Illustrator :: How To Isolate One Side Or The Other To Expand / Contract
Mar 15, 2014
I love the width tool but when I try to use it on a custom brush I am unable to isolate one side or the other to expand/contract. I'm assuming the behavior should be the same as when used on a basic stroke. Is this a bug?
What does it mean when Illustrator v.15.1.0 ceases to contract a shape using offset paths and will only expand a shape? Seems like only yesterday I could render both ways. Wait a minute, it was only yesterday! Why would it suddenly stop funtioning?
for some reason i am unable to contract/expand my selection area when i highlight the entire area. I havent had any problem with this before. Does anybody have any idea what may fix this? perhaps i hit a wrong button or something.
I have a path that turned out to be a litt ethicker than it needs to be.
I see that I can expand a path with Offset Path. I have read online that you can contract a path by entering a negative number, but when I try that, it ignores the minus sign and expends the path instead.
I have created a sphere and mapped some type around it. However, I can't figure out how to knock out the sphere to 'clear' so I ONLY see the type and not the sphere (I'm placing the type on top of something else). I've done some searching online with no success.
I know you can 'solo'/isolate a layer by double clicking on it but is there a shortcut for this? I've looked but I don't know what this feature is called. Is it assignable to a KB SC?
I want to simplify part of a complex shape. Is it possible to isolate part of a shape path and simplify it, leaving the rest of the shape with the original number of anchor points?
For a number of documents I inherited from someone else, I'm having trouble expanding layers. The topmost layers appear, show proper thumbnails, and are named appropriately. However, there is no little "disclosure triangle" or whatever that thing is called that allows you to expand the layer and see sublayers and items. I've tried duplicating this behavior with other documents and with a new document, but the problem only occurs with these certain files.
The files were created in v13 of AI, and I'm using v17 (CC) to open them.
If this is some sort of bug? I tried using "Locate Object" to force the layer expansion, to no avail. I also tried "Release to Layers" commands, also to no avail.
I'm using the 16.0.0 version of Illustrator CS6 and i'm really new to it. Under the Object menu, I cannot find any Expand-function that I've been told should be found there. Is this option only appearing in object menu during certain circumstances?
I have a question about expanding appearance and multiply. I work in print-on-demand, and one of the limitations is that we can not use multiply on artwork. In order to achieve a similar appearance, when I receive these kinds of files, I flatten transparency, and that will sear in the way the multiply effect is interacting with the other elements of the same art file. (in the example below there are no interacting elements) However, if it is intended to interact with the background, I have to fiddle with the cmyk values (adding k) and opacity level until it is as close as possible. It is time-consuming.
we use 'expand appearnce' instead, and I tried it once and it worked! It did all the legwork for me; it spit out a different cmyk value and opacity level that mimics the effect of multiply, so I don't have to calculate it manually. However, I can't get it to work again. Illustrator thinks it is already its simplest form of appearance and will not expand it further. I've tried adding another effect and expanding but it will only expand the effect and keep the multiply.
Maybe she and I were both tripping when we thought it worked once? how to expand the appearance of multiply? Here's a picture of the 3 methods I'm speaking to: on the left is multiply, the center is flattened transparency, and the right is achieving a similar effect of multiply with opacity & color build.
For my work I use the Image Trace a lot. When I Image Trace something and then expand it, it shifts the art over. Every once in a while I wouldn't mind but it does it every time and I have to go back and nudge it back into place by setting the original layer as a template and then looking at it in Outline mode. Here is an example of the shift...
I never had this issue in any other version of Illustrator and I have been working with it since 8. When I have multiple items to Image Trace on one of my jobs and I Image Trace on each one individually, it does it in random directions. Sometimes down and to the right, sometimes up and to the left and sometimes it doesn't do it at all.
Here are the settings I am using...
I am image tracing 1200ppi bitmaps and I don't need it to be any more exact than it is now becuase I am then offsetting it .05" and using that as a relief for our products. But ignoring the shift would make one of our CNC machines mill through the art. Anything to stop "THE SHIFT" would be great. I am using up precious time in my pre-production schedule to be constantly doing this.
I have a vector I made of a small (2.5 x 4) tribal type design that's failry complex (and a PITA to weed out!). I cut it on a plotter. I need to add a thin pinstripe to the edge. I used the "expand" command and that achomplished what I wanted but it is too thin. I need to "stripe" to be a little thicker. The design is so small I think I will never be able to successfully weed it being that thin.
Is the "expand" amount adjustable? Is there another way to go about it? (I tried "offset path" but that left a mess of lines all over both inside and outside. It would take me forever to clean that up). Since I will be using a plotter the least amount of extraneous lines being added is ideal to lessen my clean up time.
Expanding Appearance on a closed path with stroke, fill, and a Round Corners effect produces a group of two paths in CS6. A path with just a fill and a path with just the stroke.
Is there an option to just generate one path like CS5 and earlier?
How do you ungroup or expand a pie chart in Adobe Illustrator CS6? This functionality seems to have been removed. Say I'd like to remove the legend: before, I could ungroup the chart, release its link to the data, and then delete the legend with my white mouse. Object > Expand no longer works either.
I have created a method to create line art roof shingles row-by-row. I think something like this is a good candidate for scripting, but I run into a dead-end quickly when trying to script this. Basically, I use "expand appearance" multiple times during the course of this process and I can't find any way to script that action. I have heard about using MenuIDs, but I can't find anything on how to discover what the MenuID for "expand appearance" is.
I have also tried recording an action, but "expand appearance" doesn't get saved.
I have recently upgraded to CS6 from CS2. I do a lot of digital inking in Illustrator as part of my job. In CS2 I would create a simple tapered brush using 4 anchor points. When I would draw a brush stroke say with two anchor points, and then expand that brush stroke. Illustrator CS2 would convert the outlined tapered brush stroke back to the the original 4 anchor point path that I had originally created with maybe one extra point if the stroke curved drastically. Now is CS6 illustrator creates that same expanded brush with 9 to 12 anchor points in the path. This makes the program completly useless for my task. Is there anyway to correct this?
I'm having this really annoying problem in Adobe Illustrator CC
When I use a tool such as the extrude and bevel tool to make an object 3D, it all works fine untill I have to expand the appearence then I get this edge on my object and I can't find any way to get rid of it.
Take a look at this pic to see what I mean [URL]
As you can see, their's an annoying white jagged edge and it's really annoying and I can't get rid of it.
I am using Adobe Illustrator CS6. The first image above is the result of drawing paths then expanding appearance and then live paint->make and filling shape with live paint bucket fill. The second image is the exact same artwork after selecting the object and clicking live paint->expand. I did this because I want to then group my expanded live paint object to be able to select the fill I just created.
This artwork is meant for screen render only in a flash game I am making, I don't want to print it. The first image above is the desirable look that I am going for. I have figured out that I can expand my live paint object (and it looks bad like the second image) and then alter the fills the way I want and select everything again and go live paint->make and then the black strokes look great again. My question is, is this normal? Do I always have to make an object live paint once I am ready to export my image to png format?
By the way, replicate what I have done by following my instructions, although the artifacts around the black strokes can only really be seen when your fill color is pretty dark (like my dark green fill). With lighter colors you probably wouldn't even notice the artifacts around the black strokes. The set-up for my document is: Color Mode: RGB PPI: 72 for screen rendering. I have initializing turned on (which I want and need).
I'm trying to create a distressed look on an object that has a gradient mesh appliet to it. i've done this with regular objects but never on one with a gradient mesh. one of the steps in this process is to expand the object, but i'm not able to do so because the expand option is grayed out in the drop down menu.
normally after expanding the object i would use one of the artistic charcoal brushes to create a texture over the object in a different color. then i would select the brush strokes and expand apperance. then, using the pathfinder, i would merge the expanded brush strokes with the expanded object and then delete the brush stokes. what remains is the object with little cut-outs where the texture of the brush strokes used to be.
however i can't do this because i can't expand the object with a gradient mesh.
R2013 is stating on start up that the Geotechnics module has been loaded and displays the Tab for it.But I haven't installed the Geotechnics module for 2013 yet and it doen't work.
I downloaded AutoCAD on my windows 7 home premium,but when I click on the application it says "the application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail." I tried repairing it but that doesn't work.
I've got to plot several "half-size" sets of drawings (originally 24x36 drawings) and I am trying to minimize paper waste. I thought there was a way to set the drawings to fit multiple copies side by side but I am at a loss right now.
Civil 3D 2011 Version 2.1 Win 7 x64 SP1 Intel Core i5 3.33 GHz 4 GB RAM
I downloaded AutoCAD architecture 2014 on my windows 7 home premium, but when I click on the application it says "the application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect.see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail." I tried repairing it but that doesn't work.
The problem I'm having with Skin Morph is that it's skewing my vertices side-to-side locally.
I'm using Skin Morph to better preserve the volume around the two joints of each finger of my hand model (See Arm1).
The two skin morph targets were created for the index finger while it was in the same position as the second image (Arm2).
I repeated this process, creating skin morph targets for the other two joints on the three other fingers and on the thumb.
The problem comes when I rotate the knuckle joint in any axis, in the third image (Arm3) I've rotated the knuckle downwards and you can see the vertices affected by the Skin Morph modifier have skewed to the left. When I turn the modifier off the vertices go back to their original position - so the problem isn't being caused by something like non-uniform scaling of my model (I reset the transforms before skinning).
The fourth image (Arm4) just shows the basic child/parent relationship that I've setup with the Bones and SplineShapes.
The fifth images show the (perhaps strange) position of the Driver Bone Matrix and the Morph Bone Matrix which could be constributing to the problem somehow.
I've uploaded the file so that you can explore my scene. armrigskinmorphproblems.zip
3ds Max 2013 64-bit Student Version nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Windows 7 64-bit Intel i7