Hi,

I noticed when you draw a path with the triangle in/out/ellipse effect, it applies a pattern along path which accomplishes this effect. This is great!... However seems to be limiting what I am trying to accomplish:



Both snakes in the screenshot are based on the same path. The left is simply a path with the ellipse shape applied, the right is a Pattern Along Path with scales.

I would like now to combine these 2, so that it is a scaled snake which is tapered appropriately. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a way to accomplish both at the same time as they override/break each other. Basically, I am trying to put together some tools to help illustrate a "realistic" kind of snakes. I've seen this done quite well with bitmap brushes, however for obvious reasons I'd rather have this in vector format.

Any advice? Being able to generate great drawings like this in vector format would be so great for my workflow!

Thanks for reading.

Warm regards,


Teddy

Maybe someone else will have a better idea, but it seems you might solve this by first creating a very long straight "snake" that is tapered. Use Envelope or Lattice effects, perhaps some other methods, depending on what exactly you want to end up with, how realistic the snake, head etc.

Once you have that, it's easy to apply Bend LPE to it.

prkos wrote:Maybe someone else will have a better idea, but it seems you might solve this by first creating a very long straight "snake" that is tapered. Use Envelope or Lattice effects, perhaps some other methods, depending on what exactly you want to end up with, how realistic the snake, head etc.

Once you have that, it's easy to apply Bend LPE to it.

This worked great, thank you! :
- Set up my scale pattern
- Drew a straight path and applied my scales as pattern along path to generate the length
- Then used the Lattice deformation to tape it at the ends
- Drew my curvy spiro path and applied it to the length of the snake via the Bend path effect

Beautiful result! Thank you.

Pics or it didn't happen! We wanna see pleeease

prkos wrote:Pics or it didn't happen! We wanna see pleeease

Works almost TOO well ! (the scales getting so small at the ends is an issue, I might be better off generating the scales as an unlatticed texture and imposing it inside of the latticed snake shape)

This is the other result (with the scales not changing in size). I find this is a more accurate result! I may taper the size of the scales a BIT at the ends, but they shouldn't change too dramatically in size.

Wow that's very powerful! Yes, make the unbent snake vary in scale number and size, then Bend for a greater effect. But it looks like a lot can be done this way