These drawing tools suck!

[dm]

Delete Shape:
Using this tool, click on a fill or outline to delete it from the project.
Remember, in Anime Studio, the shape of an object is separate from its
appearance. If you use this tool to delete a fill, the underlying points
and curves will remain. If you want to delete those as well, go back to
the Draw tools to work with the points and curves.

Style: Change it forever. You don't conclude the process. It's saved dynamically. Try making a new style, your old one will still be there.

Shape info is straight out of the Users manual.

[RichardU]

Delete Shape: Using this tool, click on a fill or outline to delete it from the project. Remember, in Anime Studio, the shape of an object is separate from its appearance. If you use this tool to delete a fill, the underlying points and curves will remain. If you want to delete those as well, go back to the Draw tools to work with the points and curves.

Thanks. And the fact that the Delete Shape tool doesn't actually delete the shape is an example of how the program can be frustrating.

[sbtamu]

Delete Shape: Using this tool, click on a fill or outline to delete it from the project. Remember, in Anime Studio, the shape of an object is separate from its appearance. If you use this tool to delete a fill, the underlying points and curves will remain. If you want to delete those as well, go back to the Draw tools to work with the points and curves.

Thanks. And the fact that the Delete Shape tool doesn't actually delete the shape is an example of how the program can be frustrating.

What answer are you looking for? The shape in AS is not the line you create.

[crsP]

The delete shape does delete the fills and strokes. Strokes and fills are placed on the construction curves or wires and are what is visible in the final rendered image. To delete the construction lines you can select them and hit delete or you can use the delete edge tool [different from delete shape] to get rid of unwanted edges. The reason you may want your underlining construction different to your final drawing is that you can have more lines which are not seen, to control the flow or line width or to separate shapes so as to allow them to overlap, whilst it is unnoticed in the final render that they are separate. Just think of it in the traditional sense of drawing construction lines and your final inked drawings.

[RichardU]

What answer are you looking for? The shape in AS is not the line you create.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'm simply trying to get through the terminology. The comments by crsP are very helpful. "Construction lines" makes perfect sense. Just for the fun of it, I searched the manual and the only reference close to that phraseology I found was "(previously called construction curves)." Maybe they should go back to calling them construction curves.

I know once you have climbed a learning curve, it can be hard to remember the challenges of doing so. For the benefit of other novices here is my summary: When you draw a circle, for example, you are creating construction lines, and IF autofill or autostroke are on, you are also creating a "shape" on top of the construction lines. You can delete the shape, which deletes only the fill/stroke, but leaves the construction lines.

[sbtamu]

What answer are you looking for? The shape in AS is not the line you create.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'm simply trying to get through the terminology. The comments by crsP are very helpful. "Construction lines" makes perfect sense. Just for the fun of it, I searched the manual and the only reference close to that phraseology I found was "(previously called construction curves)." Maybe they should go back to calling them construction curves.

I know once you have climbed a learning curve, it can be hard to remember the challenges of doing so. For the benefit of other novices here is my summary: When you draw a circle, for example, you are creating construction lines, and IF autofill or autostroke are on, you are also creating a "shape" on top of the construction lines. You can delete the shape, which deletes only the fill/stroke, but leaves the construction lines.

Correct

[Mikdog]

My advice, having used styles before:

Don't use styles.

[Víctor Paredes]

My advice, having used styles before:

Don't use styles.

I haven't read this thread complete, but, mikdog, I really like styles. They are very useful. Maybe it's hard to understand them, but I wouldn't recommend to not use styles.
Probably it just deserves a good tutorial.

[PARKER]

I agree, my advice is to use styles, it can save you A LOT of work, its really useful, a smart tool.

[Mikdog]

I used styles once for a project. It soon became apparent to me that I was better off changing things manually, one by one. Sometimes I didn't want a particular style applied to one thing, but I did to another, it became pretty complicated. This was using Anime Studio ... 5 I think. or Moho 4. Anyways, on paper I an understand the benefits of using styles. But in practice, its really easy to just change a couple things manually and not worry about another layer of extra hassle. I figured out how they worked, but I seem to remember not really being able to delete a style, or being able to remove a style from a shape fill ... got really messy and ended up overcomplicating things unnecessarily. Instead of just a yellow fill, I'd have 'Paper_body_colour' style or something.

I can see styles bing useful if you have hundreds of the same kind of object drawn and filled in AS on screen. But if you just have a couple characters on screen, its almost easier to just change things, like a skin colour, manually, than to fiddle with the styles palette.

And though the counter-argument might be 'But if I want to change the skin colour on my character I just need to change one setting and ALL instances of the skin will change!' Yes, this is true. But sometimes that's not what you want - then you go back, find you struggle to get a style off a particular fill, end up deleting that fill, creating a new one, now when you change the style one part doesn't work out, you reapply the style ... for me, it ended up becoming a total ballsache and I wanted to keep things as simple as possible.

But, if they work for you, then they work for you. I just sometimes get the impression that as animators we sometimes try and find ridiculously complicated means of completing relatively simple operations. Like building a complicated rig to be able to do a 3 frame body turn and simulating it in 3D, creating elaborate systems to complete simple tasks ... I include myself in this group here, but I'm learning to plan things out better to avoid too much fiddling.

Man, I went off on a tangent here.

Drawing tools. It'd be great if AS supported a raster drawing tool akin to Photoshop. Yes yes yes.

[RichardU]

I used styles once for a project. It soon became apparent ...

Thank you for posting all this. Even if your opinion is in the minority, it is liberating to read about different ways to approach problems. I want to be efficient, but I don't want to chase technology simply for the sake of it, which is my understanding of your final points.

[slowtiger]

I'm with Mikdog here - at least halfways. Styles are indeed a great tool. But I still have problems every time I want to work with them, because the whole style palette doesn't work consistantly. I always run into corners like "why can't I switch off outlines now" and the like.

I'm all for good planning, because I know from experience how important it is and that I can't expect to work fast without it, especially in bigger projects. At the same time I'm a very sloppy artist, changing stuff all the time everywhere, so sometimes it's a sheer miracle the scenes get completed.

What I'd like to have would be a stacked system of modifiers: have general styles, then some additional styles like "just make it darker" which could be applied scene-by-scene or even animated. A bit like the Modifier layers in Photoshop - non-destructive.

[chucky]

HI , my 2 cents.
I would agree that the drawing tools still need more work, enough so that a wacom is actually properly usable as it is in TB.
I used to not use styles, but the fact that you can layer 2 extra styles on top of the existing makes for really great effects. It can be dangerous messing with styles after setting them, but but also great for complex scenes.

[RichardU]

I have now spent a bit more time with the drawing tools. I think the general tools for drawing are brilliant. Integration with shortcut keys under the left hand allows quick transitions. If you don't use styles, the program flows nicely (other than some suboptimal choices for terminology.)

That said, I think the Style window could use serious rework. I can imagine how it got to be the way it is -- and saving screen real estate was probably a consideration. I would love to have the option to sacrifice some drawing space for an expanded Style window that flows as nicely as the rest of the program.

In the meanwhile, I think the best advice you could give a newcomer would be: Don't use styles at first. Learn the program without them, and add them later.

[jannypan]

I think you dont really mean the drawing tools suck, what happen is that you still dont know well the software.