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!