• I want to thank all the members that have upgraded your accounts. I truly appreciate your support of the site monetarily. Supporting the site keeps this site up and running as a lot of work daily goes on behind the scenes. Click to Support Signs101 ...

Rant Vector drawing,,,Have we gone back 40 years?

G

ghostwriter1

New Member
Just a bit about me, I'm a 59.99 year old Australian male, self employed, old school, airbrush and brush signwriter of 43 years, I made a modest to descent living with just my 2 hands, and some basic equipment. I am now a digital print guy but not by choice. and a shadow of my former self.
HAVING SAID THAT...
My vector software 30 years ago was 10 times better than what I have now. Is it just me?, Have I missed something along the way?. I started with a $4000 beige Mac that had a 20meg (yes Meg) hard drive (and a floppy disc drive, 1.4mgs per disc). and the vector drawing and cleaning up capabilities were astounding. I was using "buy outright" Flexisign 4 (I think), I could draw characters, logos and free script physically in pen or brush, scan the image and clean the whole thing up in under an hour. I wouldn't even attempt it now with Adobe Illustrator.
So What changed? well for me it all went feral when Flexi decided to discontinue with Mac software, this meant I had to change to a PC, I have nothing against PC's but I was so Mac/Flexi efficient then I could literally do anything. So then I resorted to Illustrator a lot more but all my Flexi files needed converting to be compatible, so I was forced to keep an expensive subscription to Flexi just so I could open existing jobs and convert. This was working Okay but in Flexi I could clean up an entire complex curve, or any line, by removing a hundred nodes on any line in a single click. This feature does not exist in Illustrator as far as I can work out, (I am old), I could literally draw ANYTHING with a few simple Flexi tools, which I learnt in a week or 2, now after using illustrator for 10 years I can only do the most basic drawings and it takes forever. I wouldn't even attempt most things. And I can't go bigger than 6 metres. without scaling ahhggh . Flexi had no size restrictions, and the colour layers for each vinyl was heavenly simple. Everything I ever made including my house, I drew in Flexi first.
Then there's the stone aged cutting capabilities of 'Roland Cut studio" OMG it's like I've gone back to the 1980 Gerber g4. V2, that's how backwards it is.
SO???, Is there another option that I haven't found. preferably Mac.??? Can I achieve greatness again with full drawing and cleaning up capabilities in illustrator somehow. can I smooth whole swathes of lines and curves again or is it just one node to the next from now on, which has appalling results, Why did they take such perfection and made it obsolete?. Why did they complicated the simple art of vector illustration and make it so incredibly impossible?. I need to go lie down. Wow!!! What? you read all that, your amazing.
Brad Butler, Ghostwriter Signs, Sydney Australia.
 
FrankW

FrankW

New Member
The softwares have different focuses: if working with cutting plotters or preparing files for any mechanical reproduction reducing the number of nodes is much more important than with a mainly Design-Software like Illustrator.

You can have now a Flexi Designer for Mac again, with cutting over a Windows Production Manager.
 
DL Signs

DL Signs

Never go against the family
I'm pushing 70, and get where you're coming from.

I switched to Affinity Designer. It's not overly-bloated with crap I'll never use, it's streamlined, fast, and I can do everything in half the time, with 1/4 the clicks and keyboard shortcuts as Illustrator, there's no size restrictions (I can design a wrap for a 53' trailer at scale if I want)... Maybe you need to have the "old school" mentality and drawing perspective to appreciate the simplicity of software that allows you to do what you need. I've been using it for about 3 years now, and love it. It handles text, gradients, masking, colors, node manipulation, and more, way better than Adobe, and everything always prints true. Everything is just so quick and easy when you just have what you need in front of you. Adobe is so bloated it's getting to be like a surgeon having all his kitchen utensils and gardening tools piled on the surgical instrument cart to wade through.

I only have one license for Illustrator on one computer yet for plugin support for equipment, but don't use it for designing anymore. If/ when equipment manufacturers start partnering with Affinity for these plugins (and I've been bugging them to), Adobe will be all but dead to me. That's one of the very few obstacles it has. Best part is you pay for the license, and it's yours, no subscriptions. Boss loves that I've saved him thousands on all the adobe licenses I told him to dump, because I just don't need them.
 
A

Aaron Hunter

New Member
Same boat here. Used PC/Corel for years due to serial ports and output devices at the sign shops I was at. The current company I am at is all Mac/Adobe, which works, but lacks the ability to scale efficiently and quickly as well as wonky perspective tools that make impositions a nightmare. They now offer Corel for Mac and I now flow between both.
 
Bradley Signs

Bradley Signs

Bradley Signs
ghostwriter1 said:
Just a bit about me, I'm a 59.99 year old Australian male, self employed, old school, airbrush and brush signwriter of 43 years, I made a modest to descent living with just my 2 hands, and some basic equipment. I am now a digital print guy but not by choice. and a shadow of my former self.
HAVING SAID THAT...
My vector software 30 years ago was 10 times better than what I have now. Is it just me?, Have I missed something along the way?. I started with a $4000 beige Mac that had a 20meg (yes Meg) hard drive (and a floppy disc drive, 1.4mgs per disc). and the vector drawing and cleaning up capabilities were astounding. I was using "buy outright" Flexisign 4 (I think), I could draw characters, logos and free script physically in pen or brush, scan the image and clean the whole thing up in under an hour. I wouldn't even attempt it now with Adobe Illustrator.
So What changed? well for me it all went feral when Flexi decided to discontinue with Mac software, this meant I had to change to a PC, I have nothing against PC's but I was so Mac/Flexi efficient then I could literally do anything. So then I resorted to Illustrator a lot more but all my Flexi files needed converting to be compatible, so I was forced to keep an expensive subscription to Flexi just so I could open existing jobs and convert. This was working Okay but in Flexi I could clean up an entire complex curve, or any line, by removing a hundred nodes on any line in a single click. This feature does not exist in Illustrator as far as I can work out, (I am old), I could literally draw ANYTHING with a few simple Flexi tools, which I learnt in a week or 2, now after using illustrator for 10 years I can only do the most basic drawings and it takes forever. I wouldn't even attempt most things. And I can't go bigger than 6 metres. without scaling ahhggh . Flexi had no size restrictions, and the colour layers for each vinyl was heavenly simple. Everything I ever made including my house, I drew in Flexi first.
Then there's the stone aged cutting capabilities of 'Roland Cut studio" OMG it's like I've gone back to the 1980 Gerber g4. V2, that's how backwards it is.
SO???, Is there another option that I haven't found. preferably Mac.??? Can I achieve greatness again with full drawing and cleaning up capabilities in illustrator somehow. can I smooth whole swathes of lines and curves again or is it just one node to the next from now on, which has appalling results, Why did they take such perfection and made it obsolete?. Why did they complicated the simple art of vector illustration and make it so incredibly impossible?. I need to go lie down. Wow!!! What? you read all that, your amazing.
Brad Butler, Ghostwriter Signs, Sydney Australia.
Click to expand...
I can relate mate! Hand letterer.... still have my brushes from back in '74.

You could do like I did last year, QUIT!
I retired last year.... had enough of the Bullshavick!

Corel Draw screwed me good too.... Who was the fleabag that said computers were going to change the world? He was right, they changed everything for the worse!

What happened to simple and easy?
 
C

col2270

New Member
Um...why don't you just go back to using Flexi? Version 22 is what we use here with no issue. Other than a few additions and tweaks the program hasn't changed that much (maybe from v4 yes it has). Cloud based license I think I pay around $70 a month here in Australia, but I get all the updates etc as they become available - more cost effective doing it this way, when I signed up for it a few years back I'm pretty sure they wanted around 8k to buy outright without updates or tech support.
 
G

ghostwriter1

New Member
Hi and thank you to all, I'm glad to see your comments I thought I would be just rating to myself. Slightly glad to see it's not just my suffering, lol, Just reading thru them, I was reminded of how beautiful the distortion was in early Flexi, I used to do a lot of boat transoms and you could arch the bottom of the name up and slot the yacht club or location in perfectly in a matter of 1 minute or so. and also the perspective distortions Aaron mentioned,,, they were so easily manipulated 30 YEARS AGO!!! , (unlike the dodgy Adobe miniature 'hit and miss" version I use now, Hopeless), I had a cd with 4000 fonts all ready to go, now I only seem to have 200 boring Times Roman variants. It is crazy how far backwards it has gone. I understand that you need some complicated features now to get the most out of the modern equipment, But I used to love working with Vectors, not any more, I will follow up on what FrankW said and see if Flexi designer for Mac fits the bill and also DL Signs suggestion of Affinity designer, Thank you again,,,Brad, Ghostwriter
 
G

ghostwriter1

New Member
I just want to add, In response to col2270, I have a bit of a phobia of subscriptions cause I don't use them enough to cover the on going cost. I'm not running a lucrative operation these days just tinkering around half the time. I just want my old Flexi "buy it own it" situation again. I guess I'm interested in whether they are PC or Mac and, owned outright or Subscription. Regards, BB
 
G

ghostwriter1

New Member
victor bogdanov said:
Object - Path - simplify, gets rid of unneeded nodes.


Large canvas to go beyond the 225" inch limit of regular artboard



The software is more capable than ever but it takes longer to learn all the tools, I'm constantly watching how to's and reading help articles and I've been using illustrator for 15 years
Click to expand...
Hi Victor
Thanks, I have used that some times ,,, I was thinking,,, take an ugly bumpy curve, it could be jagged or just all over the place, and in Flexi you select any 2 nodes along the line and 2 handles appear, then by adjusting the handles you manipulate the shape, when it's right hit return and it will smooth it into a perfect long smooth wave (Bézier curve) no matter how bad it was. I have not found this in Illustrator, In Illustrator you can only smooth one segment (between 2 nodes) at a time, It is ridiculously primitive. The answer is probably buy a high end tablet and stylus and draw with that, sign up for an over priced subscription and I stop whining about the cost. cheers bb
 
Last edited:
Fred Weiss

Fred Weiss

Merchant Member
ghostwriter1 said:
Hi Victor
Thanks, I have used that some times ,,, I was thinking,,, take an ugly bumpy curve, it could be jagged or just all over the place, and in Flexi you select any 2 nodes along the line and 2 handles appear, then by adjusting the handles you manipulate the shape, when it's right hit return and it will smooth it into a perfect long smooth wave (Bézier curve) no matter how bad it was. I have not found this in Illustrator, The answer is probably buy a high end tablet and stylus and draw with that, sign up for an over priced subscription and I stop whining about the cost. cheers bb
Click to expand...
And that describes Flexi from pretty much day one a few decades ago. It has always been an excellent vectorizing and vector editing app. The main thing, as far as I can tell, that has been added since then has been support for newer plotters and printers. Almost all of the 905 images in our Plotter Art™ Originals collection was vectorized using FlexiSign.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top