Greetings,
I'd like to add my voice in support of Vern and other users (such as one other user's heartfelt plea in the Feature Requests section not to change to standard Bezier splines) liking the AS drawing tools.
I feel Lost Marble has made a useful, flexible, and predictable compromise for the drawing tools by "locking and hiding the handles" (using point magnitude to control the curve rather than handles).
Once you learn a few keyboard shortcuts and gain a familiarity with how they work, my opinion (not necessarily shared by all AS users) is that AS splines are as quick and capable for drawing as Beziers or B-splines.
Like Vern, I've used and continue to use Bezier and B-spline tools for static illustrations (for myself, mostly Expression and Xara, with some recent dabbling in DrawPlus, rather than AI and Freehand), but I wouldn't want to always use completely unlocked Beziers for animation (although B-splines might be a definite possibility, having the bones affect the off-spline control points).
Perhaps my viewpoint is partly because my introduction to drawing and animating splines came more through 3D animation/modelling software such as Animation:Master (and sPatch, Jpatch, and Hamapatch), which used by default a "locked-hidden mirror-handle" technique similar to AS, and less through illustration software.
I can still remember when, in a later version, Animation:Master exposed handles for the splines as many users had requested - and guess what? also got some flack from some users because tweaked handles didn't react as predictably when the main node points were animated by bones. The standard "locked-handle" A:M/AS spline reacts fairly predictably when animated by bones. Tweaked "unlocked" handles can sometimes animate weirdly, giving bulges and creases where users don't expect them.
However, it is possible to have several conflicting points of view, none of which are either absolutely correct or incorrect (think of it as a circular spectrum of colours rather than black and white halves - or even a linear gradient of shades of grey), and I think that's the situation we've got here - no amount of convincing argument from any one "colour" will completely change any of the others.
There are definite advantages to "fully unlocked" AI-style Beziers, and I can see why some people would like to have them. There are advantages to AS "locked" Beziers, and I can see why Lost Marble chose them. (There are advantages to B-splines too.)
For the moment, all you can do is put your name on the feature request (and try not to complain if you get what you asked for
) and work with the tools that are available.
My current coloured opinion, fairly close in the spectrum to Vern's: Creating your characters in AS (rather than going through an intermediate program) will give you more satisfying results for animation - you will have direct curvature control, and control over point creation and placement. However, there is no "autotrace" feature - you will have to trace scanned drawings manually.
Regards, Myles.
