Astute's VectorScribe Plugin for Illustrator - Review / May 2011

VectorScribe plug-in for Illustrator

The plug-in works in Illustrator CS5, CS4, CS3 - PC and MAC OSX. I am using the Illustrator CS5 PC version for the purposes of the review - there are no differences between the OS versions etc

Screenshots are shown with kind permission of Astute Graphics and Adobe Systems Incorporated. Also for this review, I am using the studio version - there is a different (less plugins) version in the designer section

VectorScribe Designer comes with

PathScribe tool

Dynamic Measure tool

Protractor

VectorScribe Studio also includes

Dynamic Shapes tool

Dynamic Corners tool

Initial thoughts

Firstly I have to add that I love Astute's Phantasm CS plugin set - the halftone tool is amazing, also the color tools have proved very useful.

This plugin also has proved very useful - this time in the manipulation of paths. Manipulation of paths is key to Illustrator and the vector Scribe plugin path manipulation is achievable with the standard tools 'but' (and it is a big but) the Vector Scribe tools are super easy to use and much faster (and instinctive) than the Illustrator's cumbersome point tools.

Toolbox / palettes

The plugin set adds a few new tools to the Illustrator tool box as well as some new palettes to the window palette. To get the full tool you need the toolbox and the palettes, and there are an awful lot of settings available on those palettes but they are generally all well laid out and fairly obvious in their use.

PathScribe

A powerful tool to manipulate segments, you can drag segments and re-shape a path in 1000s of different ways. Instead of the standard Illustrator technique of working from the points, this plugin works on the lines so you can click anywhere along the line and manipulate the path - in most cases this works really well and you can pull and push the paths to create some truly unique shape designs without adding any additional points. All very effective and very useful. Already used it to create many weird and wonderful shape designs

You can also manipulate the lines / points using the numerical input. The only thing I would love to see there is an up-down control so I can shift the points 1pt at a time. Just entering numbers is such a cold way to approach path editing. You can also smooth points, split paths etc - all very useful features

Dynamic measure

Interesting tool, certain there are many great uses for it. Great for showing distances between certain parts of a path, as well as angle information. Neat. The generated measurements can also be converted to standard paths which are then locked. The preferences dialog alone comes with more options than you find in many plugins or even in Illustrator itself.

Protractor

A quick way to modify the constraining angles used by Illustrator. Not exactly certain I will ever use this but I am certain there might be times. I use smart guides but generally only in 45 degrees etc but perhaps I would like them to be in 30 degrees etc (why not 10 degrees etc?

Dynamic Shapes

Have to say this was the least useful tool for me. Allows the creation of a square, circle, donut, star etc which is fine but I can create those easily enough with the tools at hand. Still, the tools allow for the dynamic manipulation of the design which is certainly a step beyond the existing Illustrator tools - I guess there are times when I might want to re-size the outer diameter / inner diameter / number of points of a star etc. Begs the questions, with CS5, why are these features not in the standard tools - what with smart objects / live effects, all the toolbox tools seem to be very much stuck in the old pre-effects world. Anyway, the results were OK but I did struggle with the tool to generate various designs (not that the tool was difficult to use, it just found it a lot harder to generate a square or circle with the tool than using the default Illustrator tools) though perhaps with more time spent on the tool I would have a greater understanding and instinctive feel to what the tool will generate.

This tool definitely does require the palette before any use. It offers the shape, size, corner settings as well as the option to pie slice the shape (which was quite a useful feature). Most of the inputs were numeric but as you can interactively modify the control points of the dynamic shapes an up/down option is probably not so useful - the star's points, polygon's sides etc did allow for the dynamic modification via an up / down control.

Also, I would love to see more shapes.. the shapes selection is basic and matches the ones that come with Illustrator (other than the donut / ring) - but then again, Illustrator has always had a limited range of shapes and that has barely changed since whenever.

I would love to see more basic core shapes such as arrows, L-shaped designs, T-shape designs, connectors, word balloons, quick 3D cubes, crescents, heart shapes, abstract, basic frame, wave design, tab design, wavy, zigzags etc. All of these surely are possible and could be dynamic, would be an even better addition to the Illustrator toolbox.

The end results were good but it was for me like working with treacle but perhaps with time and familiarity with the tool I might be able to create some truly awesome masterpiece made out of the dynamic circles, donuts etc - at the moment, I just couldn't see it.

Dynamic Corners

At first this tool looked the least useful.. sorry, corners! OK, totally unfair - I love this tool. Curved corners added to points is a really useful feature for me as I often generate designs using a square etc and then work from that into a more complex design. Now I can add (at any point of the process) rounding to the corners - creating some truly beautiful curved forms in second. Add and modify corners in seconds - stunning. Offers three options of corners as well: regular, negative and chamfered. The tool did crash but that was with a fairly complex path and one with a mix of other dynamic corners - perhaps the tool was pushed a little too far.

One feature that did disturb was when I created a shape and applied the corners, then creating a new shape and then applying the corners again - the previous shape flashes into life with the corners appearing to be re-modified as I change the new shape (even though the shape hasn't been selected). The recent update allows for the removal of the dynamic status - which is quite useful to remove the flashing error but it is also useful when using the path in other parts of Illustrator. I love the dynamic nature but at the same time I like a quick and easy way to remove it when I no longer need the path to be dynamic. So I love the 'remove dynamic status'

Thumbs up

Overall.. 9/10 plugin tool. I found most of the tools very useful and will use in many different projects such as creating custom shapes, brush designs, patterns etc. Would have liked a way to save a preset as I created some really nice star designs etc and had no way of remembering the settings (beyond writing them down). Totally recommended, another hit from a very good plug-in developer

To find out more information about the product, please check out their website

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