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BRUSH TOOL NOT SMOOTH

Explorer ,
Jan 24, 2011 Jan 24, 2011

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I have an issue with my Cintiq not drawing smoothly in Flash. I need to sketch incredibly fast and loose. Flash used to work just fine but now it suddenly began drawing really crummy. I posted some examples of flash as well as Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, and ToonBoom Animate Pro which is another vector graphics tool. I thought the vector graphics may be the issue but that app seems to handle the drawing excellently (now if only it did the other things Flash can do). Here's some examples of how they're looking. It may be hard to tell in these already loose sketches but the performance drop is really a big difference in responsiveness between Flash vs the other apps here:

IMAGE EXAMPLE

http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l613/jedoralive/LINEUP.jpg

SYSTEM SPECS

ATI Radeon HD 4870

2x3 Ghz Dual Core Intel Xeon

8GB RAM

4TB HD

Does anyone know why my cintiq is causing flash to draw so poorly? Occasionally photoshop will also do the same 'crumbly edges' thing? Any idea how to fix it?

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Adobe Employee , Apr 03, 2017 Apr 03, 2017

Hi All,

Brush drawing experience has been improved in the latest update - Animate CC 2017.2 (16.2.0.24)

Please try it out and let us know how it works for you.

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Explorer ,
Jan 24, 2011 Jan 24, 2011

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You can't really see the crumbly edges. Photobucket shrinks the image above ^. Here's a better link for the image:

http://web.me.com/jedoralive/techSupport/CINTIQ_21UX.html

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Guest
Jan 25, 2011 Jan 25, 2011

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     Flash is not necessarily made for drawing... I mean you could use Flash, and I agree it does have bad quality for drawing! In the Brush tool you can adjust the smoothness of your line. But I believe Photoshop or Illustrator would do a much better job.

     Another solution, buy a drawing tablet($100-$2000)! Much better for drawing in any program!

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Explorer ,
Jan 25, 2011 Jan 25, 2011

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I use Photoshop, Painter, or other apps when I need a single drawing to look great, however when it comes to thousands of sketches at a time, quick and dirty, I've found after a decade of working with all of these apps that for my own purposes, there are too many creative and efficiency benefits to sketching in flash to justify staying at work an extra 6 hours saving individual files, and clicking layer eyeballs off and on. Still...the tradeoff is the drawing tool for Flash looking like cricket draw threw up on your screen. When I saw the vector brushes used in Toon Boom, I was amazed that such a thing could be accomplished without being bitmap, and thought that might fix it - but that apps interface is like someone took Flash and removed all the parts that worked, and added a nice brush. I love flash, I've used it since version 1, and this is honestly my only complaint - but it's a pretty important one for me. It's like having a ferrari with a steering wheel made of soft play-dough. I REALLY hope they take a serious crack at least enhancing if not overhauling their brush tool.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 20, 2011 Feb 20, 2011

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I don't know if this helps but Flash will draw signifigantly faster, smoother and generally better if ithe drawing you're doing is not nested inside a symbol. Granted, Flash still bites at drawing but the older CS3 was a beautiful program and Adobe has been destroying it revision after revision. I can't imagine what they'll ruin is Flash CS6!

To the guy who said that Flash isn't a drawing tool, then why on earth does it have a brush tool and a pencil tool? Of COURSE it was meant to draw with and that should not be an excuse fopr Adobe to shake their head and say oh well... use a competitor's program. I can't imaigne it's that complicated for them. Infact they've recently made it even harder with the joke tool known as Advanced Smooth which effectively does nothing. I used to be able to smooth my wiggly lines out with the Smooth tool, but since Adobe has borked that tool, I can't A small company like Toonboom has beaten the crap out of them with vectors and it's high time Adobe did something about it isntead of wasting it's time fighting with Apple.

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Explorer ,
Feb 20, 2011 Feb 20, 2011

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Smoothing doesn't mean turning a box into a circle, but that's basically what the brush tool does. If you're using the brush tool in Flash, and want to sketch a simple box they say "Well, we can't do that - but you get a choice between a wobbly box, or a 'smoothed' box...which is just a circle. With other much smaller companies schooling them on this - I expect a LOT more from their upgrades and is precisely why I refuse to upgrade from CS3. I think a lot of the tools in Flash are still holdovers from the days when a 56K modem was a big concern but that was 2000. It's over a decade later and other companies are picking up the slack where they've grown content, and outdated. I hope that trend changes. I hope they listen to the customers and create what we ask for, not simply justify and make excuses for what's already there. No more 'Hand me downs' upgrades please.

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Explorer ,
Feb 21, 2011 Feb 21, 2011

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You can use ILLUSTRATOR of Adobe to draw much faster and smoother than Flash. With my experience, I draw my art to ILLUSTRATOR then import it to flash. Before importing to FLASH, you should layered your art properly in ILLUSTRATOR.

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Explorer ,
Feb 21, 2011 Feb 21, 2011

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Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, and ToonBoom ALL draw smoother than Flash. BUT they don't have the interface, timeline, nested symbols, or any of the other features that make Flash what it is. Sadly, Toonboom destroyes Adobe when it comes to their Vector Brush tool, but the interface of Flash is otherwise pretty ingenious, flexible, and more intutive than any other app out there.

For a single image or maybe even 10-20 the other apps might cut it, but for 500-2000 sketches at a time, importing drawings between programs is entirely counter-productive. The fact that there are now apps out there which actually have tools that do what Flash claims to do but 1000x better, is embarrassing at best for Flash. That doesn't make me smile. I want Flash to be great, but I can't keep supporting a product that isn't cutting it professionally. It's turning into hobbyists tool in comparison to what else is on the market, at least in terms of generating artwork. The coding is fine, but again - there's also iOS sdk, visual studio, unity, and blooddev C++ for all of that.

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Community Beginner ,
Sep 11, 2011 Sep 11, 2011

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I definitely agree that your ideal solution would be to get Flash to draw as good as you'd like.. But if that's just not possible, I don't know if you've considered it or not, but maybe a way to get the best of both worlds would be to use a JSFL script to import your hundreds of sketches into the timeline of whatever project you're working on.

You could author your artwork in whichever program did the best, and then 1-click on a special custom panel in Flash could bring all the sketches over and position them on the timeline, putting each one on a new frame, etc., whatever you needed it to do.

Not ideal, but it seems a lot of problems like this in Flash aren't so much "Figure out how to get the tool to do what you want", but "Figure out how to get the tool to do as close to what you want as possible with as little fuss as possible."

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Explorer ,
Sep 11, 2011 Sep 11, 2011

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Well, the only problem with that is I will lose the interface of Flash which is why I don't use the others to begin with. In AFX you would have to constantly pop back and forth between photoshop and AFX to draw. TOTALLY counter-intuitive. Why go back and forth between Photoshop and AFX, when you can do both, fast and immediately in Flash? Oh - because Flash doesn't actually draw WELL - it just draws. Or if you draw slow enough, and then run some filters you might get the drawing to look better or at least in the ballpark. Why would I settle for Fish-sticks when I ordered Fish Taco's?

What flash does so great is to allow you to:

- Draw directly into the app realtime.

- Play and step through timelines and symbols realtime.

- Work directly in and out of many symbols/compositions at once allowing you to scale things in time and edit all realtime on the fly (VS lugging things back and forth between apps AND also often waiting for rendering.)

- No limit to the number of nested symbols and timelines.

I think from a purely technical standpoint it makes sense, but from a practical, user point of view who's been using it heavily and extensively since the Macromedia days, there's severe flaws with Flash still. The Technology already exists in other similar applications so I'm hoping either COMPETITORS, or ADOBE FLASH fill in the blanks where the other side fails to so there's finally an app that does everything in one package. Right now it's a very Pro's vs Con's situation where Flash keeps winning out by a small margin.

This isn't a small detail - it's half the reason I use a program. I don't care how great a car is. If the steering wheel is made of Tofu, or the seats are made from old fish, I'm not buying it. I'm sure sitting and using it for a few hours wouldn't make anyone notice the difference much, but when you're talking about hundreds of hours and thousands upon thousands of sketches per month, it really adds up. The things flash does RIGHT, really help take a load off of that burden which is why I end up using it - but then the things it's NOT doing well - If fixed - would really serve to make it an even faster, better, more useful tool. It's extra frustrating to know there are other apps out there doing it, and that Adobe hasn't touched the brush tool since they bought the rights from Macromedia. It's just sat there for the most part. Maybe Ten years ago it was a breakthrough, but so was texting. Currently it's a hobbyist level tool at best.

If the argument is "That's not really why people use Flash though".

A) Why have it at all then?

B) No, and they never will if you don't fix it. There's a whole market of people you're turning off with this one shoddy tool.

Fussy? High Standards? Absolutely. I'm using it for more than art to put on Mom's fridge, and if the box says professional, that's what I expect. I've been patient for 10 years, defending Flash's other points to my workplace hoping they'll eventually fix it. Time's up.

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Community Beginner ,
May 12, 2013 May 12, 2013

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Absolutely agree.

Flash is so a great and professional program, thay have been improving a lot with the years.

More and more people is using it, and for cartoonist around the world is the prefered tool because the simple interface and powerfull features.

But Adobe, focusing in programming enviroment and forgetting all the tools to create content, is transforming Flash to the next "Macormedia Director".

Flash doesn't need to much new tools for drawing, but NEEDS to improve those that already have.

It's time

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Explorer ,
Aug 12, 2013 Aug 12, 2013

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Just wondering if anyone has found Flash CC to have improved on this at all? I tried it recently and it seems to draw as crummy as ever. Everything else about Flash is so great, but this tool causes a massive time suck.

The one difference in CC is that now it seems to be rasterizing as I draw but then turns into the same old crumbly lines. Seems like it's trying to do something new? Am I missing something in the new version to get it to draw better? I've tried every possible combination of:

Preferences > Drawing > Smooth Curves

and

Brush smoothing in the Properties tab.

I'm using a 21" Cintiq on a Mac Pro w 8gb Ram, dual processors, OSX Lion. Tried it all on a friends machine with the newest 24" Cintiq, 32gb ram, 8 core, Windows 8 box and it still does it. Anyone know what's wrong or how to get the lines to be smoother? Toonboom mastered this a long time ago so I'm wondering why Flash is still lagging here or if I'm doing something wrong?

What I'm after is this:

Flash Brush vs Actual Brush

http://i.imgur.com/UEQ3s9P.jpg

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Community Expert ,
Aug 12, 2013 Aug 12, 2013

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yeah actually Flash CC is a bit better at drawing but it still is not at all as good as Toonboom's Storyboard Pro, or Animate.Nevertheless, it's much better than it in say CS3 in my opinion.  I actually use Flash CS6 at work and Flash CC at home and find Flash CS 6 to be not bad but CC to be a tiny bit better. It seems to be able to handle curves better and drawing fast so there's not as many blobby lines as there used to be. One thing I've found is drawing up close seems to work best for Flash. Also the rasterize thing is because you probably have the display se t to View/ Preview Mode/Fast which will definitely make it look ratersized.

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Explorer ,
Aug 19, 2013 Aug 19, 2013

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Um...now for some reason the brush tool options for sensitivity and tilt simply don't show up in CC. They work fine in CS6 still but for some reason CC they stopped appearing. I re-installed the cintiq drivers and they work fine in every other app but Flash. Restarted app and machine multiple times. Still not working.

Anyone know what's causing this?

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Aug 19, 2013 Aug 19, 2013

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robosnacks wrote:

Um...now for some reason the brush tool options for sensitivity and tilt simply don't show up in CC. They work fine in CS6 still but for some reason CC they stopped appearing. I re-installed the cintiq drivers and they work fine in every other app but Flash. Restarted app and machine multiple times. Still not working.

Anyone know what's causing this?

In Flash CC. the pressure and tilt option buttons appear only after the pen has been brought in proximity to the drawing surface atleast once. I'd also highly recommend updating to the latest Flash CC version (13.0.1).

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Explorer ,
Aug 19, 2013 Aug 19, 2013

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Thanks for the reply. Well, earlier when I'd click the brush tool with my stylus - it would crash. Repeatedly. I updated to the newest version and now, when I click on it nothing happens. It doesn't crash, but the options don't come up either.

TEMP FIX

For now I've reverted to CS6 and it seems to work fine and to be honest I'm really not seeing much difference in performance. CC seems to startup faster but aside from that CS6 actually seems more responsive in the menu's.

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Aug 20, 2013 Aug 20, 2013

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robosnacks wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Well, earlier when I'd click the brush tool with my stylus - it would crash. Repeatedly. I updated to the newest version and now, when I click on it nothing happens. It doesn't crash, but the options don't come up either.

You're clicking on the Brush tool with the stylus? Then the pressure and tilt buttons should appear in the toolbar, immediately after the "brush size" and "brush shape" buttons. Could you please try switching to some other tool (say pencil), and then switch back to the Brush tool.

If this doesn't work, could you please share some more information like OS version, Wacom device name, and the Wacom driver version?

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Explorer ,
Aug 23, 2013 Aug 23, 2013

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When I click the other tools (ex: pencil) then click back, that seems to help.

If I go straight for the brush tool though, it crashes as soon as I click on the screen. It'll rainbow wheel, then drop.

For now the CS6 option or the 'clicking another tool' option are the best workarounds until a more stable solution pops up. Thanks!

If it helps diagnose:

- Mac Pro Tower 1,1

- 2 x 3ghz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

- 8 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

- OSX 10.7.5 (Machine doesn't support Mountain Lion)

- Cintiq21UX Display

- ATI Radeon HD 4870 512 MB graphics

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Adobe Employee ,
Aug 23, 2013 Aug 23, 2013

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Can you log a bug @

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

with the steps. This will enable us to get in touh with you for th ecrash dumps on email.

Thanks,

Sujai

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Explorer ,
Sep 11, 2013 Sep 11, 2013

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Bug was submitted.

For now I just select the pencil tool first and that seems to help for the most part. Would still like a solve to the orginal issue though - that it draws so crummy. Perfect world - quality of the vector drawing tools from ToonBoom (accurate brush drawing, vector airbrush), transplanted into Flash. Done. If you want to go next gen, use the drawing tools found in 'meander' the tool used for the Disney 'Paperman' short film. The lines in the video on this page may look like photoshop but they're actually vector.

VIDEO

http://www.fastcolabs.com/embed/aacef4706f286

Source

http://www.fastcolabs.com/3006276/open-company/trying-woo-animators-disney-accidentally-invents-pape...

The tool has many dynamic textured brushes that are all vector. They even follow the direction of the brushstoke. Better than P-shop and they're vector. Yeah...I know! I've used this tool and it just makes you want to cry that Flash is SO so very far behind in this regard. So much time could be saved if the actual content creation tools were up to today's standards (not to mention tomorrows). Meander makes Flash and ToonBoom both look like MS Paint. If Flash had this...let's just say I'd have to change my pants.

Smoothing afterward, or any need to tweak the line after the fact at all is not really a tool, it's a series of steps. It shouldn't take 2-3 steps or more to do what can be done in one. This has been proven by multiple other developers. It takes on average 4-5x as long to get a sketch to be as smooth in Flash as with another app. That means an 8hr day in another app, is potentially a full week to do the same amt of work in Flash. Flash does save a TON of time in it's interface and workflow but then drops the ball on the other end by taking forever to actually create the content. One simple fix to the brush could go a long way. Please Flash! Please fix your brush tool!!!!!!!! 

With CC the car runs so much smoother, now please give us a steering wheel that doesn't melt in the sun!

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Community Expert ,
Feb 21, 2011 Feb 21, 2011

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Why would I want to use Illustrator if Flash is supposed to be able to draw natively? Illustrator is clunky and convoluted with regards to drawing. It's not intuative at all which is typical for Adobe. They made it a long time ago and people got used to it and now they are stuck in the quandry of making it easier to sue or stickign with what they had. They should do the same for Flash. It's no different. It worked fine as it was in CS 3. Now they've made it worse. I HATE CS5 and I imagine will hate CS6 even more so I am stuck using CS3 forever I suppose.

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Explorer ,
Feb 21, 2011 Feb 21, 2011

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@ Asymetrical

Agreed. Also, thanks for the suggestion about drawing in and out of symbols. It does seem to help a little bit for the first couple of sketches then it begins doing it again though. Also it makes it really hard to take full advantage of the nested symbol system, and the flexibility of editing with it. Thanks though - at least it's a move in a positive direction.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 21, 2011 Feb 21, 2011

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Glad to help. What I do is draw everything on layers on the stage. When I am done I hit f8 and turn each file into a symbol. Then I select them all and cut. I then create an empty symbol for the art and paste all the layers inside it. Then I reselect them all and hit Distribute to layers. Whenever I want to draw though, I go back out to the desktop first and draw it then cut and paste. It definitely works better and granted Flash isnt the best tool but combining that emthod with using the Smooth tool once (which is GONE in CS5) you can get a fairly decent drawing. I will say Storyboard Pro is far supierior though when drawing with vectors and I try to use it as much as I can.

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Engaged ,
Feb 21, 2011 Feb 21, 2011

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http://imageupload.org/?di=1212983382234

Here is an image showing where the smoothness slider is in flash CS3 for the brush, just incase it is of any use.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 21, 2011 Feb 21, 2011

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Thanks but I wasnt talking about that Smooth tool. That's for the brush. I meant the Smooth tool that is under Modify/Shape. In CS5 it has been replaced with some crap called the Advanced Smooth tool but when you use it it does nothing to smooth out a pencil or a brush line. Why oh WHY can't they just ADD stuff instead of replacing it with junk? I mean it's kinda stupid... they had a crappy drawing tool and I figured out a way around it so I could use it effectively so what did they do? They KILLED the one thing that actually FIXED drawings! What the heck is THAT about?

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