Evenly breaking up a line (path) 3

[Zodd]

Hi all, I am trying to draw a road, and I have a copy of the edge of the road going down the center of it, as a highway divider. Is there an easy way to break up this line into even pieces to simulate the white (or yellow) divider lines on a highway?

Thanks Zodd

 

[Zodd]

OK I figured it out. For all who care, I used the "dashed lines" in the stroke pallette.

Thanks

 

[itchybug]

Drawing a road can be done easily by using the (Incredibly Cool, Best Thing Since Sliced Bread) appearance palette:

1. Draw a nice fat stroke, no fill. Look at the appearance palette, only a 42 point black stroke:

2. With the stroke selected, drag the stroke onto the "New" icon in the appearance palette:

3. A new stroke gets added to the path. Select that particular line item in the palette by clicking on it once:

4. Enter a different value for the stroke (22 points in our case) and make it white:

5. Drag this stroke to the "New" icon:

6. Make the newest stroke 20 points, and Black:

7. Add 2 more strokes, a 4 point yellow and a 2 point black:

8. Now, select the line item with the white stroke, and apply a dashed stroke to it:

Save the resulting path as a style, and apply it to any path you wish to turn into a highway. Make paths for country roads and city streets as well and save all into a "roads" file, which you can later refer to via the styles palette.

HTH

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

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http://www.amenpackaging.com

 

[itchybug]

Forgot to mention why this is so cool: You only end up with one path for the road and all the striping, so editing is really easy. There are so many other things you can do with the appearance palette, experiment with it and see...

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

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http://www.amenpackaging.com

 

[dmacster]

Nice post, Bert. Perhaps a good FAQ?

 

[itchybug]

Donna:

I've got so many of these little faq topics on my server, one of these days I'll put them all together and start a tutorial website...

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

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http://www.amenpackaging.com

 

[dmacster]

Good idea.

 

[Zodd]

itchybug, that is SO cool. Thank you so much! That will save me a lot of time on this project I am working on. I only have one problem. I was able to save it as a style in the document where it was created, but the style disappears for any other document. How can you make it so that it is always available? I am relatively new to Illustrator, so please excuse my ignorance.

Thanks

 

[itchybug]

Zodd:

Here's another really helpful piece of information:

For items such as Brushes, Styles, Symbols and Swatches, the information is stored in a regular Illustrator file. This means, that you can access those files as libraries, by going to Window>Bla Bla Libraries>Other Library, then simply navigate to the file where the brush, swatch, whatever is stored. You can access any Illustrator file this way, regardless of whether it has any other content. Try navigating to the road style file from a new document, and opening the palette in that new doc. As soon as you click on the style in the new palette, it will be added to the regular styles palette.

In versions after ai10, you don't have to go through Window>Yada Yada, you can directly access the file through the "Open Library" option in the palette dropdown menu of various palettes.

To add the style permanently to the startup document, do this:

1. Open a new document (You'll have to perform this operation for both RGB and CMYK separately);
2. From the styles palette, navigate to the file that contains the style;
3. Click on the desired style to bring it into the regular styles palette;
4. Save the document as "Adobe Illustrator Startup_CMYK.ai" without the quote marks into the Plug-ins folder in the main Illustrator directory. When it asks, OK to overwrite the one that's already there.

Now, restart Illustrator, and when you create a new doc, the style will always be there.

HTH

Bert

http://www.itchybug.com

-

http://www.amenpackaging.com

 

[filippot]

bert, youre the man!

 

[itchybug]

I know it (I'm kidding). Thanks for the kind words.

http://www.itchybug.com

-

http://www.amenpackaging.com

 

[filippot]

..and as for your new website idea. i think many a people here dont have absolutely anything against this idea.