Comments on: Episode 096

By: Xbody

Xbody — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 07:55:09 +0000

One of the greatest tutorials ever. I like this very much. Short and good.

By: Aurelian Design

Aurelian Design — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:54:31 +0000

I think the cat is just trying to tell you to teach us to draw a cat bowl.

Seriously, great tutorial, as always.

By: Tellier

Tellier — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:25:20 +0000

Bravo, a chaque visite j’apprend quelque chos de nouveau. C’est génial! Beau travail.

Merci!!

jft

By: Zlatko Nikolic

Zlatko Nikolic — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:07:43 +0000

@Heathenkx
Thanks for polar grid tip, it can be very useful by make more nodes on grid and than use snap to nodes, and I like options in menu of polar grid, there are very good organized.
I will like to see some tutorial with mixed import an export of SVG files into Scribus and back, if its possible, I realy hope that Im not bug in your Screencaster team.
Regards

By: heathenx

heathenx — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:53:08 +0000

@Zlatko
It’s the best we have at the moment. Unfortunately, you’ll have to make do or not use it at all until something better comes along.

By: Zlatko Nikolic

Zlatko Nikolic — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:04:26 +0000

@Heathenkx
I just install 0.47 pre2 and find polar grid in render option, but this is not real grid, I will like real polar grid with snap to that kind of grid. On this render kind of grid it can be use like guide line, but not with 100% technical precision.

By: heathenx

heathenx — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:43:57 +0000

@Zlatko
Yes, there is a new polar grid feature in 0.47pre2. Give it a try.

By: Zlatko Nikolic

Zlatko Nikolic — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:45:44 +0000

Friends its to much OFF TOPIC dialog here. I like this tutorial, it can be apply one many other things like drawing a blueprints of some tech stuff, pc speakers, pc case… in many catalogs is use this kind of perspective drawing, 3D like look but not real life perspective. I have one question is any way in Inkscape to made circular grid, Gimp have that kind of grid.
Thanks – regards.

By: JimR

JimR — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 18:12:42 +0000

I was drawing the hollow box and I tried adding a circular cut in the side wall. I had some issues getting the circle correctly skewed, I will try the skew+rotate method on circles next.

I could use some of the earlier described methods of copying+offsetting the circle, then using ‘difference’ to get the ‘slice’ that imitates the thickness of the box inside the circle cutout. When the slice is given a gradient it starts looking pretty decent

It’s interesting how Inkscape is slowly taking over more and more of the conceptual product drawings at work. We take a hand drawing, insert it on a layer, then draw the products on top of it. Being able to work in the correct size and move parts around to show different product use stages is very valuable and saves a lot of drawing time. We have evolved from black&white pencil drawings into 3D drawings with colours added (Paint Shop Pro X2) and now vectorized drawings in Inkscape.

Inkscape dows not replace PSP but it supplements it very nicely and we are using ‘trace bitmap’ a lot too, what a great feature! Hand drawings get a lot cleaner and ‘cooler’ after tracing and the fact that you can trace a small picture and get it up to any size in any colour is really great. We are now two guys doing Inkscape and I’m working on the rest of them

Regards

JimR

By: narayan

narayan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:51:14 +0000

Well, this page explains the theory and also the conversion factors.
http://www.compuphase.com/axometr.htm

InkScape’s grid must be following one of these schemes, though.

the cube is first turned on its base. Then it is tilted towards the observer. Thus we see the PROJECTED lengths only (not the real ones). In fact, while the Z axis gets only turned once through 30 degrees vertically, the other axes get turned twice. This changes their apparent lengths.

So the ratio you found must be the final ratio of the APPARENT lengths.

By: heathenx

heathenx — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:23:46 +0000

@narayan
I’m not sure where the 86.062% comes from. I learned it that way and never thought to question it. It works perfectly. All I know is that it’s what it takes to get the 4 segments on a square equal according to an axonometric grid. I must say, though, I’m a little curious about it now.

I can barely remember another way of learning how to draw circles on an isometric plane from my school days when I was drafting on the board. Something about drawing equal radii on top and bottom and then smaller radii on the sides by finding the midpoints. I’m sure the same could be done in Inkscape if we had better trimming functions like that found in CAD applications. Trimming to tangents is a bit cumbersome. Cody Walker’s method (Vectortuts) is much faster though.

By: narayan

narayan — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 01:47:33 +0000

Any particular reason why you reduced the height to 86%? Does it follow a formula like “multiply by square/cube root 2″?

The height would appear MORE than the width when we see a circle at an angle but which is level with the eye. Here the effect is as if we are looking DOWN at it.

What is the formula behind this?
***

BTW a tip for newbie readers: Press CTRL down while doing the last two steps.

By: heathenx

heathenx — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:16:11 +0000

@Mark
I agree with Richard. There isn’t much difference between the Linux and Windows versions as far as feature functionality (that I have ever noticed anyway). However, we’re always careful to mention which release of Inkscape that we used to make the tutorial. The tutorials that you mentioned were made in 0.45. Without digging into your issue I suspect that maybe some minor things have changed between .45, .46, and .47 regarding tiled clones. If it takes an extra tweak or two on a newer version then so be it.

To be honest, I haven’t needed to use tiled clones in a long time. I appreciate that we have this feature but I hope at some point the entire titled clone dialog gets a clean up so it’s easier to use. I find myself fiddling with settings way too much before I get what I wanted. Using percentages rather than pixels drives me up a wall but we’ll keep that on the down low.

@Tom
Here’s a method that I use to draw isometric circles. I learned it from Vectortuts. Perhaps you’ll find it handy.

http://bit.ly/2rfohB

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:52:13 +0000

@rfquerin – Splendid!

It’s quite tricky. I’ve just realized that it’s also possible with the Bezier tool itself by cutting the corner instead of creating squared corners – obvious really. The tutorial was great timing for me as I decided to draw some network diagrams using this style after I saw the image in my previous link.

By: rfquerin

rfquerin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:40:35 +0000

@Mark – It’s possible but I haven’t found much difference between the windows and linux clients. Maybe Heathenx will have something to add here.

@Tom – Actually, that’s something I should have covered. Here’s a link to a tutorial diagram I just did showing how to get rectangles down onto that isometric plane. It’s pretty straightforward. I think I’ll add the link to the pdf file directly to the ep096 post since those steps are valuable to know and I didn’t explain them. Thanks for pointing that out. Btw, it’s the same technique I used for the text in the intro to this episode. Here’s the file: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/_misc/isometricplate.pdf

Hope it helps, but I blame heathenx if it doesn’t.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:56:10 +0000

Another great tutorial. Thanks!

Is there a simple way to add curves to the shape outlines? You sort of hinted at it but didn’t ellaborate. I’d like to achieve something similar to the orange areas on this diagram…

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DMZ_network_diagram_2_firewall.svg

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:31:44 +0000

slightly off topic. I tried doing a couple of your earlier tutorials, the clock and the red sky inc ones. i couldn’t get the clone tiles to line up the way you did it (i managed to get the desired result after an extra tweak or two) . My question is do some of these tools produce different results in windows?

By: heathenx

heathenx — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:42:55 +0000

@Darth_Gimp
I suppose I could link directly to the three screencasts that Richard has made but perhaps I should link back to his blog where they originated. Here you go:

http://blog.rfquerin.org/2009/01/26/how-i-edit-videos-using-blender-maybe-part-one/

http://blog.rfquerin.org/2009/02/14/really-basic-blender-video-editing-part-2/

http://blog.rfquerin.org/2009/07/23/blender-video-editing-screencast-no-3/

By: rfquerin

rfquerin — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 13:08:51 +0000

I think we’re planning something a little different. Not that it won’t end up being under the same banner, but it won’t be quite the same approach. We’re still trying to figure out exactly what the goal is and how to best achieve it.

By: narayan

narayan — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 12:14:07 +0000

Well, it’s only the tag line that talks about InkScape.

The site name itself is not linked with InkScape: It says “screencast”; nothing more.

Why not place all the tutorials under one single roof?
Just change the tag line to “InkScape and Blender” and carry on with the excellent work!