Until yesterday, I considered Inkscape's calligraphy tool pretty useless. It was too weird and not really suited for any real work. It turns out I was wrong.
The problem with this tool was that its most useful mode - flat nib - was disabled and there was no UI to enable it. As a result, the Angle control had no effect because the "pen" was actually more of a "brush".
I fixed this, and even made the transition from flat to round a gradual one, controlled by the new Flatness control (0 = round nib, 1 = flat nib). (Actually 0 is not "round", but the pen is always rotated perpendicular to the stroke direction; any suggestions for a better term?) I also added a Thinning control which tells how much to change the width of the stroke depending on velocity (0 = uniform width, >0 makes faster strokes thinner, <1 makes faster strokes broader). I also changed the defaults of the rest of the parameters.
With these changes, the tool is now capable to do some real calligraphy. All of this screenshot was done entirely in Inkscape using a Wacom tablet:
http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.40-CVS-linux-calligraphy....
Other screenshots added today: tracing, text on path, tutorial, and a work screenshot from David Christian Berg. Enjoy, and don't forget to send us your screenshots!
On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 22:18, bulia byak wrote:
(Actually 0 is not "round", but the pen is always rotated perpendicular to the stroke direction; any suggestions for a better term?)
"swing" maybe?
With these changes, the tool is now capable to do some real calligraphy. All of this screenshot was done entirely in Inkscape using a Wacom tablet:
http://inkscape.org/screenshots/gallery/inkscape-0.40-CVS-linux-calligraphy....
Wow, nice work (and nice hand)! ^_^
-mental
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 22:57:31 -0500, MenTaLguY <mental@...3...> wrote:
On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 22:18, bulia byak wrote:
(Actually 0 is not "round", but the pen is always rotated perpendicular to the stroke direction; any suggestions for a better term?)
"swing" maybe?
I decided to call it "Fixation", with the tooltip:
"How fixed is the pen angle (0 = always perpendicular to stroke direction, 1 = fixed)"
Comments welcome.
Also checked in today: keyboard control for the calligraphic pen. Up/down arrow keys change the angle (in 5 deg increments), left/right change width. Best of all, these keys also work while you are drawing, so you can change the angle (as you often do in traditional calligraphy) and width (as you _cannot_ do in traditional calligraphy) in the middle of the stroke with the left hand (assuming you're drawing with the right hand). Very convenient.
On Sat, 6 Nov 2004 16:58:23 -0400, bulia byak <buliabyak@...400...> wrote:
On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 22:57:31 -0500, MenTaLguY <mental@...3...> wrote:
On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 22:18, bulia byak wrote:
(Actually 0 is not "round", but the pen is always rotated perpendicular to the stroke direction; any suggestions for a better term?)
"swing" maybe?
I decided to call it "Fixation", with the tooltip:
"How fixed is the pen angle (0 = always perpendicular to stroke direction, 1 = fixed)"
Comments welcome.
Also checked in today: keyboard control for the calligraphic pen. Up/down arrow keys change the angle (in 5 deg increments), left/right change width. Best of all, these keys also work while you are drawing, so you can change the angle (as you often do in traditional calligraphy) and width (as you _cannot_ do in traditional calligraphy) in the middle of the stroke with the left hand (assuming you're drawing with the right hand). Very convenient.
Very cool. This tool is now SOMETHING real for drawing with wacom. Maybe someday it will turn to a real ink tool :)
Thank you, Bulia!
Alexandre
participants (3)
-
Alexandre Prokoudine -
bulia byak -
MenTaLguY