Importing AI files

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slowtiger
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Post by slowtiger »

Just some points from another experienced user:

I use Freehand, haven't ever touched Illustrator. I even use Freehand v5.0.1 which is stone-age compared to actual versions. If I want to create graphics which need accuracy, I construct them in Freehand. If I want hand drawings, I do them on paper (with a brush-tip marker), scan them in, vectorise them with Streamline (another software dinosaur) and import that into Freehand.

This certain style for a certain bunch of illustrations is one I can easily achieve in Moho, and directly with its in-built tools. Hooray! (Some examples: http://www.one-line-graphic.de/illu.html)

If I need to do animation with that accurate style, I'll do the parts in Freehand and import them into Moho. Having done this just recently, I noticed several bugs in the conversion process: EPS files get just black, Illustrator files don't close the lines, and so on. Since my source programs are that much out of date I wouldn't blame Moho for this, but this certainly is not the best workflow possible.

What I really have a hard time with is the way Moho organises colors. Maybe I'm not getting something essential, but why can't I just pick up colors from the table, instead of having to pick them without precision out of that damned color window? And my workflow would definitely profit from something like Freehand's color palette: a nice row of colors and each of them named.

I can't say that Moho's way of converting colors is worse than any other import/export pairing of programs. Working for print and screen for a decade now I say that this is always a problem and will always be. There is no shortcut, and no color management system will ever be able to handle the big differences between RGB and CMYK automatically without flaws.

The question "but what if I use Moho to create artwork which will be printed?" is irrelevant. Experienced artists know how to achieve the same result in different programs. And they know that often it is necessary to do things several times, once for every medium. Don't blame the hammer when you should have used the drill.
myles
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Post by myles »

slowtiger wrote:What I really have a hard time with is the way Moho organises colors. Maybe I'm not getting something essential, but why can't I just pick up colors from the table, instead of having to pick them without precision out of that damned color window? And my workflow would definitely profit from something like Freehand's color palette: a nice row of colors and each of them named.
The swatch (is that what you mean by "table"?) can be used for colour picking from a pre-defined palette - left-click for fill, right-click for outline.
You can create your own swatches - they are .png files. You can also render a scene to use as a swatch when re-creating another view of the same character or scene.
Colours are not named, but exact colour palettes are possible.

As I am sure you already know about the swatch, I suspect I am not understanding your comment correctly.

Regards, Myles.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted."
-- Groucho Marx
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heyvern
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Post by heyvern »

myles wrote:You can also render a scene to use as a swatch when re-creating another view of the same character or scene.
Good grief!

I... I never thought of that! So simple... dagnabbit... I can't believe I never thought of that... great tip... fantastic tip... I love this tip!

Just render the darn thing right into the Moho swatches folder... sheesh... here I was opening a darn render in Photoshop and creating "fancy shmancy" palettes... I could just draw the dang things in Moho in nice little boxes and render them<sigh> sometimes you just overthink these things.

-vern
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