Monday, December 17, 2007

New 'Organify' Flash Interface Panel for CS3

I've updated my 'organify2' flash interface, so if you have the organify2 script, please re-download the package. For your downloading convenience, I've added a new JSX links section to the left of this column. I've changed the name of the swf from 'jpanel' to 'organify2', so you'll need to replace or delete the old jsx and swf files. Notable updates include a cleaner interface and now the "sharpen" icon behaves slightly differently. If you sub-select some points on an object, the first time you click it removes the handles from the selected points only, then if you click again, it removes the connected handles on adjacent points as well. Now, on to my story...

A few weeks ago Nathaniel Kelso sent me a sample of his flash interface for my text alignment script. This inspired me to play with the flash/js4ai interface myself.

Now I can fondly introduce to you the first public release of the 'organify panel!" To install it, just download and unzip the two included files to your CS3 scripts folder and restart illustrator.

Now, when you select the organify2.jsx script (after a foreboding warning confirmation window from Adobe,) you should see a persistent button panel that looks something like this:


The Organify panel allows you to randomize and tweak objects to make them more organic feeling in one way or another. The icons correspond to scripts already on wundes.com, but they are conveniently encapsulated here in one neat little package.

For the record, they are (from left to right) randomize anchors, randomize control handles, randomize anchors & handles, fleurify, remove handles, vary fill color, vary stroke color, vary stroke thickness, vary alpha, vary visibility, and zoom & center.

Zoom & Center wasn't really part of the 'organify' set, but I decided to add it anyway since I use it all the time, and personally wanted it as a button.

So what can you do with it? Yes, well, I'm hoping you will help me answer that, but here is a quick example I banged out on a uniform field of orange hexagons. Note: aside from the starting hexagons, and the yellow background, I did not use anything but the organify panel to manipulate the artwork.


Let me know what you do.
cheers,
-J

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Bug Fix: TextTweaker

TextTweaker is patched.
  •     fixed a bug that was causing a pure virtual function call in CS3.
  •     removed the 32 character max limit.



Friday, December 07, 2007

New Script "Fleurify"

This is exciting times script kiddies...

I completed a prototype of a new swf interface panel for some of my scripts based on the one Nathaniel let me have a peek at last week. I should have something up for you CS3'ers out there within a week or so.

Meanwhile, here's a new toy to play with. "Fleurify" (as in 'flower', but all French and fancy sounding) is the "punk & bloat" filter on drugs. I would have named it "knottify", but I couldn't get the paths to interweave. :)

Enjoy, and if you do something (even just sort of) cool with it, I'd love to see.
cheers,
-J

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

'Organify' 2.0

Added the option to select 'Anchors only', 'Control Handles only' or 'both' to the Organify script.
(Originally it just randomized the anchor locations.)

(Click Thumbnail for large view)

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

New Script "Sharpen Edges"

Please welcome my new script on the block: "Sharpen Corners"
This script removes all control handles from any selected points.
This has the effect of "straightening" all the paths in an object.
This script doesn't actually unround corners, (since you can already do that with the "convert to rectangle" filter.)
I originally wrote it to align 40 points with randomized control handles, but after messing with it a bit, I discovered you can make quick and simple gears by running this script on a star with rounded corners. If you can think of any other cool uses, please post them here in the comments section.
In other news, Nathaniel Kelso is showing my lazy butt up by putting together a sample flash interface for my align text scripts. This is insanely cool, now we can make full featured floating palates as js interfaces. I will play with this more in the coming months. (Although unfortunately, the swf interface works only with CS3. You can check out and download the files from Nathaniels scripts page on the links to the left.
Also in our email dialogue I've figured out how to access masked objects. Illustrator treats them like grouped objects, so you can use the following format to grab the masking object, because it will always be on the top of the stack: (assuming you have only the masked item selected)
activeDocument.selection[0].pathItems[0]
Anyway, happy thanksgiving, and happy coding...

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

CS3 and Script Chaining

I've been playing with the new JS engine in Illustrator CS3, and it is now possible to import script libraries. Incidentally, this also allows one to chain scripts using the following syntax:

//Customize the following line to reference a library script from your main Illustrator script directory: (note you can select multiple sources by separating with a semicolon.)

#includepath "../../../presets/scripts/myLib;../../../../presets/scripts/myLib"
#include "script1.js"
#include "script2.js"
#include "script3.js"
//put your custom code here:
alert("ta-da!!!");

I will be writing more modular scripts soon to take advantage of this.
I'm looking forward to seeing what people do with this. Now if only we can get those actions to stay linked...