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Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests

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197 results found

  1. A Node View mode for the Appearance panel, and a complete revamp of what it can do

    I feel like I have a lot of things I want changed about the Appearance palette that cannot be done in the form of a one-dimensional list of effects.

    I'd like to suggest something inspired by the "node view" in programs like Blender or Toon Boom or Unreal. Give me a 2d canvas upon which I can arrange strokes, fills, and effects, and let me plug them into each other in complex ways. Let me control exactly when a brush is applied to a stroke by moving its effect around. Let me dynamically generate an opacity mask for an entire…

    3 votes

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  2. Allow more modeling options for 3D extrusions

    Give us more extrusion options. It's crazy that you can make a cylinder, but no possible way to make cuts through. I have attached examples to where I made the type of structure I'd need in Blender. In AI you can create a cylinder but no way to make holes through the structure. You can do this with an extruded rectangle but not cylindrical objects.

    2 votes

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  3. Allow to change the color of a 3D material without editing it in Substance

    Die Änderung der Materialfarben für die 3D-Darstellung in Illustrator funktioniert nicht - insbesondere die Farbänderung ist nicht möglich. Hier muss mann immer umständlich neue Farben in Substance anlegen :/

    Changing the material colors for the 3D rendering in Illustrator doesn't work—especially changing the color isn't possible. You always have to laboriously create new colors in Substance :/

    1 vote

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  4. Make 3D material texture scale apply consistently across an entire group/compound path (replicating gradient behavior)

    There is currently no way to have a design consisting of multiple disconnected shapes that "share" one single material texture scale in the 3D feature. The scale of the texture is determined by the size of each shape; small shapes have small, squished textures and large shapes have large, stretched textures. I understand that each shape is determining what size is "100%" scale, but the behavior should be like it is elsewhere in Illustrator. When you apply a gradient to multiple shapes, each shape has the entire gradient because each shape's dimensions determine what the 100% scale is. However, if…

    3 votes

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  5. Bigger variety of basic finishes for 3D materials: high gloss, matte, shiny metallic, matte, etc.

    Would be great to have better material adjustment tools — the 'metallic' slider doesn't really do very much except make the colour dull, would love to make it super vibrant metallic finish. A lot of the materials in Substance don't allow colour editing or more than one colour so this makes it really limited. Would love to achieve a bigger variety of basic finishes e.g. high gloss, matte, shiny metallic or matte.

    Would also love to have more extrusion options, it's crazy that you can make a cylinder but no possible way to make cuts through. I don't want to…

    1 vote

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  6. Better control over position of symbol in mapped classic 3d art

    When placing symbols for image maps in the classic 3D palette, I'd like to have more control over the position of the symbol to be mapped.

    Example: I'm using this function for mockups of labels on bottles. There are a number of bottles, each a different flavor, let's say 4. (The bottles are placed images.) I create a cylinder sized to the bottle image's label area, and map a label symbol to the cylinder for each flavor. The labels need to be in the same place on each cylinder, both size and position. And those 4 bottles with labels are…

    2 votes

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  7. More controls for the center point of the Transform effect: relative to artboard / object

    I would like a few more controls for where Effect > Distort & Transform > Transform centers the transformation.

    Next to the 3x3 centerpoint grid, there would be an "Origin" dropdown. offering the options of "Relative to Object" and "Relative to Artboard". "Relative to Object" is the current behavior, and should be the default option.

    There would also be a pair of X and Y inputs to specify an offset of the centerpoint from whatever corner was chosen.


    As an example of why I might want this: I have an Appearance stack for doing quick and dirty rimlighting of an…

    4 votes

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  8. Linked copies / instances

    I need linked copies / instances - copies that follow the transformation of the original object (or vice versa).
    A lot of times I do copy paths, groups or other objects in place, and just change the stroke width, apply an effect, or change the colour. Afterwards a change the size or position just slightly, AND THAN THE HASSLE STARTS. From there on I need to do the exact same change to the "original" path too. Too much work, too much time lost.

    Do you want to program that, or should I start a plugin.

    3 votes

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  9. "Show me the offending object" button in the appearance error dialog for [IABD] and [!out] errors

    I really would kinda love it if there was a "Show me the offending object" button on the "Error processing appearance" requestor next to the "OK" button.

    2 votes

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  10. Dimension tool style presets

    The dimension tool gives alot of style options for the arrow size, line thickness, offsets, etc. It would be great to save presets that could be switched from a dropdown list in the dimension tool options dialog.

    16 votes

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  11. Allow Live Paint selection to have complex appearance

    Using Live Paint Selection Tool, we can choose sections of the Live Paint objects, areas and segments of contours, assigning fills and color to them.

    But what we can assign is rather basic (the same as for live characters, and the related request about the same deal is here: http://illustrator.uservoice.com/forums/333657/suggestions/46545787)
    We can’t assign a brush, change order of appearance attributes, add a second fill and offset it, assign any effect to it, distort or roughen — only fill under stroke, no stroke alignment (even though the panel lies it can be done), no arrowheads... at least dash count as…

    3 votes

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  12. Allow to remove a 3D effect directly from 3D and Materials panel

    I would like to see a simple button that is in 3D and Materials that I can press to remove the 3D effect.

    Going to Window > Appearance is fine but its an extra step. It would be quicker and easier to just have a button in the 3D and Materials panel.

    2 votes

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  13. Add the ability to change shadow color and opacity for 3D objects

    3D effects give only a black shadow that makes 3D object's color dirty, greyish. And it looks like 90's 3D effect. Possibility to change the shadow color? Or the shadow color bases on the object's colors and thus makes the diffuse.

    48 votes

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  14. Ability to save presets for each tab in 3D and Materials panels: Object, Materials, Lighting

    Illustrator allows us to save appearance attributes as graphic styles, but recently we got the complex 3D and Materials effect that has a lot of different parameters in it.

    The current system allows us to save all of these parameters altogether: extrusion depth, rotation angles, material settings, applied lights...
    But if we need to save ONE of these — that is, for example, only the material, or only the lights, or only extrusion and rotations, — Ai does not provide means to do it.

    Please introduce a system to save presets per each tab the 3D and Materials panel has:…

    30 votes

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  15. Make 3D and Materials effect work with raster images

    3D and Materials effect doesn't work with raster images. It gives me a strange unrelated message (see attached) when I try. I use Classic 3D, it works, but unfortunately Classic 3D is not really precise and sometimes gives strange results, but better than nothing.

    3 votes

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  16. Hide/Show all text appearances in the Appearance panel

    Have the option to hide/show all appearances in the appearance panel, not just individual ones.
    When working with text, having the computer constantly redraw appearances — slows the workflow. The ability to hide all would drastically improve performance, especially on text with multiple strokes/complex fills.

    3 votes

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  17. 5 votes

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  18. Live Free Distort

    I would like to see the "Free Distort" effect be extended to work on the actual object, not going through a tiny dialog box that feels like I'm trying to apply it to a postage stamp. It's really difficult to apply a distorted shape to a larger area when I am guessing if a 1-pixel move of a tiny handle is going to make a difference or not. It would be amazing if four independent handles were on the actual art and allow me to move the corners exactly to the spot I want to place them at. It's a…

    10 votes

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  19. Round Corners effect works wrong with curved paths

    The native Round Corners effect (not the corner widget!) can work well only with all-straight segments.
    It doesn’t round anything for points connecting straight and curved segments, straightens up curved segments, and hardly fit rounded corners within original paths.

    This is embarrassing. Fix it!

    11 votes

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  20. Make rendering of 3D happen in background

    Ideally pushing the rendering tasks to a background process would help with using this tool. It's a bit of a pain to have to click and unclick cpu-intensive modes just to make adjustments or wait for 10+ seconds when I could be working on another part of the artwork.

    3 votes

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