Usefulness of taper settings
No (ok, there will always be a few crazy people) artist draws a line in such a way that the brush pressure smoothly goes from point 0 to reach the maximum brush size at a certain point, and then the size smoothly changes to another value.
The strangeness of using such settings of narrowing the brush is well illustrated by the situation when we have many lines of different lengths next to each other.
Comparing two lines, e.g. 5 and 50 cm long, which widen in the middle, we will notice that in one someone pressed the brush precisely and smoothly over 2.5 cm, and right next to it it takes as much as 25 cm.
The funny thing is that in such a world, the artist, drawing each line, would have to realize that he is in the middle (or a certain point) of the line, and he would have to start slowly picking up the brush.
Please take a brush or a graphic tablet and try to draw something in this way, where each line will be guided by this principle.
In fact, the start of the line is narrowed by putting the tool on the surface, then there is some more or less constant line, and then lifting the tool off the surface - it doesn’t take 10 times longer for 10 times longer lines to lift your brush off the canvas but about the same time for each line no matter the length.
Simplifying the topic a bit for the needs of CAD software, changing the size of the line should be also possible as follows:
- Absolute length of the taper at the beginning of the line
- Fixed line width in between
- Absolute taper length at the end of the line.
The current options for setting line taper don’t match what we know from the real world and give that funky computer-graphics flavor. Someone might even like that, but it’s a very imposing, inflexible setting for all the users. I would like a setting to be added where the length of the taper is based on defined units.
Please see how it is done in professional programs that were created for digital drawing. A perfect example is Clip Studio Paint, which developed around comic book creation, where linework is crucial.
Rhino 8 tapering - all lines are in the same style and it shows the ridiculousness of the tapering defined by the point on the curve
Clip Studio Paint - line tapering is defined by the length. Clip Studio has a lot more cool settings besides that, but I’m not asking to match its number of settings and features
