Path Tool And Brushes ?

[mathman]

Hi all,

I am using PI X3.

Is it possible, using one of the brush tools, to draw along a smooth path, e.g. a bezier curve ?

Normally, you would simply use the line tool, select the bezier shape and draw away. This would give you a rather boring even-width curve.

But could you (say) select the marker brush, alter the shape to be (say) 50x10, and draw along that curve ? .... making it more interesting with variable width along the curve.....

Hope I'm making sense here, I've just about torn my hair out trying to explain what I want to achieve.

thanks and regards,
Andrew

[Ron P.]

Someone else may prove me wrong, and hopefully they do..

I believe what you're wanting to accomplish requires using a pen-tablet, like a Wacom tablet. With pen-tablets, the size responds to the pressure sensitivity. With a mouse theirs no way to determine how much pressure is being applied at various times.

[mathman]

Thanks, vidoman. No I am not talking about pen pressure.

I am talking about obtaining a nice smooth curve but using the effects of a brush. I was purely using the marker pen and its width variation as an example.

Let me clarify further ..... how about this ? ... how do you get an airbrush with multiple colors and a spacing value of (say) 50 follow a bezier path ? (.... I'm not talking just about variable width this time).

[Ron P.]

Ok, I think I understand what you're wanting to do. In PI try this, as you can not use a bezier curve tool with a painting tool..

Use the Bezier Selection tool and create a selection. Then select one of your painting tools (airbrush, marker, paintbrush ect.) and setup the attributes for it.

Then go to the Effects menu, and choose Paint on Edges. This will apply your airbrush around the edges of your Bezier curve selection. If satisfied you can go to Selction>None to remove the selection..

[mathman]

Thanks vidoman !!
That's perfect !

[trueblue]

You can use path, path drawing or any of the drawing tools, ie: beizer or spline. Once you have drawn your object, you can alter the thickness off the attribute bar....... also the type of 'line' you want.

This line can be selected, then choose a brush painting tool of your choice, click on Edit Active Objects Only which is located on the Attribute Bar. Remember, the object must be highlighted/activated. Right click and convert from Text/Path to Image, you can then paint the object. You will get nice smooth painted lines without getting paint on everything else.
Painting in Edit Active Object enables you to paint in varying colours.
When finished, click out of EAO and deslect your object.

As Vidoman also pointed out, you can Paint on Edges also.

[mathman]

Thanks trueblue - however, "Paint On Edges" was the solution for me.

That allowed me to get around the limitation that you cannot use a brush tool when drawing a smooth curve.