Line width variation?

[Hans Rutgers]

I'm new to AD, and having fun trying all possibilities, but I have 1 question: after drawing a line with the pen tool or with the pencil or brush tool I see no tool to alter the line width other then for the whole line. In illustrator this can been done with an excellent Width tool. The brush palet can only change it at beginning and end of the line; not in between. Searching the documentation and tutorials has not helped so far. This is an important tool for me, so please tell me I missed something! 

[Alfred]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, Hans. :)

 

This is an important tool for me, so please tell me I missed something! 

 

You missed something! :D

 

With the line selected on the canvas, click on the 'Pressure' button at the bottom of the Stroke panel and adjust the shape of the graph that pops up. Dragging the endpoints down will make the ends of the stroke thinner, and clicking and dragging up or down between the endpoints will add further variation.

[Guest]

Hi Hans Rutgers,

 

If I understand correctly you are trying to change the thickness of a line at different places.

With the selected stroke, you click on the representation of the stroke in the contextual toolbar, then in the submenu that develops, you click on "pressure". You can then change the thickness of the line at any point by adding new points and placing them wherever you want. The changes are done live on the stroke so that you immediately see the outcome.

I hope to have answered your question.

[Hans Rutgers]

Thank you! It works not as directly, but absolutely good enough. I think I will be back here with things I "missed" (I'm a bit hasty sometimes); the possibilities are endless and it will take me some time to master it all. Great app, that I will use a lot.

[Guest]

Thank you! It works not as directly, but absolutely good enough. I think I will be back here with things I "missed" (I'm a bit hasty sometimes); the possibilities are endless and it will take me some time to master it all. Great app, that I will use a lot.

Thank you for your feedback Hans.

[Bri-Toon]

There is also another pressure feature for if you use a tablet. If you are drawing with the Pencil or Brush tool, then on the Context Toolbar, select "Pressure" from the Controller dropdown menu to enable width variation.

 

[Lorox]

I was just searching for the same thing as Hans and I think while it's nice to be able to change stroke widths at different places of the path at all, it would be a very much welcome feature if you could do this directly on the path and not in an extra "presssure" window where you have to sort of guess which place there corresponds to which place on the actual path.

The stroke width or line thickness tool in Illustrator does this just fine and I think – although we shouldn't really aim at making Designer an Illustrator clone – it can't harm to learn from your "adversaries"... so I'd be very happy if such a tool for the direct "local" manipulation of a stroke's width would find its way in here.

[walt.farrell]

26 minutes ago, Lorox said:

The stroke width or line thickness tool in Illustrator does this just fine and I think – although we shouldn't really aim at making Designer an Illustrator clone – it can't harm to learn from your "adversaries"... so I'd be very happy if such a tool for the direct "local" manipulation of a stroke's width would find its way in here

Rather than posting that comment in this old discussion on the Question forum, it would be better to create a new topic in the Feature Request forum, or add a concurring comment to an existing topic there.

[Lorox]

13 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Rather than posting that comment in this old discussion on the Question forum, it would be better to create a new topic in the Feature Request forum, or add a concurring comment to an existing topic there.

Sorry, you're right...

Concerning this very discussion, though, I find that following the instructions above my stroke gets more or less transparent when I use the "Pressure" feature while the stroke width remains the same. What am I missing here?

[Lorox]

2 minutes ago, Lorox said:

Concerning this very discussion, though, I find that following the instructions above my stroke gets more or less transparent when I use the "Pressure" feature while the stroke width remains the same. What am I missing here?

I just found out "Pressure" affects different properties according to the type of the brush/stroke used. Might have thought of that earlier....