In this lesson we'll explore Effect Lines and a related topic, Blending Paths. Both features are powerful tools. Which feature you use will depend on your project. Let's begin.

Effect Lines

Effect Lines are new to Expression 3. As you'll discover, there are many uses for Effect Lines. The author of one Japanese web site used Effect Lines to create a straw hat and hair for a mermaid image. The author of this web site offers instructions for creating the hair, but you'll need to have the instructions translated if you don't read Japanese.

Another use for effect lines is to create scratch board images, much like this one. As you work with effect lines, I'm sure you'll find even more uses for this feature. Let's begin with effect line basics.

Effect Lines can be applied to either open or closed paths. Two paths are necessary to create effect lines as the lines are drawn from one path to a second path. If you start with only one path, Expression will create a second path exactly like the original and create effect lines between them. Let's test this.

With a new document opened in Expression, draw a path with any of the drawing tools (not the shape tools; we'll use those later). Open your Effect Lines palette by choosing Window > Effect Lines from the menu bar or by using the F12 shortcut key. Click the Create Effect Lines button in the lower right corner of the Effect Lines palette, as shown in the screen shot on the left. Below is a screen capture of the path I started with, and below that is the path after applying effect lines to it:

As you can see, Effect Lines run from one path to the second path and this is why two paths are necessary. If you don't want Expression to create the second path for you, create it yourself. Delete the effect lines on your document and create two paths this time. Select both paths with the Object Select tool (or by holding down the Ctrl key to temporarily switch to a selection cursor) and click the Create Effect Lines button. Here's mine:

Click away from the effect lines and notice that the original source paths seem to have disappeared. Expression uses the path information only when creating effect lines and discards any other information, such as any stroke, fill, or other attributes that may have been applied to the paths. In other words, the paths from which effect lines are created are only reference paths as far as Expression is concerned. For this reason, it is important to make a copy of your paths before applying effect lines if you want to preserve them for later use.

Effect lines are paths like any other paths. You can apply strokes and other attributes to them. Click on a stroke in the Pointers folder on the Strokes palette. Choose a stroke width on the Paint Style palette so the stroke will be visible. Below is the Arrow 1 stroke with a 6 point stroke width applied to my effect lines:

Once you create effect lines, you can ungroup the lines to work with them individually. Select your effect lines and choose Objects > Unstructure and then Arrange > Ungroup from the menu bar. Notice that not only are the effect line separate paths, but the original paths used to create the Effect Lines are gone. Again, the original paths were only reference paths. Click on the effect line paths individually and move them to see that they are indeed individual paths.

With the shape tools, you only need one path. Expression will create a clone of the original shape, place it in the center of the original shape, and apply the effect lines from the original shape to the center close shape. Draw a circle with the Ellipse tool (make sure the "With Chord" is the active Arc mode in the last button on the bottom right end of the ToolBox when the Ellipse tool is active) and apply effect lines using the Create Effect Lines button (you can, if you prefer, choose Objects > Effect Lines > Create from the menu bar). Below is my circle with the 'fancy arrow' stroke applied with a 9 point stroke width:

Once effect lines are applied, the other options on the Effect Lines palette become active, as seen on the left. The meter at the top of the palette determines the amount of spacing between the lines. A higher value leaves more space between the lines and a lower value leaves less space between the lines. Below is the same effect line object as the one above with Line Spacing set to 26:

The slider to the right of the Line Spacing meter let's you apply random spacing. With the effect lines object selected, move this slider, called the Separation Variation slider, to 50% and notice the random spacing:

The second meter, below the Line Spacing meter, sets the stroke width and it works the same way as the Stroke Width meter on the Paint Style palette. Creature House says that the Paint Style palette cannot be used to set the stroke width of effect lines, but we know different, don't we. Reduce the stroke width using the Effect Lines palette and you'll notice that the stroke width meter on the Paint Style palette updates with the new stroke width information.

The slider to the right of the Stroke Width meter let's you vary stroke width among lines. With the effect lines object selected, move this slider, called the Width Variation slider, to 50% and notice the random spacing. Here, I've moved the Separation Variation slider back to 0% and the Width Variation slider to 50%:

As you can see, some strokes are now wider than others.

The next set of controls on the Effect Lines palette control clustering. Clustering allows you to group sets of lines. To enable clustering, click the first button labeled 'Clustering On/Off' on the tool tip. This button turns on clustering and reveals the meters and slider in the palette shown on the left. The first meter controls Cluster Size and the second meter controls Gap Size. The slider allows random variations to both cluster size and gap size. Experiment with different settings to see the results. Below is a circle with Clustering turn on and set to the default clustering values (Cluster Size 5 and Gap Size 3):

The next row contains the 'Control to a Point' button. We'll discuss this button a little later. For now, let's look at the two sliders to the right of this button. The first slider is the 'Start Edge Variation' slider and this meter controls how close some of the effect lines are from the first reference path. Here's an example:

Notice that the spacing is random. The second slider, labeled 'End Edge Variation' on the tool tip, controls the spacing of the effect lines from the second path, like this:

Before examining the remaining items on the Effect Lines palette, let's work with what we've learned so far and create a flower. This exercise will give you more practice with information from previous lessons so hopefully you've done your homework! First, let's create a petal stroke.

Clear off your view area, or open a new document to work in. We will have several palettes opened so remember that if some of the palettes collapse, you can expand them using the arrow to the left of the close button at the right end of a palette. Ok, let's do it:

Choose the Pen tool and click to place the first node and double click about 2 inches up from the first node to end the path, creating a vertical path. Apply a stroke to this path and set the stroke width appropriately to dress up the petal a bit: I'm using the comet stroke from Expression 1 and I set the stroke width meter to 75 points. In the Variable Width palette (F7 if the palette isn't visible) click on the + button to reveal the beginning and ending nodes in the graph. Click on the beginning node and drag it to the bottom of the graph and release the mouse. Give your stroke a color (I'm using yellow) and then deselect the path. This is the result you should have:

Choose the B-Spline tool and set stroke width on the Paint Style palette to 1 point. Beginning at a point below the first point in the previous path (make sure the Do Not Append button is enabled on the ToolBox so that your new path won't attach to the first one) click out a petal shape around the first path. I clicked a rounded edge on the left side, made zig zag clicks to create a ragged edge at the top of the petal and then continued clicking a rounded edge on the right edge of the petal, like this:

Remember to hold down the Alt key when you approach the beginning of the new path to create a sharp corner. Otherwise, you'll need to choose the Convert Node tool to convert the beginning/end node from a rounded curve to a corner node. Begin to increase the stroke width on the Paint Style palette until the stroke on the new path is to your liking. I increased my stroke width to 14 points. Change the stroke and/or the stroke color if you want. I changed my stroke color to orange. Click on the Fill button on the Paint Style palette and choose a light color. I increased the Lightness of the yellow color to 98. We can no longer see the first path so choose Arrange > Down One to place the second path behind the first one. You should now have something like this:

Now we need to define our petal as a stroke. Once again, direction matters. With effect lines, strokes are applied from the from the first reference path to the second one. On a circle shape, the first path is the circle shape you create and the second path is the one Expression creates in the center of the original path. So now we know that the top of the petal should be facing to the left. Rotate your stroke to this position using the rotation handles on the bounding box and define the stroke. Once that's done, move the original petal paths out of the way, or delete them if you choose. Remember, you can always get the paths back again as we learned in lesson 4.

Choose the Ellipse tool and drag a circle shape. Click the Create Effect Lines button on the Effect Lines palette. You'll notice that the settings on the Effect Lines palette return to their default values. Click the No Fill button and the Skeletal Stroke button on the Paint Style palette. You also need to click the Remove Colorization button on the Paint Style palette to the left of the transparency sliders because we want the colors we defined in the petal stroke to apply. Now choose your new stroke in the Strokes palette. Nothing exciting yet, but this is where it starts to get interesting.

The settings in the Effect Lines palette will depend on the size of the circle shape you applied effect lines too. Increase the value in the Line Spacing meter until you have fewer petals in the circle shape. Start increasing the value on the Stroke Width meter until your petals get wider. Keep adjusting the values until you have something that looks like a flower. Here's mine, so far:

My flower looks a little too uniform for my liking and if yours does also, move the Separation Variation slider to the right to make the petals appear a little more randomly spaced. Move the Width Variation slider to create random widths for the petals. Finally, move the Start Edge variation slider to the right (not too far) so that some petals are set in a little more than other petals. Here's mine:

This is starting to look a little better, but we can improve the flower appearance by separating the petals and moving some of them forward in the stacking order. I should mention here that I deselected my flower object before taking screen shots so that you could see my results unobstructed by the paths. Remember to keep your flower selected at all times because you can't make changes to an object without selecting it first.

When you are sure that you have made all the adjustments to your flower that you want to make from the Effect Lines palette, choose Objects > Unstructure and then Arrange > Ungroup from the menu bar to separate the paths so that we can edit them individually. Once you ungroup effect lines, you can no longer return to the Effect Lines palette to edit the paths as a whole.

On my flower, the petals on the bottom overlap in a uniform manner. To select the very bottom petal, click away from the object to deselect all objects and then click on the path you want to edit. In my case, I will select only the bottom most petal:

Choose a petal on your flower and choose Arrange > Up One from the menu bar. This is how it affects my petal:

If the results aren't what you intended, choose Edit > Undo Up One, choose a different petal and try again. (Notice how the name of the last operation appears in the Undo menu? This lets you know what you are about to Undo. I like that.) Choose different petals and move them up or down until you are happy with the results. You may need to choose a stacking order (Up One, Down One, etc.) more than once to get the results you want. After experimenting with different petal stacking orders, this is what I am happy with, for the most part:

Let's say that you're still a little unhappy with some of the petals. For instance, when we used the Start Edge Variation slider to set some of the paths farther away from the beginning reference path, some of the petal may now seem to be too far in or too far out. Select a petal on your flower that you want to move and then press the arrow keys on your keyboard and watch what happens to the path. The top arrow, of course, causes the path to move upward in 1 pixel increments. The right arrow moves the path to the right, and so forth. Personally, I am very unhappy about that bottom petal on my flower because it looks crooked to me. Since I can resize and rotate paths with the bounding box, I rotated the bottom petal and then moved the path with the 'Down' arrow key on my keyboard until that darn petal was where I wanted it. All my flower needs now is a center.

A simple way to create a flower center is to use the 'dots' stroke in the Repeating folder in the Strokes palette and use the B-Spline tool to click out a circle shape (do this on top of the flower or away from it and move it later; either way works). Change the color slightly and click out a smaller circle shape inside the other one. Continue doing this until you are happy with the results. Then group all these shapes together and place them in the center of the flower. I kept mine simple. Here's my finished flower:

As you can see, creating a flower simple. To create different flowers, simply create a different stroke and apply it to effect lines. You might even create two or more petals and apply them to ungrouped effect lines for variation. Let's move on and explore the other items on the Effect Lines palette. There's still a lot more you can do with effect lines.

The 'Control to a Point' button, when enabled, places a small 'Point of Focus' node in the center of an Effect Line object and this node can be moved with the Node tool. Below are two circle shapes with Effect Lines; the first has the Point of Focus turn off and the one of the right has the Point of Focus turn on:

With the Node tool, the Point of Focus can be moved anywhere within the shape or outside of the shape. Below is a Point of Focus moved outside of the circle:

Although the Point of Focus has been moved, the center shape stayed in place, obscuring some of the effect lines. This center shape can be moved but there's a problem. You are supposed to be able to move the center shape with the Node tool but this doesn't work for most people (it was fixed in beta testing but it's broken again). Instead, most people can only move it with the arrow keys. Try this: move the Point of Focus outside the circle shape (assuming you're following along here) and then deselect the effect lines object. With the Node tool, draw a marquee where the center shape is to select only this shape (deselecting the effect lines object makes the source paths invisible so you'll have to guess a little here). Then click the arrow key for the direction you want to move the shape until the shape is also outside the circle (it doesn't matter if you move it in the same direction as the Point of Focus or not). Once the center shape is out of the say, the effect lines are unobstructed and you can proceed to apply strokes, colors or settings on the Effect Lines palette as usual.

Now this is a situation where you might want to make a copy the circle path before apply effect lines. What if you now want to create a circle, the same size as the original, to place on top of the effect lines in the image above? It is much easier to make a copy of the source path in the beginning than it is to try and recreate a circle the same size.

I mentioned earlier that it was important to make sure the 'With Chord' was the active more for the Ellipse tool before applying effect lines to a circle shape. This is because the other modes create a break in the circle shape and Expression thinks you are applying effect lines to an open path instead of a closed on. So instead of creating a smaller clone of the circle shape and placing it in the center, it create a duplicate of the circle shape, like this:

So far we've only worked with Effect Lines to create straight paths. This has prevented us from applying fills because fills won't show up on a straight line path. We can create curved lines as well, but we need a third path to do this. Find a spot on your view area and create a circle shape and apply effect lines to it. Apply the default stroke with a 1 point stroke width so you have something like this:

To one side of the effect lines, create a curved path with one of the drawing tools and select both the curved lines and the path, like so:

When effect lines and a third path are selected, a button in the last row of the Effect Lines palette, labeled 'Add Path Template' becomes active. Click on this button and the effect lines take on the shape of the template path (the third path), like this:

Ah ha! This probably gave you an idea of the method used by the author of the Japanese web site to create the straw hat image.

Notice that one of the effect lines in the image above has a visible path with a node where the path curves. Because effect lines are grouped together, only one path contains nodes because anything done to one node effects all the paths. This node can be edited with the Node tool. Click on the node where the path curves, with the Node tool, and drag it somewhere below the circle shape, like this:

Click the Gradient Fill button on the Paint Style palette and choose a gradient from the list:

Look closely at the image above and you'll see that once again direction matters. Effect lines are applied clockwise to a closed path. The effect lines are opened paths and we saw in a previous lesson that a fill on an opened path runs from the beginning point on a path to the end of that path. So in the image above, the straight edge of the gradient fill overlaps the strokes on the paths below it. Let's drag our path in the other direction:

Now when we apply a gradient fill (or any other fill for that matter) the straight edge of the fill is hidden below the path to the left of it, except for the last path:

To fix the last path, we can once again unstructure and ungroup the effect line paths and work with the problem path individually. But moving the path up or down in the stacking order won't fix this problem because the entire path will move, not just one edge of it. So, what we need to do is this: unstructure and ungroup the path and select only the problem path. With the Node tool, click on the node that overlaps the path to the right of it so only that node is selected:

Now click the left arrow key on your keyboard until the node on the path moves to reveal the stroke on the path to the right of it, like this:

This made a slight gap at the bottom, between the two paths, so click on the bottom node with the Node tool to select it and this time click the right arrow key once to close the gap:

Perfect! As you can see, the arrow keys work on nodes just as they do on entire paths. By default, the nudge increment is set to 1 point so pressing an arrow key moves a node or a path 1 pixel in the direction of the key you press. But you can change the nudge increment to a different value. To do so, choose File > Preferences from the menu bar and choose the General section in the drop down box at the top of the Preferences dialog box. Look in the 'Arrangement' section for a text box labeled 'Nudge increment' and change the value. The value in the test box will be different depending on your ruler setting. If your rulers are set to points, the text box will display '1 pt' as the default increment size. Let's return to our effect line discussion.

If you want to release a 'Template' just click the 'Remove Path Template' button on the Effect Lines palette. You can also remove a template by drawing a new template path, selecting the new template and effect lines object, and clicking the 'Add Path Template' button again. This replaces the old template with the new one.

The more curves in the template path, the more nodes you'll have on the resulting effect lines:

Don't get carried away though or who knows what you'll end up with:

Ok, we're having way too much fun here. Play with effect lines using different shapes, such as the star or rectangle tools, or create your own shapes with the drawing tools. Take a look at Tutorial 11, beginning on page 185 of your user manual, for more ideas on using effect lines. Another excellent resource for study is 'David' which uses effect lines for shading.

Let's move on to a somewhat related subject, blending paths. We touched on this subject in an earlier lesson but let's take a closer look at the possibilities.

Blending Paths

Somewhat like effect lines, the blending paths feature also uses reference paths to create more paths, as shown in the image on the left. One difference is that the blending paths feature does not discard the reference paths. The blends between the reference paths are grouped together, but the reference paths are not included in the group; they remain separate

Also, the blending paths feature does not have it's own palette, but rather, has it's own place within the Objects item on the menu bar. Let's do a quick exercise:

Clear your view area or open a new document to work in. With any of the drawing tools, create a path and apply a color to it. Press Ctrl-D to duplicate the path. Choose the second path, line it up about 1 inch to the right of the first path and choose a new stroke color. In the example on the right, I've chosen a dark brown for my first path and a medium gold color for my second path. Select both paths and choose Objects > Blend Paths from the menu bar. In the resulting dialog box, type the number of in between paths you want to create. In the example on the left, I chose a value of 6 (6 blends and 2 reference paths for a total of 8 paths). Check the 'Linear Interpolate' radio button and click the OK button to dismiss the dialog box and create the blending paths. You should have something similar to the image on the left if your two reference paths (referred to as 'source paths' in the user manual) were similar to mine.

Choose Edit > Undo Blend and let's apply blending paths again with a larger value this time. With both paths selected, choose Objects > Blend Paths but this time enter a value of 30 in the resulting dialog box and click the OK button. This time you should have so many in between paths that the effect looks like a shaded ribbon.

From this example, it may appear that the only thing being blended are the colors between the two source paths. Let's create different shapes with the same colors. Here, I've created a circle and a square with the same stroke and fill colors:

Applying blend paths, with a value of 4, this is the result:

Here you can see that paths can also be blended to create in between paths. Blending always occurs from the first path in the stacking order to the second path. So if I had created the square first and then the circle, my blend would be from the square to the circle.

We can even use more than two paths, and stacking order is an important consideration in this case as well. Where three paths are used, for example, blending occurs between the first and second paths and then between the second and third paths. I'll demonstrate with the following three paths:

In this example I've used a font for the leaves and converted the fonts to paths. Each path was created in the order they appear in the image above and I've given each leaf different stroke and fill colors. In the blending paths dialog box I set the blending value to 3. Below you can see that both the colors and shapes blended between the first and second paths, and from the second and third paths:

So far we've left the 'Linear Interpolate' radio button checked. The other option in the blending paths dialog box is 'Angle and Length' but to be honest I have no idea why you would want to use this option. Below are the same leaf paths blended with the Angle and Length radio button checked:

Good grief! Unless you're creating some sort of abstract art, you might just stick with the Linear Interpolate option!

Now let's look at some things we can do with blending paths. In this next exercise we'll create a spiral binding. Clear off your view area, or open a new document and display the grid. With the Rectangle tool, draw a rectangle shape 2 inches wide and 5 inches long. Give this rectangle shape a fill and no stroke. With the Ellipse tool, create a tiny circle with no stroke and a white fill and place the circle one intersection to the left, and one intersection from the top, like this:

We need more copies of the tiny circle so choose the Object Select tool and hold down the Alt key as you click and drag a copy of the first circle one intersection down and release the mouse. Holding the Alt key allows you to drag a copy of an object rather than the object itself. Continue to hold down the Alt key and drag a copy of the last circle you created until all of the intersections have a copy of a circle, like this:

Now choose the Ellipse tool and drag an oval shape 2 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches long. Give the circle the default stroke (press the number 1 key on your keyboard if the stroke is not already set to the default stroke) with a stroke width of 1 pixel and no fill. Choose Objects > Convert to Path to place nodes along the oval shape. Then choose the Scissors tool (6th tool in the top row of the ToolBox which says 'Cut Path' on the tool tip). With the Scissors tool, click on the top node of the oval shape to cut the path at that point and then click on the right node to cut at that point. Hold down the Ctrl key to temporarily convert your cursor to a selection tool and click away from the object to deselect it. Still holding the Ctrl key, click on the path between the two nodes you cut to select only that portion of the path (release the Ctrl key now) and press the Delete key on your keyboard to delete the cut portion from the path and this is what you should have:

Place the spiral (the cut circle you just made) so that the right edge of the spiral is in the center of the first tiny white circle on the rectangle (shall we call it a notebook?). Take a look at this image to see what I mean:

Hold down the Alt key and drag a copy of the spiral and drop in over the last tiny circle on the notebook so you have a top and bottom spiral, like this:

We could just continue to drag copies of the spirals and place them along the edge of the notebook like we did with the tiny circles, but let's save ourselves some trouble and use the blending paths feature. Select both the top and bottom spirals and choose Objects > Blend Paths to display the dialog box. We have 7 holes to fill so enter 7 as the value, choose the Linear Interpolate radio button, and click the OK button. Because the blending paths feature spaces the blends evenly, your spirals should be lined up with the holes in the notebook, like this:

We could have used the blending paths method to create the holes in the notebook just like we did with the spirals. Shall we jazz up our spiral binding a bit? Select all of the spirals by dragging over them with the Object Select tool. Click on the Gradient Stroke button in the Paint Style palette and choose the 'black-white' gradient from the gradient list. Set the stroke width to 3 points. This is what you should have:

Reference Vector Tool

You've probably noticed that the in between blends run in a straight line from one source path to the other. With the Reference Vector tool you can cause blends to curve. This is a little difficult to explain so please bear with me. There is very little information on this subject in the user manual and I've yet to find anyone who fully understands reference vectors, including myself.

The Reference Vector tool lives under the Gradient Vector tool in the ToolBox. (The lower case letter 'g' cycles through all the tools in the Gradient Vector tool group.) You must first select the object to which you want to attach a reference vector. Then, with the Reference Vector, click at the point you want to place a reference point and drag to create the orientation. I'll demonstrate with the following two objects:

The line at the top of the image above is a guide for demonstration purposes only. First, I select the dark colored star on the left, choose the Reference Vector tool, click just above the star to place the reference point and drag at about a 45 degree angle and release the mouse. (To get a true 45 degree angle, hold down the Shift key as you drag; the Shift key is a constraint key). This is the result:

The small circle above the star is where I clicked to place the reference point and the line indicates the angle I dragged to place the orientation. The orientation determines the angle (in part) of the blends between the two source paths and the size of the blends. A reference vector on just one of the paths isn't sufficient. I also need a reference vector on the second path. So I'll select it with the Object Select tool and attach a reference vector to it. Below is a screen shot displaying both objects selected and their reference vectors:

Now, when I choose Objects > Blend Paths and set the blend value at 8, look at the curve that results:

The angle of orientation, as I mentioned, determines both the angle and the size of the in between paths. In the example above, my angle is about 45 degrees. Notice also that the stars get smaller toward the center of the curve and then get larger toward the second source path. If I had clicked and dragged straight up or straight down, the in between stars would be in a straight line and all the same size as though I had not placed reference vectors at all. The closer I get to a 90 degree angle, the more my shapes will curve and the more drastic will be the difference in size of the in between paths. Here's a screen shot of reference vectors at about an 80 degree angle:

Applying the same number of blends, here is the result:

Notice how much smaller the stars are in this example than in the first example. The over all curve is effected as well, but not to any great extent. The place at which you place the reference vector will more noticeably effect the curve. In the next example, I'll put the reference vectors away from the paths and apply the same number of blends:

Notice how much bigger the curve is. Let's see what happens if we move the reference vectors closer together:

Obviously, since my curve is now going down instead of up, it does make a difference where I place the reference vectors. Now let's put one reference vector toward the outside, which made our curve go upwards, and one toward the inside, which caused the curve to go down:

How far away from the paths you place the reference vector also has an affect on the angle. In the screen shot below, I've placed the reference vectors in approximately the same place as the screen shot above, but higher up. Here's the result:

Finally, I'll move the reference vector on the second path more toward the reference vector on the first path so you can see that the further inward the reference vector is, the more downward the curve is toward the path the reference vector is attached to:

A few things need clarifying here. First, I've said several time that I 'moved' a reference vector. You can't actually move a reference vector. To change a reference vector on a path, you must first remove the first reference vector and place a new one. To do this, simply select the path and choose Objects > Remove Ref Vector and then choose the Reference Vector tool and create a new reference vector.

Second, while the user manual says that you can apply a reference vector to more than one object, I have not been successful in creating anything other than a straight line blend when doing so.

Finally, you can place reference vectors below the source paths instead of above them but the process works just the opposite as when the reference vectors are above the paths. For example, when we placed the reference vectors toward the outside of the source paths, the curve went upwards. Doing this with reference vectors below the paths cause the curve to go downward instead. Likewise, placing the reference vectors inward will cause the curve to go upward when placed below the source paths.

This concludes lesson 5. The subjects we've discussed here take experimenting to fully grasp the techniques. I encourage you to experiment with different settings for both the effect lines feature and the blending paths feature. These are very powerful tools when you know the full extent of their capabilities.