Change color of a complex shape.

gadjo · Post by **gadjo** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 11:00 pm

Hello, kind people.

I am kind of a newbie with ASpro coming from Corel/Illustrator and trying to make something move. I read the help file, did the tutorials end to end. Easy.

Now I created my character in Corel and moved it to ASpro via Illustrator.
Rigged it, arranged it, but now i have to change its color. Nothing too complicated, my character is a single color thing made of several shapes, no outlines.

SO HOW DO I CHANGE THE COLOR of a compound shape, like say.. the letter "O" ? When i click it with the paint bucket i get the empty part in the middle filled as well. Then i have to use delete shape and create shape and I get some default color with an added outline or just an outline, and i want neither. When I undo something it comes up white.

What is going on?

Sorry for being a newb, but i'm raging over this already.

Added questions:

- How can I apply a style to something? I have a fill with no outline and i want to apply it to a bunch of objects. I can't get that one right no matter what i do.
- Can I make an object rotate around another object (in front and behind) without using the Z paramenter?

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 11:06 pm

You select the layer of the shape you want to change color, then you use the select shape tool (q) to select the shape, then you go in the style palette on the right of the interface and you change fill and outline colors there.

Easy as pie!

gadjo · Post by **gadjo** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 11:28 pm

Thank you.

This solved manual mode, but i still can't use styles. I have one saved, i select a shape, it becomes semi-transparent, i select the style and.. nothing.

The object becomes deselected.

I can only apply a style by clicking an edge with the paint bucket. But this also fills any 'hole' in the object.

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 11:59 pm

tip one: don't ever touch the fill bucket

are you selecting the style in the TOP drop down? if so that's just for creating/editing styles... if you have 'advanced' ticked in the colour options, the two drop downs at the bottom are where you assign the style to a shape.

if you do that to everything then making changes to teh style itself using the top drop down will effect all shapes you assigned it to.

I encourage you to practice with the AS drawing tools too though, you will get much nicer/cleaner results than importing vectors... it IS good, just needs some practice

gadjo · Post by **gadjo** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:30 am

So it was there all the time

. Must be the glasses.

Thank you.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Mon Aug 15, 2011 3:49 am

I agree with funksmyname here, the tools may look basic, but you can get great results with it and pretty much any type or style of drawing.

These are some of the drawings I made when i started with Anime Studio, all drawn with it.

gadjo · Post by **gadjo** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 3:32 am

Man, that's awesome, wish i had those skills!

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Tue Aug 16, 2011 3:42 am

Thanks but, instead of thinking of it as drawing, think of it as modelling or sculpting.

You lay down the basic shapes and colors, then you move things around and add here and there until you get what you want/need!

3deeguy · Post by **3deeguy** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 1:35 am

@GCharb. That's good stuff.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 3:10 am

Thanks Larry, as I said, you can draw about anything in ASP, then you can animate it, like this!

Not finished, but it gives an idea!

3deeguy · Post by **3deeguy** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 2:48 pm

Her fingers bend slightly as she lowers the platter. I watched it several times before I 'saw'... Nicely done. There should be more examples of your work posted online.

cheyne · Post by **cheyne** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 2:49 pm

Damn I love reading through this place, always getting nice little tidbits of info

@funks - ummm, DON'T use the fill bucket?!?

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:28 pm

I don't, it doesn't seem smart enough to know what to fill properly when you have lots of overlapping empty shapes... also, i've seen people create multiple fills so many times that result in a white pixel around the shape and then they don't know how to fix it - it's almost always down to the bucket and an over active clickyfinger

i highlight the shape and hit space or click the button on the interface to fill...

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 9:04 pm

The whole styles system is flaky if you ask me, usually end-up making styles, selecting them, then copy paste to the shape.

cheyne · Post by **cheyne** » Tue Aug 23, 2011 1:30 am

Ahhh, gothca. Thanks for clearing that up - and yes I know what you are talking about. I think I almost gave up on AS a couple of times when I first started playing with it.

Thanks Funks and Gilles!