In Flash, the effect of thickness change stroke

This paper mainly introduces the method of using mouse to simulate the stroke effect of the pressure pen with the thickness change in flash.

We know that the pressure-sense pen is a professional graphic designer commonly used as an auxiliary design tool. Designers can use its pressure-sensing function to easily describe the stroke's thickness, tonal brightness and color intensity. In particular, the stroke effect of different strokes, looks natural and smooth, the various types of images to draw a distinct personality, unique style (see diagram below).

In many Flash animation works, we can see this kind of stroke effect, these works are usually done with a pressure-felt pen. However, for most of our average users, there is always a small mouse at hand and no pressure pen at all. So is there any way we can use the mouse to make this kind of effect? After a period of exploration and practice, I found a few use the mouse to simulate the pressure stroke effect of the method, now put forward to share with you, I hope that we have some inspiration. the article provides. swf and XLS files for you to browse and download references.

The contrast between the effect of pressure-felt pen line thickness and general mouse line effect is illustrated.

　 Stroke effects without weight changes

　

Lin ℃ 's elder brother uses the mouse to draw, the contour does not have the thickness change

　 Stroke effects with a thick and thin change

　

Scavenging little broken child characters, using a pressure-feeling pen to draw, contour changes in thickness, reflecting the weight of the pen

General line effect (left) pressure pen line thickness change effect (right)
Example of a SWF file: Select Zoom in from the right-click menu to observe carefully
. fla File Download

　　Here are three ways to simulate the stroke effect of a pressure pen with a mouse in Flash:
　methods One, enlarge the shape to make contour method

This method is suitable for objects with simple geometry such as rectangle, circle and ellipse as the main body, and the interior contour line cannot embody this kind of strokes. Here we illustrate by changing the contours of a pear.

> We choose a picture of a pear that has been painted. The pear is composed of two elliptic ellipses, which are edited and modified, and the form is simpler. (Figure 1-0)
1. You can see that the outline of the pear is a line of equal thickness and no change, now remove the black outline of the pear. (Figure 1-1)
2. Select the entire portion of the Pear body and press CTRL + C to copy it. (Figure 1-2)
3. In the original Pear body layer below the new 1 layer, named "Contour", press ctrl+shift+v paste.
4. Press "Ctrl+t" to enlarge the form, and select a magnification ratio of 105% (Figure 1-3) in the pop-up window and fill it with black color. Now we can see the new contours appear. (Figure 1-4)	Figure 1-3 Figure 1-4
5. To lock a layer other than the contour layer, adjust the shape with the ALT key with the Arrow tool (also available with the Bezier selection tool). Now that you look at the outline, is there a little bit of pressure to taste it? (Figure 1-5)

The main principle of the method is to enlarge the original form and form the contour of the object. Then change the thickness by adjusting. But it has many shortcomings, such as the application of the object is relatively simple, adjust its shape is more troublesome, sometimes need to adjust too much, and for some lines formed the body powerless, such as the pear in the above to use this method can not be converted.

Example of a SWF file: Select Zoom in from the right-click menu to observe carefully
. fla File Download

The two methods described below are more simple and quick to use and recommended.

　method Two, line contour conversion method

A line outline is an outline of a body drawn with a line tool, pencil tool, pen tool, circle tool, or rectangular tool. The general step of this approach is to outline the shape with a thicker line--the transformation of the lines into fills--smoothing--adjustment. Let's take the contour of the fish and change it for example.

Figure 2-1

1. Draw the shape of the fish (the process is slightly) like the left figure 2-1 with a round tool, a line tool, and an arrow tool. Note that the line width should be thicker, generally 3-5px wide, so as to better adjust.

2. Select all the lines (or all objects), and then click Modify-"Shape"-"Convert row to fill"





3. Then click on the arrow tool, and then click on the "smooth" option, usually we need to point 2-4 times, we can see the pressure pen effect presented.

Figure 2-2

　　Note: If the shape profile has a large deformation at this time, please do not select the outline, should be part of the selected outline and smoothed respectively.

4. If the effect is not satisfactory, you can fine-tune it. The final effect is shown in Figure 2-3.

Using this method to imitate the pressure-feeling pen effect, generally need to adjust very little, usually in the point "smooth" after 2-4 times to achieve the goal, relatively simple. And for the example of the unresolved "pear" problem can also be a good solution.

Point "smoothing" for the second time (pictured below)

Point "Smooth" the third time (as shown below), the effect came out!

Figure 2-3

Example of a SWF file: Select Zoom in from the right-click menu to observe carefully
. fla File Download

method Three, Brush contour conversion Method

This method is consistent with the principle of the upper method. The difference is that the outline of the form is outlined with a brush tool. Need to draw the mouse control more skilled, so as to accurately outline the shape. This method does not need to convert contour lines to padding, which is a most simplified method, but requires a higher operator.

In addition, because the outline of the brush outline itself is different from the strokes of the line outline, the effect they convert is also slightly different from Method 2. The steps are: to outline the shape-smoothing-adjustment with a thinner brush.

On the method of simulating the pressure-feeling pen effect of mouse I introduced here, so far I have found that the more simple is these three, if you have a better way, please take out to share it. I hope everyone to the logistics of mouse painting, only skilled operation of the mouse, in order to allow these skills to better serve you.