Adobe Illustrator
Does CC3 support exporting files in either Adobe Illustrator or SVG formats?
It would be easier for me to share my work with the production artists if I could export something in a vector format which they can read. Raster bitmaps are of limited use for professional printing and if I hand the artists a bitmap they typically redraw it in Illustrator.
If I understand correctly CC3 uses vector graphics itself. Is there a way to get a vector output from CC3 which I could then convert to SVG or AI format?
Thanks,
Terry
It would be easier for me to share my work with the production artists if I could export something in a vector format which they can read. Raster bitmaps are of limited use for professional printing and if I hand the artists a bitmap they typically redraw it in Illustrator.
If I understand correctly CC3 uses vector graphics itself. Is there a way to get a vector output from CC3 which I could then convert to SVG or AI format?
Thanks,
Terry
Comments
Other than those, it does not support any vector formats. In any case, exporting to a vector format would also remove any effects applied to the map in CC3.
I'm not I understand this. Almost every printed illustration in every book is a raster bitmap.
One of the problems with using bitmaps is the resolution. For publishing a DPI of 2400 is often used, which results in enormous files when we are talking 4 sheets of 24"x36" maps.
The second, and more important, issue with a bitmap is if I pass something to the artists in bitmap format they cannot easily manipulate its elements. What I produce is a skeleton of the map and not what finally goes to the printer. The artists then embellish the map with their much better artistic abilities and then their product goes to the printer. The artists use AI. If I send a bitmap they are now constrained to manipulating it pixel by pixel or applying image processing techniques. For example if they wanted to alter the chamfer on the corner of a square they would have to do it by pixel by pixel, whereas if it remained in vector format they could change it very easily, applying a variety of styles and techniques. And let's not even talk about trying to alter fonts and text in a bitmap. Because of all this anything I produce with CC3 gets chucked by the artists and they start from scratch using my bitmap as a guide. It would be nice to be able to keep the basic elements of the map and allow the artists to embellish it as needed without starting from scratch.
To see the drawbacks clear as day, just look at any of Mongoose's Traveller ship decplans for larger ships... their deckplan guy hands them rasters, and while his are fairly high DPI (the print DPI is at least 300), the pdf ones (even the ones I paid for, not just the free) are at 150dpi or so... and thus many are unreadable. The big ships are just blurry messes. I can't blow them up usefully, either.
Many print houses now want vector format illos, and many graphic designers do, too. It allows rescaling them in either direction, and when used with electronic publications, allows users to zoom in usefully.
No, not all of them. While printed matter usually is rendered to 600DPI or higher in making the "plates," sometimes as high as 2400 DPI, many illustrations are generated as vector files and remain so until the printer converts them to the bitmap in printing the "plate" (which is usually foil to wrap around the drum, now, not a genuine plate, and it's been that way for decades).And almost all font data is vector data now - if not one of the "standard" 24 fonts, then usually the font is subsetted, and all used characters copied into the PDF or PS file sent to the printer; the references are then resolved at whatever DPI the printer allows.
Books printed by physical typesetting, or by ink transfer etching or optical etching from typewritten or handwritten manuscripts are not bitmapped at all. They're rare now, but a few still get made as art projects or 3rd world print houses.
And, if you look on RPGGeek for my designs, the art for Broken Starship is all vector files done in Inkscape as SVG's, converted to EPS, and imported into pages (along with the text), and rendered to PDF in pages. Zoom in on the PDF images... the should crisply expand to any size you care to print them at.
Also, EPS and SVG both support both vector and raster data. EPS can be either, but I don't know if it does both in one file. PNG also supports either mode. SVG allows both in the same file. (SVG is actually a type of XML, supporting encoding bitmaps as objects as well as a variety of graphics objects. You can actually hand-code an SVG if you have half a clue.)