#Color Cycling Hint
4 messages in this thread
A tool such as "EDGE" doesn't cycle colors when applied. I wanted to EDGE
several time cycling through the colors in a cluster I wanted to use a macro
that would re-apply EDGE many times. I got around this limitation by including
the drawing of a point in an unused area of the screen to cause cycling to take
place. When done I erased that point in every frame.
Ed,
very ingenious! Thanks for sharing this tip. I was looking at your wishlist
items, and I think this explains your first one a little. Could you give us a
little more information about how you would like to use this feature,
"capability to specify color cycling for any tool"?
It would help the programmers if they new how the feature was going to be used,
and perhaps they can come up with a better implementation.
Nik
Thanks for the praise. However, when I described the hint yesterday, after
finishing a 20 hr/day project, I made a couple of mistakes.
EDGE does cycle through the colors; and, the colors drawn to force cycling, are
all drawn in just one frame. The situation I was trying to describe applies to
SEPARATE, for example.
The feature that I wanted for EDGE, is that it cycled when first applied, but
that cycling would not occur for each frame when REDO is selected.
So, add to wish list: capability of specifying whether color cycling occurs
when using REDO.
I once sent Autodesk a request something along those lines, although Ed's
suggestion is actually better. What I suggested was to add the ability to
color cycle along a splined path.
The reason is this: suppose you want to do a scientific illustration showing
the flow of energy or water through curved pipes using color cycling. Pretty
straight forward, right? Unfortunately, the only way to snake it around a bend
is with the drawing tool, which is awkward.
The solution I came up with was this: draw the pipes and mask the background.
Then using the drawing tool and a very thick brush (& of course ramping a
suitable gradient), trace the path by dragging the mouse/stylus as steadily as
possible to get even color bands. The rest is routine: create multiple frames,
Cycle from palette menu, Time Select on, Fit off. Voila, it winds and flows.
This would have been much easier if the other tools were color cycleable.