Supporting illustration programs?

[BigBack]

So what illustration apps do you guys use for drawing?

Currently I use Macromedia Freehand mainly with Flash for edits once art is inside of FLash.

BUT with Adobe buying Macromedia, Freehand is likely dead in favour of Illustrator which means I am out an illustration program.

Illustrator is not an option for me. Don't ask why LOL I just hate it. Nuff' said. I know this is not especially professional of me but lets chat about alternatives .

Canvas is probably my top choice but I am curious to see what others favour here.

Great art tools, pressure sensitivity, and of course moho compatibility rank up there for feature requirements.

Cheers,

[myles]

Hello Jeremy,

Xara X - see almost ten years of Gary Priester's excellent monthly tutorials at the XaraXone. Clean interface, very fast, good anti-aliasing.

Creature House Expression, now in the process of becoming Microsoft Acrylic (beta version codename). Acrylic has added some great new features, such as automatic hue/value variation for vector strokes.
The older Expression 3.3 download is marked as preview/beta but is non-expiring, fully functional, and basically the previously commercial version 3.2 with a few minor changes and bugfixes by Creature House before the Microsoft deal. A very good manual with tutorials is included in the download, but check out the great introductory tutorials at Studio E3.

Regards, Myles.

[Squeakydave]

I'll just agree with Myles. Xarax is my main workhorse. I used to do all my illustration in Painter and then discovered Xara. It just works so well. Now all my stuff is coloured there. The colour handling with linked colours is a godsend. I usually do my designs and colour models there and then bring them into Moho. (As bitmaps. I retrace the characters into Moho vectors and just import any BG elements as transparent png's.)
It exports still Flash files pretty well once you get the hang too.
It has pressure sensitivity but to be honest I find Xaras Line profiles much more useful as you have way more control over thicks and thins.
I can't recomend it highly enough!
(Most of the stuff on my site was done with it if you are interested)

I have Expression/acrylic. It has much potential but is not as easy/comfortable to use as Xara.

[BigBack]

Thanks guys

Downloading a demo right now!

How's the compatibility with Moho and or Flash?

From the demo videos it seems to have some great feathering, transparency, and other pretty amazing effects. But from my experience these effects in other programs dont export so nicely.

Squeakdave you retrace everything in moho? Is this partly why? By the way your site is really great!

Cheers,

[Squeakydave]

BigBack
Most of the special effects don't export as vectors (Same for just about every other vector app) but moho imports transparent png's just fine.

I retrace the characters in moho so I have more control of points which helps big time with bone setup and animation. If you have ever tried importing complicated ai files you will know what I mean!

My work flow with Flash (All I seem to get to do nowadays ) Is to do B/g's etc in Xara - export to flash. Animation as mentioned in Moho and export to Flash. I then use Flash to put it all together. What a team! - the best of all worlds.

Note - check out the online docs about Flash export If you want to do this sort of thing.

Glad you like the site!

[BigBack]

Hey Squeakydave

Well I downloaded the demo and so far it seems quite good. It lives up to its rep for speed and great quality.

I am not to impressed with the presure senstivitity though and no multipages

Humm this search might be harder than I thought

Canvas still seems like the best fit for me from all the apps I have tried. Curses on Adobe for buying Macromedia

I am discovering why you redo the art LOL. I have some art finalized that I am now breaking apart and rejigging so I can import it and animated in moho. Might have been easier to do the character illustration in moho in the first place But I did experiment with this and found the presure tablet in moho not as nice as it is in freehand.

Anyway I have found that creating art in Freehand (even with effects and such) and importing native into Flash works great. Then exporting out to illustrator from flash for moho retains prettty well all the art including gradients and effects.

So this workflow will be a work in progress till I get used to moho's ways.

Cheers,

[Squeakydave]

Funny how we artists go by the feel of the app. It is something that software (and hardware) companies often neglect.

With reference to your pressure sensitivity issue with Xara. I had exactly the same issues when I first used it. Once I got the hang of the line profiles there was no going back. it gives you perfect editable thick and thin lines every time. You can also convert them to shapes for export.

I didn't ever really get on with Freehand myself. Not antialiassed enough.
I did read somewhere that Macromedia said that it would survive though. Worst case I think is that they spin it off to another company. There is just too much of a user base to just ditch it completely. A bit like Metacreations and Poser. Hey, Adobe (If the deal goes through) has to get their money back somehow so selling stuff they don't need would make a lot of sense.
Anyway it is not over 'till the fat lady sings!


I must try the gradient thing with Freehand. Moho has it's own way of working with grads in Flash. - The grad says still when the shape moves. Very handy for simulating lighting effects!

[BigBack]

well I went back to xara and started playing again. I can get the natural brushes to work great pressure wise!! But basic brush strokes are another story But it appears that the effects I want are doable !! Yeah...

I imagine just creating a new brush stroke (like a regular inking stroke) would give me what I am after, but how do you create a new stroke that is continuous like the natural media ones?

The new stroke I created just copies the base stroke shape across the vector path, its not fluid or continous.

Anyway this xara is looking better and better

I suspose I could also try the illustration tools right inside moho to

Cheers,

[Squeakydave]

To edit the brush you first make a shape or series of shapes then make the brush. Then you have to edit it. there are all sorts of connections to mess with. I hardly ever use them myself.
Moho can apply textured lines so you may want to play with them too.

[BigBack]

Well I played with new brushes some more a bit and couldnt do want I was aiming for, that being creating a variable ink stroke that is presssure sensitive, and not a natural medai brush. .

I supose I just need some more time in it to play.

I dont like in the help system that is requires you to download all the movies It sure would be easier to download only the ones you want to look at. Really quite frustrating.

Xara does look quite good though on a number of other accounts.

I think I will keep my eyes open and stick with Freehand and Flash for now on my current production.

Its really a shame that there are not more players in the vector illustration market. And even fewer with Adobe and Macromedia merging

Hopefully we can keep this thread alive with any news on new apps

Cheers,

[myles]

Hello Jeremy,

When it comes to creating your own brushes and strokes Expression has a definite advantage. Expression's skeletal stroke technology is superb for this type of thing.

Vector shapes, groups of shapes, and/or bitmaps can be turned into strokes, with all sorts of stretching, repeating, and/or anchored variations.
The sort of stroke you are talking about - a new shaped pressure-sensitive single-colour stroke, if I've understood you correctly - is easy in Expression, but not yet possible in Xara X.

Regards, Myles.

[Squeakydave]

I concur.

[BigBack]

Hello Jeremy,

When it comes to creating your own brushes and strokes Expression has a definite advantage. Expression's skeletal stroke technology is superb for this type of thing.

Vector shapes, groups of shapes, and/or bitmaps can be turned into strokes, with all sorts of stretching, repeating, and/or anchored variations.
The sort of stroke you are talking about - a new shaped pressure-sensitive single-colour stroke, if I've understood you correctly - is easy in Expression, but not yet possible in Xara X.

Regards, Myles.

What really odd is that the natural media brushes in xara are totally pressure sensitive? Wouln't making new strokes utilize the same process as was taken to create these brushes? And they tile totally clean like expected.

It must be technically possible to do this somehow?

I do love Expression to. I reviewed it moons ago for www.cgfocus.com and use it still to this day occasionally.

BUT what I dont like is that Microsoft now owns and develops that technology. I know its still in beta, but I have no confidence in Microsoft to create a professional level illustration program

They could however prove me wrong.

Cheers,

[BigBack]

Ok guys

I never even considered Corel Draw since I owned and hated version 8, but I gave the demo of 12 a try out of desperation , and I have to tell you guys that its amazing!!!!!!

True pressure senstive vector tools, including an eraser, and brush tools, a swf preview exporter that shows you and tells you if there are problems with art being exported, great and I mean great vector natural media brushes, and its always had great effects and such.

And it has flowcharting tools, multipage support and great import export tools to. WOW!!!

They have done a great job with version 12.

Just thought I would share

Cheers,

[spoooze!]

Anything that will export as a .png and has transparancy will work. Photoshop Elements will probably do that though I haven't figured it out yet...
Spoooze