Design challenges in Illustrator

[Bob]

Envelope distorts in a vector drawing app were long ago (we're talking decades) refined in... CorelDraw. One of the features their envelope controls sport that Ai does not is multi-mode distortion mapping. Ai seems restricted to just one type of distort, but Corel has 4: 'Original', Putty, Vertical and Horizontal. I think what you're describing would be using the Vertical setting where the algorithm maintains vertical lines.

Now there's probably an Ai plugin extension that will do this too, somewhere. It's just that this particular trick has been a Corel feature since... probably the early nineties.

Corel's latest version has some even fancier vector distortion tools. Effectively adding localizing brush-based distortion tools like bloat, taper, twirl etc. to the toolset.

[kemingMatters]

Originally Posted by Bob

Envelope distorts in a vector drawing app were long ago (we're talking decades) refined in... CorelDraw. One of the features their envelope controls sport that Ai does not is multi-mode distortion mapping. Ai seems restricted to just one type of distort, but Corel has 4: 'Original', Putty, Vertical and Horizontal. I think what you're describing would be using the Vertical setting where the algorithm maintains vertical lines.

Now there's probably an Ai plugin extension that will do this too, somewhere. It's just that this particular trick has been a Corel feature since... probably the early nineties.

Corel's latest version has some even fancier vector distortion tools. Effectively adding localizing brush-based distortion tools like bloat, taper, twirl etc. to the toolset.

pfft taper... Free Transform Tool + cmd + shift. Now if Corel was capable of closing paths when converting text to "curves" or actually outlining lower case san serif L's (and uppercase i's) instead of converting it to a stroke... that would be something.

They might have since fixed these, but I still come across it on files sent to me that were made in Corel

[Bob]

Corel has a lot of weaknesses and potholes. But in get down to vector shape drawing -- it's real 'Core' toolset, it's at time quite brilliant.

Unfortunately, over times (again, decades), Adobe seems to have taken the tactic of adding many of Corel's less stable 'features' and frivolous tools first, and only in the last five or six years have we seen Adobe trying to finally add more primary, but useful things which have been standard in Draw for so long. Like interactive gradient control lines, (only Corel's is much faster/better), or making a clipped object's boundary -- woah-- the clipping path!

And by the way, perspective distort (Free transform +Cmnd/Shft) is NOT the same as the taper I was talking about.

Check out this little video on Corel X6's latest shape tool effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnfq3VTfI3s

Coming soon (2020?) to a newer version of Ai?

All I'm saying is that if someone (not me) had the time to actually sit down and plot the migration of features that have were pioneered and then migrated from CorelDraw to Ai over the last twenty years, it might add up to a slightly embarassing case of innovation blushing for a certain development team that remains largely immune to true user criticism.

[kemingMatters]

I'm curious as to what you mean by taper then.. I'm by no means saying AI isn't without it's issues, and YES the way it doesn't use the clipping path as Object Boundary is excruciatingly annoying. That's why I prefer to do layout ID over AI TBH.

In my limited experiences with Corel products, they have consistently been unstable at best.

And you are probably right, Adobe is getting Quarky, I mean lazy.

[Bob]

Taper was a poor choice of word. I don't know what they called it -- but check out that YouTube vid -- it's short and quickly shows what these new tools are, and do.

And yet... at the same time I can see these new tools being an absolute breeding ground for prepress abominations. That's the thing with Corel, they always assume that their average user knows enough about prepress limits to not go too far. Mistake! Not unique to Corel's UI design, but probably much, much, more accessible and likely -- given the characteristically sad level of prepress knowledge among most of its users.

[PrintDriver]

Kem, Illustrator uses the clipping mask as a boundary now. Certainly in CS5 anyway.

Corel is more like sign software in having a lot of easy, clean ways to do things that Illustrator (or rather Adobe) hasn't really even given much thought. I like to imagine sometimes what Illustrator would be like if a sign guy actually had some input into its workings...

[Andy1975]

Originally Posted by PrintDriver

When doing your tin plate sign, you have to take into account light direction. It wouldn't be dark all around the inside and light all around the outside.

PrintDriver <--

Thanks for your input. As mentioned earlier this was just a quick mock-up I made in order to show the idea of what I wanted to do.

I am well aware of the fact that the lighting would not be equal on both sides but that is just what my problem was all about.

I am looking for an effective way of controlling the corners and subtle areas that dont warp exactly the same way as the sides that are more streamlined.

Shadows and highlights wouldn't be "even" here rather than probably more random. So I am still keen on knowing how to control this.

Also..., you posted about transparency masks as a help to do all of the above.

Could you elaborate on that part, please...?

Thanks!

[Andy1975]

Originally Posted by kemingMatters

for # 1: "bulge" is somewhat a pseudo-3D warp effect, that's why it appears the way it does. You could also do this in a two step process using arc-upper, expand the effect, then arc-lower.

for # 2: make a compound path of the "ridge" and *cringe* use the bevel/emboss photoshop effect if you're going for speed over quality. Just make sure your raster effects are set to a suitable DPI.

kemingMatters <--

Thanks also here for your input.

I follow you in regards to the first step. However I am a bit lost in regards to number two.

Could you also elaborate here a bit more on how to apply that compound path - if possible with a "technical drawing" that explains the same...?

Thanks in advance...!

[kemingMatters]

It's quite simple really draw a shape, draw another smaller shape completely on top if the first shape, select both shapes and press cmd+8 (not sure what it is on pc probably ctrl+8) our select object/paths/make compound path.

[Andy1975]

Originally Posted by Bob

Corel has a lot of weaknesses and potholes. But in get down to vector shape drawing -- it's real 'Core' toolset, it's at time quite brilliant.

Unfortunately, over times (again, decades), Adobe seems to have taken the tactic of adding many of Corel's less stable 'features' and frivolous tools first, and only in the last five or six years have we seen Adobe trying to finally add more primary, but useful things which have been standard in Draw for so long. Like interactive gradient control lines, (only Corel's is much faster/better), or making a clipped object's boundary -- woah-- the clipping path!

And by the way, perspective distort (Free transform +Cmnd/Shft) is NOT the same as the taper I was talking about.

Check out this little video on Corel X6's latest shape tool effects:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnfq3VTfI3s

Coming soon (2020?) to a newer version of Ai?

All I'm saying is that if someone (not me) had the time to actually sit down and plot the migration of features that have were pioneered and then migrated from CorelDraw to Ai over the last twenty years, it might add up to a slightly embarassing case of innovation blushing for a certain development team that remains largely immune to true user criticism.

Bob <--

Thanks to both of you guys for the interesting discussion about Illustrator vs. Corel etc.

I am myself an "Illustrator guy" and when first laying my hands on Illustrator (I think it was 6.0 back then - yuck!) I was not only annoyed but directly frustrated with the logic behind selections, the two arrows for direct and point selection, the constant deselecting and many other little things making me want to throw the whole thing out.

This is almost 15 years ago now and since then things have drastically improved. However if what I can read out of the comments here is true then it seems like one big "shocker" to me.

I also agree totally on the Adobe developers' attitude being completely out of sync with reality or their customers' criticism. I tried this with Photoshop and non-working scanner-drivers (import function not working after update) about a year ago and can affirm that it was quite stunning to see such arrogance and denial of having any responsibility or part in the problem.

On the other hand I have come quite accustomized to working with Illustrator which I learned to "love" and know as well as ID which is the primary software I work with. I only once and more than two decades ago worked for a year or so with Corel and although it worked I wasn't too impressed with it. It seemed "cheap" if I may put it that way.

However I recently have been to a job interview in a company that actually makes prints on t-shirts, linen bags and other textile materials and now understand much better why they told me back then that Corel was their preferred software and better at handling jobs for that type of printing.

Looking into the video that you posted the link for, I cannot see the great "exact" demonstrations of how Corel handles my particular problem with the type warp that comes out skew. Some tools seem to work better while others seem very messy in fact. What I can't see though is the more "automated tools" like "envelope distort" or similar in action. Maybe it's in Corel but it's not demonstrated in this video.

So in conclusion I am left with the same problem that leads me to two questions...

1. Is Corel simply the program to go with when warping text like this in the way I am trying to whereas Illustrator is not and...

2. ...is it possible to find a plug-in for Illustrator that can do this action and if yes, which one/what is it called (maybe someone can provide a link)?

Hoping to get some more input on the above...!