Using Vectors

Introduction

Vector objects are made up of lines and shapes including text characters.

Each has its own bounding box and consists of :-

one path,

one or more contours,

is open or closed,

has a direction and a start and end,

nodes,

segments.

Combining shapes to make a preset shape.

This example uses any three shapes chosen at random.

New Image.

Preset Shapes tool Check Create as a Vector (“2”) and Retain style (“1”) unchecked. This will use the current F/G and B/G materials and not the materials in use when the shape was originally created.

Choose any shapes and click and drag to draw them

Expand the layer palette

Check all the names in the layer palette (“3”). They must all be anything unique and not used before in shapes. Eg “ellipse” and “square”

Left Click on a name bar, hold Shift down and click on the name bars that you want to combine into one shape. The name text becomes bold – it might not be very obvious.

Right click and “Group”

File / Export / Shape. Enter file name.

Check Preset-Shapes menu. Note that the name of this shape in the Shapes selection box is the name given to the Group 1 layer in the layer palette which could have been changed to something more meaningful.

Drag an example while holding the Shift key down to retain proportions.

You might want to change layer properties such as Fill etc.

Fancy Text Shapes

Create a New Image and select the Text Tool

Make sure to Check “Create as a Vector”

Maybe use Objects / Align / Center in Image

If you want to change any of the letters, reopen the text box by right clicking the “A”layer icon in the expanded layer palette and then “Edit Text” in the menu. Select all or individual letters to change them

Objects / Convert text to curves / As character shapes.

Expand the layer palette.

Right click on a letter layer to change letter properties - fill and outline.

Each letter has its own layer and it can be reshaped by manipulating its nodes.

Click on a letter layer bar. You see a bounding box around that letter which can be manipulated.

Click on the Pen Tool.   The nodes appear.

Left click a node, hold and drag to reposition it.

Right click a node to get a menu for node changes.

(Menu bar / Layers / Properties   -   gives generic layer properties.)

In this example, some of the nodes were dragged to new positions and some had their node type altered. Also the stack order of the letter layers was changed

Raster effects can't be applied to vectors, so duplicate the vector 1 layer and Layers / Convert to Raster layer. Turn off visibility of the vector layer

Apply raster effects like Drop Shadow and Spherise and flood fill the background with a gradient,