Eyedropper, fill, and brush issues

[sargumphigaus]

I need to be able to go back to colors I've used in prior frames for the sake of reference, so I use the eyedropper tool to do that. I have specific stroke colors and stroke thicknesses in place for certain reasons. This is where the eyedropper comes in handy...in theory you click on it, and it will just set the fill and stroke to the thing you clicked on. However when I do it, I just get the fill. Then a few minutes later, I use it again, and nothing happens. It just stops working. Nothing I do will get it to function right.

I color in a characters face. Then I go and color in the hair. When I change the color to lets say black, and then fill in the hair, it is the same color as the face. Even though the fill color is CLEARLY set to black. This happens randomly, and it pretty much renders my progress utterly inert.

I set a brush in place for the sake of shading. I really like this feature, it provides a lot of personality and charm to characters. But when I'm finished with the brush, and turn it off. The brush stays there. I change the style. The brush style stays. There is no way to get rid of the brush. Once you select it, It's just permanently sets itself your free hand default. The only way to fix it is to delete the file and start from scratch. This also happens at random.

I'm starting to think Smith Micro sold me a beta version of this program...I bought this program to animate, not troubleshoot bugs.

edit: a new question: How do I make it so when I adjust a setting to a fill or a stroke, it doesn't automatically apply it to everything else on that layer?

[synthsin75]

Sounds like you don't understand how saved styles work and are applied. The only reason everything on a layer would change is that you either have all shapes selected or are changing a saved style that is applied to everything.

[sargumphigaus]

Sounds like you don't understand how saved styles work and are applied. The only reason everything on a layer would change is that you either have all shapes selected or are changing a saved style that is applied to everything.

So you'd recommend instead of just adjusting a setting, establish a new style all together? And yes you're absolutely right, I don't understand styles at all. They tend to explode when I touch them and kill my program.

Dude, I need a drink. or a cigarette. I'm so frustrated you don't even know.

[chucky]

Dude, you are right.
Just chill and take a slow look through the manual.
Styles are tricky to get your head around take note especially that 'applying the style' to the shape is where you select a style in one of the two dropdowns in the advanced styles palette.
The top dopdown list of styles are the styles themselves, that is where the actual styles get loaded into the UI to edit, change that and you change everywhere they are used.
I agree that this is confusing.
A full overhaul wouldn't go amiss, I even think that the term 'style' is misleading and interferes with discussion about them.

Anyway it gets more complicated when you know you can override a style's colour or width by checking the relevant checkboxes that belong to the shape.
This is actually a really cool feature, but a mind bender to begin with.

I'm wondering where the best tutorial about this might be.

[synthsin75]

I have a tutorial, but my last video host folded and now I'm in the middle of getting a new computer squared away. As soon as I can convert the video to something YouTube will accept, I'll get it back up.

[synthsin75]

This is an older tutorial, but everything still applies.

[DeCay]

Styles have been giving me a headache all morning but I finally found my problem. You must have Effects set to <plain> in the Styles option boxes or you will not be able to apply a defined style. That seems like a bug or a bug disguised as feature.

[synthsin75]

That does look like a bug to me, DeCay. The fill effect should not be active unless the fill override is checked. Thanks for posting the images.