Might be a silly question, but... Regarding vector art

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Might be a silly question, but... Regarding vector art

So, how is art vectorized, I get the concept, and I've heard the term, and know it takes a lot of man-hours, but what's the process? Any good tutorials? I've got a ton of time on my hands lately, and I think it'd be something fun to do.
 
I believe that basically you trace it in adobe illustrator or whatever they call the program these days.

So, how is art vectorized, I get the concept, and I've heard the term, and know it takes a lot of man-hours, but what's the process? Any good tutorials? I've got a ton of time on my hands lately, and I think it'd be something fun to do.
 
It's not terribly difficult once you get the hand of whatever program you're using. The basic idea is that instead of free handing something like you would on paper, you're defining a distance between points. So like if you have two points that are connected, there is a line between them. So is that line straight or curved or what? The fun part is trying to get ll the curves right.

That's probably not the best way to describe it...but once you know what you're doing, it's not too bad. I'm in the process of vectorizing the Neo-Geo logos right now, which you can see here and here.

Maybe this will help...I haven't watched it all, so I can't speak for how useful it is, but I imagine it covers the basics fairly well:

 
It's not terribly difficult once you get the hand of whatever program you're using. The basic idea is that instead of free handing something like you would on paper, you're defining a distance between points. So like if you have two points that are connected, there is a line between them. So is that line straight or curved or what? The fun part is trying to get ll the curves right.

That's probably not the best way to describe it...but once you know what you're doing, it's not too bad. I'm in the process of vectorizing the Neo-Geo logos right now, which you can see here and here.

Maybe this will help...I haven't watched it all, so I can't speak for how useful it is, but I imagine it covers the basics fairly well:


Many thanks, I just figure I've got a lot of time on my hands and perhaps I can give something back to the community in some way shape or form. Still browsing the net trying to find some more tutorials.
 
Raster is typically used for photos or more complex realistic looking visuals. Vector is used for clean logos, cartoons, etc. At the hands of a skilled artist, Vector can look very realistic and almost like a photograph of a real subject matter but I typically associate it with sharp clean lines ideal for illustration, cartoons, logos, fonts, etc. Both have distinct styles and feel if you ask me. I am a vector junkie myself, I live in Illustrator. I love the flexibility it offers over raster.

Vector is math based where as raster is grid based and absolute. Meaning, a vector image is comprised of many coordinates like a connect the dots. There might be angle information showing how the line travels from dot to dot (or point to point), color, and stroke information as well. You can infinitely scale a vector image cause the program is mathematically changing the coordinates to be further apart proportionately. The image doesn't degrade. Raster images like JPGS, etc. are grid based. If you have a 16px x 16px (256 total squares) raster image and enlarge it to 400x x 400px (160,000 squares!) the software has to guess and make up what the other pixels (it has to guess what the other 159,744 squares might look like all based on the data of 256 squares!) might look like so the image becomes pixelated and looks like crap cause Photoshop didn't have enough information to go by to go from small to large.

Industry Standard software:

Adobe Illustrator = Vector (has raster effects, though)
Adobe Photoshop - Raster (has some vector features)
 
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Raster is typically used for photos or more complex realistic looking visuals. Vector is used for clean logos, cartoons, etc. At the hands of a skilled artist, Vector can look very realistic and almost like a photograph of a real subject matter but I typically associate it with sharp clean lines ideal for illustration, cartoons, logos, fonts, etc. Both have distinct styles and feel if you ask me. I am a vector junkie myself, I live in Illustrator. I love the flexibility it offers over raster.

Vector is math based where as raster is grid based and absolute. Meaning, a vector image is comprised of many coordinates like a connect the dots. There might be angle information showing how the line travels from dot to dot (or point to point), color, and stroke information as well. You can infinitely scale a vector image cause the program is mathematically changing the coordinates to be further apart proportionately. The image doesn't degrade. Raster images like JPGS, etc. are grid based. If you have a 16px x 16px (256 total squares) raster image and enlarge it to 400x x 400px (160,000 squares!) the software has to guess and make up what the other pixels (it has to guess what the other 159,744 squares might look like all based on the data of 256 squares!) might look like so the image becomes pixelated and looks like crap cause Photoshop didn't have enough information to go by to go from small to large.

Industry Standard software:

Adobe Illustrator = Vector (has raster effects, though)
Adobe Photoshop - Raster (has some vector features)

Thank you for a brilliant explanation of the two. Now to find some piece of art that needs doing, and figure out how to start, haha.
 
If you don't already have a copy of Illustrator...or some means of "acquiring" it...you might start with some open source vector graphics tool. I've never used any, so I can't vouch for any of them, but I know there are at least a few out there. I would think that for basic tracing, any of them would be good enough. One I can think of off hand is Inkscape:

http://inkscape.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape
 
If you don't already have a copy of Illustrator...or some means of "acquiring" it...you might start with some open source vector graphics tool. I've never used any, so I can't vouch for any of them, but I know there are at least a few out there. I would think that for basic tracing, any of them would be good enough. One I can think of off hand is Inkscape:

http://inkscape.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkscape

I have tried Inkscape for doing a custom control panel overlay. It has a nice step by step tutorial.

http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/index.php
 
To add, because Vector art is essentially a collection of line and shape coordinates, you can resize the Vectors to ANY scale, handle any dpi (dots per inch)/lpi (lines)/ppi (pixels), without diminishing the quality of the line. My pinball tournament poster is a good example (my avatar). I drew the face and created 11x17 300+dpi posters to put up at all the pinball spots. Then I created a graphic for the tournament website utilizing the same file at 72ppi. Then I created my avatar at a lower res at 72ppi. It's being turned into a shirt for my league, so I handed the Illustrator file over to the guy making them so he can resize it to what he needs. If I wanted the face on a huge billboard downtown, I can easily resize it and not lose any quality.

When you redraw arcade art with vectors, you need to be a lot more specific about the physical size and spacing of things (I need to draw the art for the Neo Geo project within the dimensions it was originally illustrated/designed for), but once you have the vector coordinates dialed in...you can do whatever to it.

Raster art, unlike Vector, isn't mathmatical coordinates. It's a slave to whatever pixel resolution you work at. So if I am doing a painting or a sketch in Photoshop (Raster program), I need to make sure I am working in whatever resolution the output is going to be. Like when I am working on art assets for a game, I know the final version is going to be in 72ppi at (monitors/tv's/etc generally run 72ppi), so I need to WORK at 72ppi. So like, some alien ship is going to be 128x128 at 72ppi. I gotta work at that resolution. If I am working on a painting I am going to need to print, I may work at 300 or 600ppi at 8x11 inches.

If I take my 72ppi alien ship and decide to make a poster out of it, I could stretch it out to 300/600ppi, but it will be a giant pixelated blob (which might be cool and retro, but still...). If I take my 600ppi painting and decide to show it on a monitor, I have to resize it down to 72ppi...which winds up throwing away a lot of detail.

Just an aside, when I sketch/paint, I love Photoshop/Sketchbook Pro (Raster). When I am at the step where I want to turn the sketch into something cleaner and sharper...that I may want to print or utilize in multiple outputs (poster/shirts/wallpaper image) I consider doing my final ink lines and color in Illustrator (Vector).

If there is one con to vector from a workflow standpoint, it is not "drawing intuitive". You're tracing by adding/pulling/dragging points around and merging/cutting basic shapes, so if you just got done doing a lot of drawing with your arm and you jump right into Illustrator to ink, your brain has to switch gears dramatically.

Sorry...I just babbled.
 
A lot of good information in this thread. It sounds like vectoring is more mathematical then it is artistic. Can anyone comment on how hard it would be to do this if you were color blind? Is there a way for the computer to help with this or would the artwork end up looking like it was done by a 6 year old?
 
I do a lot of this type of work for a living. It's mathematical in theory, but it's really 100% artistic from the point of view of the creator. Essentially, you're recreating a piece of artwork from scratch by tracing it electronically. Picture tracing something in real life -- you could take a marquee, put a piece of paper over it, run your pencil along all the edges, and you'd end up with a pretty accurate drawing of it (if you took your time to do it properly, of course). It's the same thing with vector art, except it's all electronic. You start with a fairly good photograph of the marquee, then you trace it using the vector shape tools in a program like Illustrator.

Why not just save time and print the original photo? Photo files (JPEGs, usually) have limitations, mainly that it usually can't be printed on a large scale without it getting fuzzy/blurry looking. With vector art, you can print it at any size you want -- it'll look sharp, crisp, and professional whether it's printed on a small business card or on a huge billboard. I'm generalizing, but you get the point.

For the color blind: you can absolutely still create vector artwork. When creating vector art, the bulk of the work is tracing the outlines. Tweaking the colors comes later (you can adjust colors of your vector shapes after the fact). Most programs have an "eyedropper tool" to let the computer match the color to the original art. You might want to run the final product by someone with full color vision before sending it off to print, but you can get it pretty close by yourself.
 
Not only do you have to have artistic talent, you must take in to account the post processing aspect. The piece must be setup for proper printing. I spent several years running a linotronic machine and 85% of my day was fixing files that were to go to film.

Just like owning the tools to work on a car doesnt make you a mechanic, acquiring a copy of an illustration program doesnt make you an artist or an illustrator; there is a lot to learn.
 
One more thing: vector art is all about visualizing something in shapes and layers. This one is an easy example (and probably a good practice piece):

matmania.jpg


Resist the urge to picture this as text... instead, imagine it as a group of shapes. That logo contains a bunch of reddish/yellow shapes in the foreground, and there is also a big purple shape "behind" it in the background. In Illustrator, you would trace each of those shapes, probably starting with the red/yellow foreground shapes -- the conjoined "MA" would be your first shape, the "T" would be your second, etc. After that, you'd go back and trace out that big purple shape -- it's conjoined, so it would be one big outline. Each time you create an outline, it will create a separate "layer". You can then change the order of the layers so that they are properly visible. In this case, you'd want to move the purple shape layer to the back so that it sits "behind" all of the red/yellow shapes.

By the way, you really have to hyper-analyze the original logo -- you wouldn't want to forget the white outline around the purple shape and black outline around the red/yellow shapes.

That's the lion's share of vector art creation. Once you get that down, you would eventually work on getting all the fill colors right for the shapes you created. It takes a lot of practice and patience, but it's a great skill to have!
 
A lot of good information in this thread. It sounds like vectoring is more mathematical then it is artistic. Can anyone comment on how hard it would be to do this if you were color blind? Is there a way for the computer to help with this or would the artwork end up looking like it was done by a 6 year old?

Obviously if you work in black and white it isn't a problem. Nailing the shapes is 90% of the battle during the vector stage. I'm not color blind, but I'm not OCD about color enough to see a color and say, "That's Navy Gray" or "That's Marlboro Red". If I am recreating something with a group of artists, I typically hope another artist that is into color can choose the correct color code to use.

The only other place I can think of color blindness being an issue is distinguishing all of your separate paths from each other. Illustrator makes your paths different colors and if your illustration is super intricate with a lot of paths OR the path happens to share the same color as the shape you drew (annoying when using illustrator for ink lines and it utilizes black path color), you might have a hard time distinguishing a specific path...but that's more of a minor irritant.
 
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