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Andrew's Vector Plug-ins 19 'PointsEffects'     US $15 DOWNLOAD Plug-in set for Illustrator® CS4 CS3 CS2 CS1 10 Includes four powerful plug-ins to manipulate path points and anchor points in 1000s of different ways Plug-in set includes distortion plug-in (packed with many warping and distortion settings) + corner point manipulation plug-in (manipulate path points in many different weird and basic ways) + Path splitting plug-in for 100s of different shapes and designs (pie slicing plug-in effect for zooms and dynamic designs) + Split plug-in for sketchy / drawn path designs and scratchy Many color options and settings and randomization features are included in the plug-ins. Bonus royalty-free symbols November 1st 2008 19.3 Update   Windows Vista + Windows XP + MAC OS X 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Adobe ® Illustrator® CS4 CS3 + CS2 + CS1 + 10   PC demo (the demo is currently not for CS4) OS X demo (the demo is currently not for CS4) Manual

Additional examples of resources in use

Bloater

Examples of the bloat effect plug-in applied on a basic shape (shape in the top corner) the distorted shape in the center of the image. Literally 1000s and 1000s of unique shape designs can be created even from a basic square design

CornerPoint

Examples of the corner point plug-in below. The plug-in manipulates points on a path in a variety of ways. Works best with curved shapes and designs

PieSlice

PieSlice plug-in splits a path into many parts, great for zoom effects and more as below

Split

Examples of the split plug-in, takes a path reduces the path to a stroke / sketch / scratchy design

Plug-ins include

Additional notes

Tutorials

Tutorial 1] Pieslice plugin tutorial PDF 'random color flag' (63 K)

Tutorial 2] Split plug-in and multiple generated split lines

1) By default only a single set of lines is generated, to change the number of lines generated for each path split in the 'split' plug-in set the splits generated field to 2 or more.

2) To create randomization of the width / stroke weight, set the width value to greater than 0 otherwise all the lines will be the same thickness, the randomization gives the sketchy feel.

3) Increase the direction setting to increase the sketchy / curvature of the lines.

4) Set the opacity to on to give an additional feel of changes of pen / brush stroke.

5) Remove the 'delete' feature to leave the original path

6) Set other randomizations such as radial to create a greater range from the initial lines of the path

Tutorial 3] Cornerpoint plug-in jitter points

1) Create a set of basic paths such as 10 x 10 grid of squares

2) Go to cornerpoint plug-in dialog and set the shift value to 10 / 10. The first value is for the horizontal shift of points and the second, the vertical. All the points in the path are shifted equally by 10 pts in the horizontal and vertical, same as if you just drag the path from position A to B without any change to the path shape

3) Go to the third dialog and set the points option to random. Instead of using 10pts in each direction, the points option randomizes the distance for each point in entered direction, so point one will be shifted x points and y points vertically, point two will be shifted x1 and y1 points and so on. All 100 selected paths will be treated in the same random way creating 100 different shapes. The higher the setting, the more random and stretched the result. If you want only a subtle jitter to the points, set the shift value to 1 or 2; for extreme, set the values to 100 etc. The result will be different depending on the shape, a random shift will be different when applied to curved path. The jitter can also be set to negative values, you may wish to re-apply the plug-in a few times to get a truly 'jittered' effect

4) End result of the jitter. The plug-in can be re-applied with varying results (ctrl-e on the PC). Select different paths if you want to apply a different or more extreme jitter to only same the edge of the selected paths.

This plug-in can be applied to a single path or multiple paths. The plug-in will have no effect on images or symbols but it can be used to great effect with traced images or converted text

Tutorial 4] Stroke weight / width setup for split plug-in

1) If you wish to create a sketchy effect with variable line weight, you may wish to initially set the stroke of the path to something like 10pts (especially if you are simply selecting a path with a fill and stroke weight of 1pt or no stroke). The plug-in does not add a stroke, a stroke is required for the path. Set the stroke weight and fill in the toolbar

2) Circle - initial path with fill of white and stroke width of 10pt black

3) Apply plug-in with default settings. To create a greater distance for the split paths, you may wish to set the radial value to 10 or 20 in the main dialog. The radial distance moves the generated split paths a distance from their original position. To modify the curvature of the path, change the direction setting

4) To create paths with stroke weights between 0 and 10, set the apply dialog width setting to -40 pts or less, this means the end result paths will have a stroke weight between 0 and 10 instead of the initial 10pts (the setting removes a random amount from the initial weight; to force the stroke weight to be close to 0 in this randomization, you will need to set the value to a large negative.) This lends itself to a sketchier effect. By default, only a single set of paths are created for each point set, set the value of splits generated to 5 or more, this will create 5 sets of split paths from the selected path: creating more cluttered and organic look to the split.

5) Go to the settings panel and change the opacity to ON (randomized opacity) and stroke ® to ON (randomized stroke color) and the radial ® to ON (randomize the radial value between 0 and set value).