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CV-ArtSmart
Posted: 11 December 2012 07:36 PM   [ Ignore ]  
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CV-ArtSmart 2.1 Available Dec 20, 2013!

New Features:

Copy / Paste of splines between C4D and Illustrator
When copying from C4D to Illustrator, any selected object that can be interpreted as a spline will be copied to the clipboard. Primitive splines are translated internally and copied as well.

Sweep Strokes
In the CV-ArtSmart Object, there’s a new Sweep Stroke group, allowing you to create a sweep along stroked paths. Filled paths will be extruded as normal. Stroked paths can be swept. Paths with fill & stroke can be extruded and swept. Stroke width is based on the Illustrator stroke width, and can be modified by a percentage. The Stroke Depth is relative to the Extrude Depth, so a value of 10 will overlap the extrusion 5 units on each side. The Sweep will center on the extrude’s depth, but can be offset based on a percentage. The Start + End option generates two sweeps, each centered on one cap of the extrusion.

Per-path Depth & Offset
The Layers tab will now contain Offset sliders for each individual path, and Depth sliders for filled paths. Previously you could only modify these per-layer, but now you can modify them per-path as well.

PDF Path Detection
PDF stores a stroked & filled path as two separate paths (one filled, one stroked), and ArtSmart 1 imported both paths. Now the duplicate path will be detected and only one stroked & filled path will be imported. This only affected files saved WITH compression.

Force PDF
By default, the path data in Illustrator files saved without compression is parsed from the Illustrator private data, which generally should yield a better result than the PDF information. This checkbox will cause the PDF portion of the file to be used instead. It’s really just a backup if a file isn’t working to see if that helps.

Greedy Fill
When this is used, paths that are neither explicitly stroked nor filled (in many cases because they are filled with a gradient, or they could be a clipping path) will be treated as if they are filled. This option is primarily for use with PDF (AI Compressed or with Force PDF enabled). Greedy Fill will always use the default extrude color, which is now white. Also, when Greedy Fill is enabled and Create Materials is pressed, a material will be created for each path rather than for each unique color within a layer (because it’s assumed most of the white materials should be a different color.

Show Hierachy
This option populates the ArtSmart Object hierarchy under the generator, instead of within the generator. It was intended as a hack to allow compatibility with Cineware, but with Cineware / AE 12.1 plugins are now supported if you link to an existing CINEMA 4D installation. It’s sometimes handy to easily see the hierarchy, but changes will be overwritten constantly by the ArtSmart object, so use with caution.

Pantone / Custom Colors
Pantone and other custom colors are now supported in some files. Sometimes Illustrator provides the CMYK equivalent in the file, and in those cases ArtSmart will use it.

Messages Field
The ArtSmart Object now has a Messages field at the bottom of the Object tab, which can display useful messages about the format and unsupported features like gradients.

Banner / Update Check
A new banner at the top of the ArtSmart Object object tab provides branding and also shows if there’s a new version available. Clicking the button goes to the ArtSmart playlist on Cineversity.

Other Changes
• Object now defaults to Spread=10, Depth=10 so you should immediately get a 3D representation of the artwork.
• Path Names are imported for Illustrator files saved WITHOUT compression. They aren’t available in PDF or Clipboard formats.
• A new ArtSmart PathInfo tag stores the path checksum, stroke, fill and color information, so these don’t have to be a part of the path name.
• New options dialog for the ArtSmart Import command allows you to set parsing options and generate the object.
• Internally, all the functions now use the same path parsing core functions

Changes in v2.10:
• ArtSmartCopy now copies the spline based on the current orthographic view. Perpective view still uses XY.
• FIXED: ArtSmartCopy failures on Windows
• FIXED: Userdata corruption when moving paths between layers
• FIXED: Version number / update banner

Changes in v2.20:
• New option to auto-close all paths. Forces open splines to be closed so they’ll be extruded/filled.
• Improvement to custom color (ie Pantone) parsing.

Changes in v2.30:
• FIXED: Unicode characters in file path broke file loading
• FIXED: ArtSmart Paste fails on Windows 8

Known Issues / Limitations:
• Gradient fills are not supported. See Greedy Fill explanation above.
• Pattern fills are not supported.
• Symbols are not supported.

If you’re running into any issues with ArtSmart or have any feature requests, post them in this thread. Thanks!

File Attachments
ArtSmart Compatibility Matrix - Sheet1.pdf  (File Size: 45KB - Downloads: 1244)
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Posted: 12 December 2012 02:51 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]  
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Love this new exchange tool for Illustrator/PDF files…it should improve my workflow quite a bit and minimize managing all those obsolete Version 8 files I generate from a CS6 source.


1. Not sure if it’s in scope of this plugin, but being able to paste “simple” paths with clipboard data would be nice.

2. Off topic, but also nice to have (for me) is being able to paste bitmap clipboard data into a Doodle frame..I use Doodle as a guide for layout/alignment within iPad apps.  I know that probably means making a temp file somewhere in the tex folder, but that sure beats managing them the old fashion way like a sucker.

—-

Thanks to the dev team for all the awesome Adobe Integration so far…

Expert exchanges into/out of AfterEffects
PlaneSmart for layered PhotoShop files.
Import Adobe Swatch files with the SWiM script

—-

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Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited.
- albert einstein

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Posted: 12 December 2012 02:56 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]  
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Copy/Paste of spline data between C4D and AI is on the roadmap for v2 - I’ve already made good progress on that front.

As far as Doodle goes, I don’t think there’s any API access for that, but when I get a chance I’ll take a look.

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Posted: 12 December 2012 03:06 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]  
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This plugin will simplify my life like hell!!!! Thank you very much for the time you put in this plugin. And thanks also for sharing it. smile

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Posted: 13 December 2012 01:37 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]  
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This is awesome for the workflow! I could have used this in my last job. At least now my next one will be a breeze with ArtSmart. Thank you so much for making this!

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Posted: 13 December 2012 02:49 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]  
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I am unable to reopen any .c4d files that use CV ArtSmart. Either File>Open or drag n drop results in an instant quit. On Mac 10.6.8, C4d Broadcast r13, using Illustrator CS5.1

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Posted: 13 December 2012 10:47 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 6 ]  
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Joined  2011-01-23

Fantastic tool, it even works with Inkscapes PDF export.
Finally a working solution for people without Illustrator!

Cheers,
Gerhard

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Posted: 13 December 2012 01:39 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 7 ]  
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mustardseed - 13 December 2012 02:49 AM

I am unable to reopen any .c4d files that use CV ArtSmart. Either File>Open or drag n drop results in an instant quit. On Mac 10.6.8, C4d Broadcast r13, using Illustrator CS5.1

Hmm, that’s not good.

Can you attach your corrupt c4d file either here or in a private message? I’ll dig into it and see what’s going on.

- Rick -

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Posted: 13 December 2012 02:15 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 8 ]  
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Hi Rick,

Thanks for looking into this. here’s a .zip archive containing the .c4d files, the .ai as well as the Mac and C4d crash reports.

Strangely though, the same files that crash r13 open just fine in r12. Then when I resave them out of r12, they still crash when opened in r13.

Again, it does actually work in r13, and quite beautifully if I may add, it just can’t be opened again once saved out.

Hope you figure it out!

File Attachments
cv_artsmart_test.zip  (File Size: 222KB - Downloads: 779)
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Posted: 13 December 2012 02:55 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 9 ]  
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I can confirm your scene crashing in R13 Mac, though it works fine in R14 Mac and R13 & R14 PC. I’ll dig in and see what I can figure out.

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Posted: 13 December 2012 02:58 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 10 ]  
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Please do! I can’t afford NOT to have this functionality in C4d. It’s simply awesome!; I’ll never have to parent another logo spline to an Extrude Object again!

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Posted: 13 December 2012 08:44 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 11 ]  
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Rick,

Fantastic work! As Ko Maruyama said on Twitter, it’s an absolute game-changer. This greatly simplifies the AE->C4D exchange and actually makes it a usable workflow.

Feature Requests:
Add support for floating point numbers for radius on the caps tab.
Add an import scale option like the one at Edit > Scale Project. Q: How does it interpret AI units at the moment?
At the moment the UI on the caps tab restricts me to even integer increments for Radius, I’d really like to be able to use floating point number.
Add an “interpret paths as layers” option so that if I’ve got a simple AE project with a few paths, I don’t have to convert them all to individual layers to get precision control.
Add support for path names, at the moment they come in as “Path” followed by some numerical gobbledygook.

-Donovan

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Posted: 13 December 2012 10:42 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 12 ]  
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mustardseed - 13 December 2012 02:58 PM

Please do! I can’t afford NOT to have this functionality in C4d. It’s simply awesome!; I’ll never have to parent another logo spline to an Extrude Object again!

I just uploaded a new version 1.02 of ArtSmart - I think I found and squished the bug. Download it from the Download & Install tutorial and let me know if that fixes the issue.

- Rick -

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Posted: 13 December 2012 10:49 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 13 ]  
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Donovan Keith - 13 December 2012 08:44 PM

Feature Requests:
Add support for floating point numbers for radius on the caps tab.
Add an import scale option like the one at Edit > Scale Project. Q: How does it interpret AI units at the moment?
At the moment the UI on the caps tab restricts me to even integer increments for Radius, I’d really like to be able to use floating point number.
Add an “interpret paths as layers” option so that if I’ve got a simple AE project with a few paths, I don’t have to convert them all to individual layers to get precision control.
Add support for path names, at the moment they come in as “Path” followed by some numerical gobbledygook.

Thanks Donovan.

The floating point radius thing is a bug I’ll work on tracking down. It’s allowing floating points in some cases (I think I even used floating points in one of the videos). It’s just including the Extrude NURBS caps tab, so I’m not sure what’s going on there. But I’ll find it.

Units should be 1 Illustrator unit = 1 project unit.

I’ll take the other feature requests under advisement.

BTW - the numerical gobbledygook is a checksum value that lets me match the paths back up when you reload the file.

- Rick -

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Posted: 13 December 2012 11:28 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 14 ]  
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It works!!

No problems opening up the files previously saved out from r13. Curiously though, it can’t open the file that was saved out of r12 in r13… I get an “Incorrect file structure” error box. Does this mean if I can’t exchange ArtSmart .c4d files across different c4d versions?

Rick Barrett - 13 December 2012 10:42 PM

I just uploaded a new version 1.02 of ArtSmart - I think I found and squished the bug. Download it from the Download & Install tutorial and let me know if that fixes the issue.

- Rick -

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Posted: 13 December 2012 11:41 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 15 ]  
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Does the file include an ArtSmart object? Are you running ArtSmart in R12?

ArtSmart hasn’t been tested, isn’t supported nor do I think it will work properly in R12. The Python API was still very new in R12, and not really complete at that point.

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