Manual Bezier Editing to Stylize a Sketch Effect

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Manual Bezier Editing to Stylize…

Yesterday’s post described how to automatically generate a set of bezier paths derived from the source image, and then paint in the bezier paths with a vector paint preset. Today we will show how you can use additional manual bezier editing steps to stylize a set of bezier paths prior to painting them in with a paint synthesizer preset.

The paint action sequence (PASeq) below shows the beginning part of the PASeq we used to create yesterday’s pencil sketch effect. These action steps automatically generate the bezier paths that are used to build the sketch effect.

However, you also have the option to do some additional manual bezier editing to generate a more stylized sketch. We’ll look at some different approaches to manual editing of bezier paths. One stylization step we’ll look at could be recorded as an action step in a PASeq, but the other options are manual bezier edits that cannot be recorded into a PASeq.

The first gallery image below shows the bezier paths automatically generated by the above PASeq action steps displayed in the canvas in Bezier operation mode.

I wanted my final painted sketch to be more stylized. So, I first ran the Path : Path Layer Commands : Simplify menu command (2nd gallery image above). The Simplify path menu command can be recorded into a PASeq, so I could have added it into my automatic path generating PASeq shown above. After running the Simplify menu command the bezier path frame was transformed into the stylized bezier path representation shown in the 3rd gallery image above.

Overall I liked the simplified bezier path representation of the source image, but one of the bezier paths associated with the left side of the face in the 3rd gallery image above bugged me. I wanted to adjust it’s shape to better represent the source image. To do this, I switched to Bezier Edit operaiton mode (4th gallery image above).

Bezier Edit mode allows you to manually edit the shape of individual or groups of bezier paths. In the 5th gallery image above you can see that I selected the problem bezier path on the left side of the face by clicking on it with the mouse cursor. Note that the selected bezier path has black control points on the path and additional square control handles offset from the path. You can mouse down in the control points of the handles and move them to adjust the shape of the bezier path. The 6th gallery image above shows how I manually adjusted the shape of the problem bezier path to something I liked better to represent the left side of the face for the sketch.

I then wanted to distort the bezier paths associated with the facial part of the sketch to make it bulge out a little. To do this, I switched to Bezier Warp operation mode (7th gallery image above). Bezier Warp op mode works much the same way as the Interactive Warp operation mode. The difference is that you interactively warp bezier paths as opposed to the raster canvas layer image. To do an interactive bezier warp, you mouse down in the canvas and then move the mouse to interactively warp the bezier paths. I used a Sphere warp option. If no bezier paths are selected, then an interactive bezier warp affects all of the bezier paths in the bezier path frame. If some specific bezier paths are selected, then the interactive bezier warp only affects the selected paths.

Keep in mind that none of the manual editing steps I described above can be recorded as action steps in a PASeq. At some point in the future we may support interactive bezier warps as recordable action steps. Bezier edits of individual bezier paths are very specific to what is stored in the bezier path frame, so those will never be recordable as action steps in a PASeq.

I now wanted to clean up the sketch, since there were a number of small bezier paths scattered throughout the canvas that aren’t really associated with the main face and body of the figure I wanted to sketch for my finished stylized pencil sketch effect. So, I switched back to Bezier Edit operation mode. I then used the mouse to drag a red selection rectangle in the top right corner of the canvas (as shown in the 1st gallery image above).

When I released the mouse after drag selecting a red selection rectangle, then every bezier path that was inside of the selection rectangle is now selected (2nd gallery image above). Note that all of the selected bezier paths have control points and control handles associated with them. I then pressed the Delete key to delete the selected bezier paths (3rd gallery image above).

I then used manual selection and the Delete key to get rid of the rest of the extraneous bezier paths I didn’t want in my final sketch (4th gallery image above). At this point, I was ready to paint in the stylized bezier paths for today’s sketch effect with the 2 paint presets we used in yesterday’s post. I used the Path : Paint Paths : Full Layer menu command to paint in the stylized bezier paths. The end result for my stylized painted pencil sketch effect is shown at the top of the post.

To recap, the approach we discussed today allows you to stylize a set of bezier paths that represent a sketch or painting prior to using the paint synthesizer to paint them into the current layer. The Simplify path menu command we initially used could be recorded into a PASeq for automatic processing of a source image or movie file. But the other manual bezier editing steps cannot be recorded in to a PASeq.

For More Information

Here’s a tip that discusses some of the different things you can do with bezier paths in Studio Artist.

Here’s a tip that discusses different approaches to generating bezier paths from images.

Chapter 9 : Bezier Paths in the Studio Artist User Guide pdf discusses the different Bezier operation mode features in detail. You can access the User Guide pdf from the main Studio Artist help menu.

Categories: Bezier, Sketch EFX

Tags: bezier path sketch

Manual Bezier Editing to Stylize a Sketch Effect

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