Vector Styles?

[Richard S.]

Hi everyone.

I’m relatively new to designing 100% vector images and have a question:

How do layer styles such as noise fills, glows, shadows, blurs work in relation to remaining scalable?

Surely styles such as these cannot be vectors, which would suggest to me that if you want to design a purely vector image which can be scaled up or down, then it can only be a flat image, and not contain any of the usual layer styles such as those mentioned above?

Any info regarding this would be very much appreciated.

Thank you all in advance.

[Callum]

Hi Design Meister,

Layer FX is non vector and will be rasterised or removed upon export depending on the settings you use

Thanks

C

[Richard S.]

That’s what I thought.

So basically, vector images are limited to flat, no effect illustrations

Wanted to create a vector t-shirt design, but if I can’t even have any shading etc, it seems a bit pointless

Thanks anyway.

[Callum]

You can have shading you will just have to draw it yourself instead of using the shadows FX.

[Richard S.]

Confused now?

Are you saying that it is possible to have a mottled type of shading which gradually fades out, which is somehow a vector? How is that possible?

My brain is having trouble understanding how something with no clearly defined edges can be a vector?.   

Does anyone have any examples of 100% pure vector illustrations, which contain shading and shadows etc.

Thanks in advance.

[Callum]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by mottled shading. But you can shade by lowering the opacity of your curves or using the transparency tool to achieve the gradually fading out effect you are looking for.

[Richard S.]

Callum,

I mean a similar effect to that which you get in AF when you use the noise fill to create a kind of dusty speckled fill, which will gradually fade out.

Hope that made more sense

Thanks for the help.

[gdenby]

I've got to run just now, no time for an example. But vector formats such as .svg support opacity variation and gradient. Not quite sure about the noise setting that AD attaches to the color fill. So by carefully varying the transparency and hue of the shadow object(s) one gets a fill that looks like a fading shadow.

[gdenby]

So, a sample. Imperfect, but in the right direction.

ShadoeFayk.afdesign

In the meantime, I tested out .pdf and .svg. .pdf doesn't appear to have the same way of handling opacity. .svg doesn't seem to render the AD noise parameter. Seems to produce dither bands.

[Richard S.]

Hmm, It seems that I will have to make the basic shapes in AD to the size I need, then finish it off in AP or PS.

Thanks for all he help.

[gdenby]

20 minutes ago, DesignMeister said:

Hmm, It seems that I will have to make the basic shapes in AD to the size I need, then finish it off in AP or PS.

Thanks for all he help.

I may have mis-understood the original question. The AD fx are scalable w. the vector object. They only become a fixed bitmap when exported as a vector format that does not gradients/opacity. Or as a bitmap. As long as they are manipulated within AD, the fx will scale.

I thought you wanted vector shapes w. the kinds of fills such as gradients and opacity changes that can be a part of a vector object description.

[Richard S.]

What I want to do is create a vector image with shadows, gradients, noise fills etc., which I can scale up or down as required, and then be able to send to a t-shirt printer whilst retaining the effects.

[gdenby]

52 minutes ago, DesignMeister said:

What I want to do is create a vector image with shadows, gradients, noise fills etc., which I can scale up or down as required, and then be able to send to a t-shirt printer whilst retaining the effects.

Toltec is an experienced t-shirt producer. Perhaps message @toltec. Offers lots of good advise.

[Richard S.]

Thanks, I appreciate the advice.

[toltec]

3 hours ago, gdenby said:

Toltec is an experienced t-shirt producer. Perhaps message @toltec. Offers lots of good advise.

Indeed, for traditional silkscreen production but there are a few alternatives methods to silkscreen. I have no idea why @DesignMeister wants to use purely vector artwork.

Whenever I needed to produce film for shirts, because silk screening is done at about 50 lines per inch, it didn't matter much what was in the image as far as bitmaps or gradients were concerned. It always looked a bit 'dotty'.

 There was someone on here who said his T-Shirt producers insisted on purely vector files, which seems madness. How do you produce halftome screens using just vectors? or maybe "why", would be a better question.

[Richard S.]

@toltec I wanted to use vectors, as I want to make the image once, and then scale the size up and down for various uses, for everything from a small business card, to a t-shirt.

Hence why I was asking about vector only.

[toltec]

3 minutes ago, DesignMeister said:

@toltec I wanted to use vectors, as I want to make the image once, and then scale the size up and down for various uses, for everything from a small business card, to a t-shirt.

Hence why I was asking about vector only.

Whenever I needed to do that, I would always design it the biggest size likely to be needed.

I found that artwork would always scale down without any issues but would not scale up (by much). It only takes a second to scale something down when you actually need it 

[Richard S.]

@toltec yes, that’s the conclusion I came up with. Start massive and then shrink. I’m just unfamiliar with fills, noise, shadows, blurs etc when it comes to vectors

[toltec]

6 minutes ago, DesignMeister said:

@toltec yes, that’s the conclusion I came up with. Start massive and then shrink. I’m just unfamiliar with fills, noise, shadows, blurs etc when it comes to vectors

As far as I am aware, even if you include an affect that will be rasterised, such as a layer effect, it is not rasterised until output. So it depends hugely upon how the shirts are being produced. i.e. how they get from your software to the printer.

This stuff is very complex with many varied production methods and different printers would be using different software and methods. So without knowing the full details of the production method after it leaves your hands, I simply can't say for sure. 

i.e. If you output a design as JPEG files which the printer loaded into Photoshop to print from, if you designed it as, A4, as long as you increased the artwork size before outputting a JPEG it would not matter because the rasterisation would be done at the bigger size. if you output a JPEG at A4 and then it was increased in size afterwards (say in Photoshop), it would matter because the rasterisation would have been done at A4.

If you output as an SVG it would be quite different, as it would if you output a PDF.

To be honest, that is why I tend to avoid these questions because it can get so complex unless I know exactly what the printer wants. Technically speaking.

[Richard S.]

I appreciate all your advice. From what I have seen, the printing companies I looked into are mostly asking for jpgs, so I will create a large version initially, then shrink to required size and rasterise.

[toltec]

3 minutes ago, DesignMeister said:

I appreciate all your advice. From what I have seen, the printing companies I looked into are mostly asking for jpgs, so I will create a large version initially, then shrink to required size and rasterise.

I think the main thing is to make sure your artwork document is the right size (dimensionally) before you output the file to a JPEG. Then it should be fine.