Today’s post describes how to build a simple crisp pencil sketch effect. The effect is painted in with 2 applications of a paint synthesizer vector paint preset that renders a smooth thin gray vector paint stroke. Rather than using the paint synthesizer’s auto-paint features, a set of bezier paths that represent the sketch strokes are first built with a series of Path menu commands and then painted in with the paint synthesizer.
The paint action sequence (PASeq) below was used to build the sketch effect shown above. Note that most of the PASeq is devoted to building a set of bezier paths that represent the paint strokes for the sketch. Those bezier paths are then painted in with 2 applications of a gray vector paint preset. The second paint pass is essentially the same paint preset with one parameter modification which gives it a thicker stroke width.
The bezier path frame is then erased using the Path : Path Layer Commands : Erase menu command. We need to first erase the bezier path frame because we don’t know what might be in it from some previous operation you worked with in studio artist.
The bezier path frame is a hidden frame buffer associated with each layer that can store a set of bezier vector paint paths. You can always see (and edit) what is in the bezier path frame by switching to Bezier operation mode.
The Path : Generate Paths : from Source Edges menu command is then used to automatically generate a set of bezier paths based on the source edges. This step by itself can generate a reasonable bezier sketch of the source image, but we’ll do some additional bezier manipulation in the next 3 action steps to cleanup the bezier sketch.
We then ran 3 different Path : Path Layer Commands to cleanup our generared bezier edge sketch. They were the Connect if Close, Size Prune, and Connect if Close menu commands under the main Path : Path Layer Commands menu. Connect if Close connects 2 bezier paths if their endpoints are close to each other. This is useful to fill in gaps in 2 sketch paths that should really be connected as one.
Size Prune removes short paths. There are 3 different numbered SizePrune menu comamnds. They progressively remove longer short paths.
The best way to get a feel for what the different Path : Generate and Path : Path Layer Commands menus do is to switch to Bezier operation mode and try them out while watching how the bezier paths displayed in the canvas change.
I then used the Path : Paint Paths : Full Layer menu command twice to paint in the bezier paths stored in the bezier path frame with the paint synthesizer.
For my second bezier path paint pass, I made a second manual edit. I switched the Vector Stroke Type in the Vector control panel from Bezier Path to Bezier Region. This changes the vector paint drawing from a uniform thinness bezier path to a bezier region with slightly larger variable thickness. This paint preset draws with a gray vector paint line, so where the 2 paint passes overlap end sup with a darker black coloring. The combination of the 2 slightly different vector paint passes gives the individual sketch lines more artistic character.
