How to use the Width Tool in Affinity Designer. .

[RaphLuna]

Just follow these steps, to get you started, play around with it,  Granted it take practice, however once you, figure it out its easy as Pie...;)

 

Once you get it, it is easy as pie

 

[gdenby]

A nice demonstration of a very handy feature. I have a file I keep on hand  called "line pressures" that has 8 different pressure curves saved so I can pick and choose as I like, or tweak as I go.

[jer]

On 8/5/2017 at 5:41 PM, RaphLuna said:

Just follow these steps, to get you started, play around with it,  Granted it take practice, however once you, figure it out its easy as Pie...;)

Fantastic, thanks! I've been practicing a lot lately with this great feature and I like your example. Where I get turned around (!) is when I apply pressure to a closed curve like a circle. It takes me a while to get it right as the circle has no start/end but the pressure graph does. Much trial and error in this case.

On 8/8/2017 at 11:21 AM, gdenby said:

I have a file I keep on hand  called "line pressures" that has 8 different pressure curves saved so I can pick and choose as I like, or tweak as I go.

Wonderful idea. Could you expand on how you use it? Eg, can you copy and paste the pressure or do you have to just look at your ref file and recreate the pressure on the new dwg? Maybe you copy the line seg over into the new dwg, then use CTL-C, CTL-SHIFT-V to copy the parameters from the ref line to the new line (except this will copy the color over too (could be an issue). Anyway, I'll stop guessing and hope you reply. (Maybe even share your .afdesign ref file??)

[Alfred]

59 minutes ago, jer said:

Fantastic, thanks! I've been practicing a lot lately with this great feature and I like your example. Where I get turned around (!) is when I apply pressure to a closed curve like a circle. It takes me a while to get it right as the circle has no start/end but the pressure graph does. Much trial and error in this case.

 

The circle does have a start and an end, but they're joined together! When you draw a circle with the Ellipse Tool, apply a heavy stroke and drag the middle of the pressure curve downwards, the circle will always be thick at the top and thin at the bottom (unless and until you rotate it). If you 'Convert to Curves' the object, you'll see why: with the Node Tool selected, the node at the top will be drawn in red because it's an end node.

[gdenby]

1 hour ago, jer said:

 

Wonderful idea. Could you expand on how you use it? Eg, can you copy and paste the pressure or do you have to just look at your ref file and recreate the pressure on the new dwg? Maybe you copy the line seg over into the new dwg, then use CTL-C, CTL-SHIFT-V to copy the parameters from the ref line to the new line (except this will copy the color over too (could be an issue). Anyway, I'll stop guessing and hope you reply. (Maybe even share your .afdesign ref file??)

 

I made a thick stroke. and copied it so I could see how the different pressure graphs were working. After making and saving a bunch of profiles, I deleted the line layers and saved the file. The pressure curves are associated w. the file, I suppose I should check and see if they can be saved as a style. I know dashed lines can. When I re-open the blank file, all the pressures are available in the stroke dialogue, ready for application to the newly drawn vectors. They can be tweaked w/o saving for 1 off variations that might be hard to tell apart as a tiny thumbnail.

[jer]

2 hours ago, Alfred said:

The circle does have a start and an end, but they're joined together! When you draw a circle with the Ellipse Tool, apply a heavy stroke and drag the middle of the pressure curve downwards, the circle will always be thick at the top and thin at the bottom (unless and until you rotate it). If you 'Convert to Curves' the object, you'll see why: with the Node Tool selected, the node at the top will be drawn in red because it's an end node.

Ah, ck for the red node, thanks for the tip. My example was a little simplified b/c by the time I'm ready to pressure-ize my curve no longer looks like a simple, straight up and down circle. It looks like a trail through the mountains and round again. You know what I mean, right. But it will always have that red node, won't it? Appreciate it.

1 hour ago, gdenby said:

I made a thick stroke. and copied it so I could see how the different pressure graphs were working. After making and saving a bunch of profiles, I deleted the line layers and saved the file. The pressure curves are associated w. the file, I suppose I should check and see if they can be saved as a style. I know dashed lines can. When I re-open the blank file, all the pressures are available in the stroke dialogue, ready for application to the newly drawn vectors. They can be tweaked w/o saving for 1 off variations that might be hard to tell apart as a tiny thumbnail.

Oh, the little "Save Profile" clicky I've never even tried out! Of course! I'll try that. Good to know they come back to you in new blank documents. Ahh, so many great features, so little time! gdenby, thanks.

 SM:DUH  

[jer]

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[Alfred]

2 hours ago, jer said:

 SM:DUH  

 

"SM:DUH"? Did you perhaps mean this:  ??

[gdenby]

Tried last night, and yes, the line pressure can be saved as a style, so I'll be putting together a new category of those.

[jer]

20 hours ago, Alfred said:

 

"SM:DUH"? Did you perhaps mean this:  ??

As you could see, I tried a couple of times with your special emoji files and gave up.

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, jer said:

As you could see, I tried a couple of times with your special emoji files and gave up.

 

I wonder where you dug that up! Smiley shortcuts like SM:DUH worked on the old Serif (vBulletin) forums, but they were closed to public posts several years ago.

 

Apologies to the OP for going so wildly off topic.