can you hand position a gradient on the canvas. And only now can you create transparent gradient stops. These are two biggest reasons why I picked Inkscape up. And now in Illustrator you can double-click a compound-path to edit it's object--that also sounds like Inkscape.

microUgly wrote:You don't have to hold Shift?

Heh.

Seriously, it's been planned to add a mode switcher (toggle buttons) to calligraphic pen, with Add, Remove, Divide (or Knife), and maybe other modes. Should be easy to do, as well as add an auto-simplify. If you want to work on that, I will help.

microUgly wrote:I wonder if Inkscape has had any influence on the development of Illustrator?

It might have. At this rate, though, they will take a looooong time to catch up with all of our new stuff. Illustrator has always been notorious for its "conservatism" - it was the last major vector editor to introduce gradients, for example. It's sad that for so many people, it's the only vector editor they ever see.

About blobs and fusion between line and shapes, here is a proposal I did on Xara forums. And like all my ideas, anybody is free to implement them.

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=33972

This idea is based onto what I called the "blob technique" I imaginated in Xara and described in the "Blobs technique based on feathering" on my resource page here :

http://www.amoons.be/botarosa/resource.htm

This technique is based on Xara's blur rendering (they call it "Feathering") which includes "profiles" which I am afraid are not available at the moment in svg gaussian blur specs. Hope svg specs will evolve in this direction.

In some of the links on Xara's forum you will find my .xar files which can be open in XaraLX if you are interested to know how the things are structured and my explanations lack of clarity (I am french speaking ans my english isn't perfect by far...) In fact, while playing now with svg effects filters I try to reproduce some of the effects I obtained in Xara and thus understanding their structure is important for me.

Not that I am not a "loyal" user of Xara or any other programs, but I find sharing ideas so stimulating and part of life ! What I find the most worse in Adobe attitude is that they ignorate what is sharing. This isn't the cas with Xara people which are more in touch with the users. However I am sad that XaraLX project seems to be stopped at the moment.

My first serious vector drawing program was "CorelXara", the first version of Xara for windows, which already had antialisasing, transparency (including bitmap based transparency) intuitive freehand drawing tools and a lot other ones when the windows version of Illustrator (4.0 if I remember) even didn't have antialiasing and didn't support bitmap handling. Even CorelDraw was much more advanced at this time.

kindly,
ivan

This might be a bit off topic, but wasn't caligraphy tool predicted by some devs to be dead when LPE are finished? I already see no reason to use this tool instead of bezier/spiro curve + pattern along path effect. With LPE you can imitate all kinds of media, like brushes, pencils, ink. I even manged to recreate brush used to make debian logo in few minutes. The "blob brush" idea also sounds like another LPE, a bit similar to knot efect.

Ho...I did't know about the "shift" thing.
My bad ...actually, the best tool is the flash brush, it's so smooth and you can drawn in front, behind, into,...

Inkscaper_ wrote:This might be a bit off topic, but wasn't caligraphy tool predicted by some devs to be dead when LPE are finished? I already see no reason to use this tool instead of bezier/spiro curve + pattern along path effect. With LPE you can imitate all kinds of media, like brushes, pencils, ink.

You could produce the same look, but I don't see how LPE could replace what you can do with the calligraphy tool and a pressure/tilt sensitive tablet. Right now I can t draw a path of varying thickness instantly as I draw. I don't know how I could do that as easily with LPE.

David wrote:actually, the best tool is the flash brush, it's so smooth and you can drawn in front, behind, into,...

Was that tool demonstrated in the video? I don't remember it.

David wrote:Ho...I did't know about the "shift" thing.
My bad ...actually, the best tool is the flash brush, it's so smooth and you can drawn in front, behind, into,...

Of course ! Yes, you are right. Everybody forget it because it's the normal drawing mode in Flash... And at first Illustrator's users considered it as heretic...

But I tried the Inkscape Brush+Shift and even Freehand+Shift after applying svg effects on the first shape/first line and despite it's not very quick, it's a real joy !

ivan

Inkscaper_ wrote:This might be a bit off topic, but wasn't caligraphy tool predicted by some devs to be dead when LPE are finished?

Please bear in mind that LPE itself is a quite limited technology, at least in the currently implemented form