These drawing tools suck!

cadman · Post by **cadman** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 1:57 am

No matter what I do I can't add any thickness to the line and the fill shaded even though I tell it not to....WTF!

PARKER · Post by **PARKER** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 2:33 am

I think you dont really mean the drawing tools suck, what happen is that you still dont know well the software.

Use the line width tool to control the width of your lines, its very easy, also for the fill shaded just go to styles and select shaded from the list of effects, its piece of cake

If you new to the software you must be patient.

cadman · Post by **cadman** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 3:20 am

if I have everything setup when I draw, sure....but if I draw it and want to change it then forget it. I setup a style for the skin of my character but I cannot add any line thickness, no matter what I do it's that checkerboard which means it's invisable...so I delete it and do a new one...I have to delete alotta stuff and redraw it....my Drawplus X4 is far superior and that only cost me 40 bucks! I can click on something and change it, I don't have to pick a select tool first and then the fill tool, I just click on it and change what I want to change. If I mess around enough with this thing I may accidentally get what I want but I have no idea what I did to get there!

PARKER · Post by **PARKER** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 3:28 am

You can modify the thickness of your lines even if they have a style applied.
If you want to create or color a shape with one single click use the Paint Bucket tool.
Also if you want your shapes to fill automaticly and save yourself work you have the option auto weld when using the add point tool and auto fill and auto stroke when using the draw shape tool, tis easy pal

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 3:35 am

You're beating a dead horse here Parker. This guy has already made his mind up about AS. They do not take the time to learn the program and then post crud about how bad AS is.

cadman · Post by **cadman** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 3:57 am

the animating is awesome and when I make .png files with my X4 I can do some really neat things, but too much of that and it won't animate and bones doesn't seem to like .png's so I'm trying the draw tools and just selecting stuff...click a tool, select something, click another tool, click what you want to change...too much mouse action, too much clicking and then there are times when it just won't do what I want, even though I'm following the instructions and doing what I'm supposed to do, yes I learn the software....it doesn't work most of the time

PARKER · Post by **PARKER** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 4:02 am

AS has a lot of shortcuts for the tools and you can make them yourself, you can check my tutorial on that subject here if you wish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJbwtQ4VsYg

cadman · Post by **cadman** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 4:17 am

aye, there's the rub....tutorials...when I got my X4 I just started drawing with it, it was similar to CAD packages that I've used for 20 years, it's very intuitive and easy to draw with

I just had a semi-circle and wanted to hide the flat part of the line, but that caused the fill to disappear and no matter what I can't get it back....if the bones feature didn't distort my .png so I'd have had this drawn and animated days ago.....

cadman · Post by **cadman** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:22 am

again, I have a circle that's shaded and even though I'm telling it not to shade it, it is still shaded....no matter what I do I can't get rid of the shading

PARKER · Post by **PARKER** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:34 am

You have to chose Plain in effects, make sure to have the shaded shape selected first.

cadman · Post by **cadman** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:37 am

did that

PARKER · Post by **PARKER** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:47 am

Are you sure you used shaded from the effect list to add shading to your shape?
May be its because your shape has a style applied, get rid of the style.
To do this select your shape with the select shape tool, then set Style 1 and Style 2 to None.

dm · Post by dm » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:57 am

sounds like x4 is the superior product. Why not just use that and abandon Anime Studio?

AS has a learning curve, and it's not a 'standard' interface. Drove me nuts for about a month, now it's only mildly annoying. What version are you using? (debut, pro, 5,6,7?)

cadman · Post by **cadman** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 6:10 am

made sure that style were both selected to none....X4 is an awesome drawing tool but it's animating is limited.

If I could have Serif's drawing tools and AS's animating I would feel like king of the world....until then I'll be 'questioning the heritage' of the guys at smith micro....(I call them all sorts of names in the privacy of my own room but never here, really)

I have Pro 7...I first started on anime 5 (which I guess they now call debut) and it seems like the drawing portion has not improved from then, the tutorials are certainly exactly the same....

Again, I sing the praises of the animating part....really neat stuff!

PARKER · Post by **PARKER** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 6:14 am

I dont understand your problem then, sorry.
You can get used to AS drawing tools with time.