Pencil Tool - Weird Behaviour

[ChristiduToit]

Is there a reason that this happens at the end of a stroke when using the (Vector) Pencil Tool with tablet pressure in Designer?

I often use the Pencil Tool because it's fully vector and super straight forward - no textures, clean look, and always has the option to expand strokes. But I've been noticing these weird ends where they should just be a round edge like the examples I made using the Pen Tool with pressure profiles (on the right). When I expand the strokes made with the Pencil Tool those weird edges actually expand too, leaving me with a bunch of messy stroke ends that are baked into the curve.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?

[Sean P]

Hi ChristiduToit,

The Pen Tool will create nodes when you click so you can control how many nodes are placed. With the Pencil Tool however, they're placed automatically and unfortunately you can end up in certain situations (especially when using a tablet) with a 'hook' in the curve at the end of the line.

When this is combined with other attributes, such as a pressure change, or different end caps it can further exacerbate these problems and create a lot of the artifacts you're seeing.

This is something we're aware of and would like to improve eventually.

[loukash]

2 hours ago, ChristiduToit said:

leaving me with a bunch of messy stroke ends that are baked into the curve

A quick trick to fix them is to cmd-option-click*) the respective red end node to reset its handles.

*) If you're still in Pencil tool mode, cmd temporarily switches to Node tool. In the Node tool mode you'd only option-click.

[ChristiduToit]

@Sean P @loukash Thanks for the insight/feedback guys!