Doing perspective with a tablet?

[Mendics]

i was wondering on how do people get their straight lines when they do their perspective works. I just got my tablet and I'm new with the program so i dont know much about it. The most abused tool i ever used was brush and usually rotated with it, the coloring, the inking everything. I have problems making the lines smooth and it always ends up being scratchy with tons of lines. I cant make a single straight line on the tablet.. -_-

[Metsys]

Yeah, you can't really draw straight lines free handing it with a tablet. Plus the hand eye coordination is different so anything is going to look sketchy compared to drawing on paper. If you had a Cintiq using a straight edge would actually be practical, but it's not for a tablet; it does work, but again it's not practical.

There's a few things you can do: In Photoshop you can click once to make a dot, and then hold shift down, tap another location, and it will create a line between the two. This only works well with a mouse or if your brush doesn't do anything with pen pressure because it interpolates pressure between the points, usually making a line that goes from small to microscopically thin.

If you just need lines for perspective, probably the best thing to do would be to use a paths layer in Photoshop. I just make a line using the pen tool, copy and paste it a bunch of times, then using the direct select tool (shortcut A), select the points on one end of the line and move each one away from each other to separate them, so you'll have a bunch of lines pointing to one vanishing point. You can move the vanishing point by box selecting all of the points where the VP is. The paths are not printed or exported, and you can hide them at any time, so they make useful guides while painting.

Also while you are painting you can move either the end point of the line or the vanishing point itself if you need to find new angles that are in perspective. It's a really useful trick.

I think the hardest thing about perspective is actually trying to identify where the VPs go. I usually just cheat and use a 3D program to block my scene in and reverse engineer the VPs that way, but it's a good idea to know how to do it without the aid of 3D software. If anyone knows some good web resources or books that are easy to understand, please share.

[Nick Cattell]

try this;

press 'P' to get the path tool
go to the toolbar at the top of the screen.
press 'fill pixels' icon (third from the left)
press 'Line Tool' icon (tenth from the left)
press 'D' for default colours (this will make black your FG colour)
click-drag anywhere in your canvas
'lines' :D
you can use '[' and ']' to change the line width.

[Mendics]

thanks, now i know how people maintain their lines. so um.. if using the linetool as nick was suggesting (tried a while ago) do you guys always merge the lines as you drew the line?? i can imagine how many line layers it would produce.

Also what do you guys use after doing the perspective lines and on to the real drawing. In the end you will always use a brush as a finisher right? If that is so, how do you guys always make it look like its 100% perfect when its very unsteady when using a brush?

[J Wilson]

In Photoshop you can click once to make a dot, and then hold shift down, tap another location, and it will create a line between the two.

95% of the time, this all I use. This is the fastest way to do it, no need to swutch tools and play with other options. The line tool is great if you may need to move them, but if you feel pretty confident in what you need I just like shift clicking.

[frog from itchy]

If you want to save a bit of time, I have a small collection of Photoshop shapes that can be used to quickly build perspective grids. There's a vanishing point shape and four different grids:

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/misc/perspective-shapes.jpg

Once you place the grids you can use the transform tool to make them conform to either one or two-point perspective.

Download the shapes here:

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/misc/perspective-shapes.csh

Here they are in action:

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/misc/landscape-perspective.jpg

[Nick Cattell]

Yep Frogs is the fastest way to go if you're after a perspective grid. you can also make your own and just save 'em as you go for later re-use.

As Metsys says, using ctrl+click on a PS brush works OK unless
you've got brush dynamics enabled.

Mendics- I meant to write "press 'U' for shape tool" not "P' for path tool"
If you set it up this way it won't make a new shape layer or path every time you draw a line, it just automatically draws them all into one layer.

Once you've got the line tool set up like this it's way faster and more intuitive than ctrl clicking a brush.

[Mendics]

Wow this is great! Thanks again guys!
So does the detailing follow the same? I mean do you use the same method as in drawing the perspective? The lines, paths etc.
Also i was wondering how do you use the file that Frogs gave?

[Metsys]

Press U to use the shape tool. From the options bar click on the Fill Pixels, Custom Shape Tool, and then the shape select drop down. Click on the triangle button on the upper right of the pop-up to access yet another pop-up, and then select Load Shapes. Load the file you downloaded, and then you should be able to select those shapes from the drop down menu.

[frog from itchy]

That's right - although you might want to select the shape layer option rather than fill pixels - that way you can distort the girds freely to conform to your perspective without losing any quality.

[Metsys]

Ah. I didn't think of that—even though I knew they were vector shapes to begin with. Durr. Anyway, good idea; do that instead :).

[frog from itchy]

So does the detailing follow the same? I mean do you use the same method as in drawing the perspective? The lines, paths etc.


There's no set method for doing the actual painting. Personally I would mostly work freehand with a brush, but if I need a really hard edge I might use the lasso tool to make a selection first. I wouldn't use the line tool or the pen tool in an actual painting.

[Anid Maro]

I have problems making the lines smooth and it always ends up being scratchy with tons of lines. I cant make a single straight line on the tablet.. -_-

In addition to the perspective tips above, you should also just practice making lines if you have problems with them being "scratchy".

I mean, if you need a truly straight line then you'll need either the line tool or to use the SHIFT-Click or something along those lines. However with practice you'll be able to easily make a smooth line that's mostly straight (i.e. straight enough for most purposes).

Yoitisi over in the mentoring section gave out some good line practice in his first assignment (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=116199), if you're interested..

[sagramor]

Hey Metsys,

you wrote:

"If you just need lines for perspective, probably the best thing to do would be to use a paths layer in Photoshop. I just make a line using the pen tool, copy and paste it a bunch of times, then using the direct select tool (shortcut A), select the points on one end of the line and move each one away from each other to separate them, so you'll have a bunch of lines pointing to one vanishing point. You can move the vanishing point by box selecting all of the points where the VP is. The paths are not printed or exported, and you can hide them at any time, so they make useful guides while painting."

When you say copy and paste, you don't mean duplicate the shape layer do you? For the life of me, I can't figure out exactly what you are doing here. If there are a bunch of separate Shape Layers, then how could you possibly box select all of the points where the VP is.. Am I missing something here? The main reason I ask is I hate proliferating my .psd with twenty different shape layers. it's annoying sifting through them.

[Metsys]

Oh, you are using shape layers? Yeah, use path layers instead. There's a panel called Paths, which by default is grouped with Layers and Channels panel. Create a new paths layer, select the layer, and then start using the pen tool in there. The pen tool should automatically switch itself to "Paths" mode (as opposed to "Shapes" an "Fill Pixels") as soon as you select the paths layer so it won't make a shapes layer when you add new lines.

When you use copy and paste here it should only make a duplicate of the lines themselves, and it'll put the lines on top of themselves (which is what you want), so it will look like nothing has changed. And yes, keep all the lines on one path layer.

You can use the brush tool to paint and the direct select tool to move the perspective lines by using the keyboard shortcuts, and you don't have to switch between layer types to modify either one. When you want to hide the perspective lines just click somewhere in the empty area of the path layer list to deselect it.

[sagramor]

Okay, that worked like a charm. This is going to make life so much easier. Thanks man, I had never even used the paths panel in years of using PS.
:lounge:

[Dizon]

Pen tool is confusing me right now....I usually use the line tool but the lines can't go out of the canvas especially when there are VP's outside of the picture. How do you actually copy and paste those lines???

Thanks for the help.