Tutorials

[SignLine]

great idea, good base to work from.

Adding chrome effect, didn't he slip up when selecting bottom word the second time, accidental re-size of some of the letters but he carried on. That's a great one for catching people out & you have to have your eyes peeled to see it happening when setting yourself & I'm glad to see even the experts get caught out.

[Rod]

SignLine wrote:
great idea, good base to work from.

Adding chrome effect, didn't he slip up when selecting bottom word the second time, accidental re-size of some of the letters but he carried on. That's a great one for catching people out & you have to have your eyes peeled to see it happening when setting yourself & I'm glad to see even the experts get caught out.


Indeed. The zoom level made it difficult to select the dot of the ' i ' character, and a miniscule amount of scaling ensued. This is a good example of needing to be observant about what is going on when tweaking a design. At the time, I'm sure he kept going with the video to avoid disturbing the pacing. But working with a design for your customer, you can see that you'd do the following:

1. Press [Ctrl + z] to undo the scaling
   
2. Press [F7] to Zoom Selected
   
3. Select the dot of the ' i '
   
4. Press [F9] to return to the previous zoom level

In cases where it is difficult to see whether a particular object is selected, there is a SignLab feature that allows you to highlight selected objects, which is accessed as follows:

Options menu --> SignLab Setup --> Selection Tool Settings --> Highlight selected objects

[SignLine]

Nice one for the tips.

It was one that caught one of my employees out & a van was slightly re-sized but in the scale of things was enough so nothing would of fitted on the van.
Maybe when you're holding control/shift down to select text/polygons it may be a good idea if it didn't have ability to resize anything while you are doing it to stop it happening.
It has happened to me loads of times & usually rectified by undo & start again.

[Rod]

SignLab writes:
It was one that caught one of my employees out & a van was slightly re-sized but in the scale of things was enough so nothing would of fitted on the van.
Maybe when you're holding control/shift down to select text/polygons it may be a good idea if it didn't have ability to resize anything while you are doing it to stop it happening.
It has happened to me loads of times & usually rectified by undo & start again.


In the video, I note that the color of the bevel text was set to the 50% tint. A tidy way to select and group would be to [Alt] + click the 50% tint in the Shop Palette. This will disable all other colors, which makes it easy to just marquee select the entire "word" that you want and group it.

For the van getting resized, perhaps try adding Object Dimension when you first load the vehicle template. Then make note of what those dimensions are. Make this note either on paper, or even use the Note tool to place comment on workspace. When the design is complete, double-check the on-screen dimensions versus what you noted earlier. This allows you to catch things before they go to the production phase.

[Riles]

Whilst we're talking about that chrome effect tutorial,
why was it necessary to start by adding 2 layers - copy and art?
It seems he didn't use the art layer at all.

What I REALLY want to find out is why is it necessary for Signlab to implement layers at all??
I've never used them, and have the option turned off because I feel it's a waste of vertical drawing area space (which is getting smaller and smaller)

Now that Signlab 7.1 build 3 forces us to use sheet layers, I might have to get used to them after all.
_________________
Neil Riley

SL 8 Print & Cut, Mimaki CJV30-130, Graphtec FC7000

[Rod]

Whilst we're talking about that chrome effect tutorial, why was it necessary to start by adding 2 layers - copy and art? It seems he didn't use the art layer at all.

What I REALLY want to find out is why is it necessary for Signlab to implement layers at all?? I've never used them, and have the option turned off because I feel it's a waste of vertical drawing area space (which is getting smaller and smaller)


I believe that the original intention was to keep the two portions of the design on separate layers, so that he could give himself more flexibility later on in the video. For example, he could have temporarily hidden a layer to allow himself to focus on only part of the overall design. However, to keep the video timely (short and sweet), he did not touch on the various things that you can do with sheet layers, such as:

• [Shift] + click a layer to add objects on that layer to the current selection
  
• [Ctrl] + click a layer to hide that layer
  
• [Alt] + click a layer to hide all other layers

I should also mention that if you're using the Thermal Printing module in conjunction with a Gerber Edge series of printer, then the sheet layer allows you to specify the manufacture of vinyl that you are using, which has a bearing on the speed and temperature settings as the media is fed through the Edge.

FYI, there is a current thread discussing improvements to the sheet layer palette here:

http://www.cadlink.com/support_train/forums/viewtopic.php?t=105


There is work in progress to expand the functionality of the sheet layer palette, and your input would be quite welcome.

[Riles]

Thanks Rod.
sorry for the cross post. I'm a bit intrigued by layers now and will keep an eye out for developments.
Might even try using them if I find a need to...
_________________
Neil Riley

SL 8 Print & Cut, Mimaki CJV30-130, Graphtec FC7000