Three great new free Illustrator tools

Like waiting for buses, general third party development for Illustrator can seem thin on the ground and then three come to our attention within a short time!

Like waiting for buses, general third party development for Illustrator can seem thin on the ground and then three come to our attention within a short time! It’s always encouraging to see other developers and users push Illustrator to beyond where Adobe left it…

A disclaimer (it has to be done, sadly): Astute Graphics provides this information and links to these resources “as is” and with no implied warranty or assurance that the tools are fit for use. Follow links and download/install/use at your own risk.

Scriptographer – Crumpler script

Scriptographer is a wonderful tool for Illustrator. Although free to download, if you do make use of it, the developers do ask for a donation. The continuously updated plugin (now also for Illustrator CS5) allows users to develop a wide variety of scripts to aid design tasks, create effects, produce interactive creative tools, etc. To quote the website:

The user is no longer limited to the same tools that are used by most graphic designers around the globe. Scriptographer allows the creation of mouse controlled drawing-tools, effects that modify existing graphics and scripts that create new ones.

Although it doesn’t seem to get the level of coverage it deserves, the tool appears to have a loyal following.

The lead developer of Scriptographer, Jürg Lehni, has recently produced a wonderful script called Crumpler which allows you to interactively fold objects as if they were paper. Simple and highly effective. Below is an example of what 5 minutes of testing produced:

The original object group, shown above left, was duplicated and using the Crumpler toolbar tool, two folds were quickly dragged out producing the simple but effective result shown above right.

To get a better idea of this tool, Jürg created this video:

 

MadPattern

Not a plugin or script, rather a series of simple, yet clever, Illustrator template files that allow for the easy production of repeating patterns. Designed by Matt Handler, the MadPattern website allows for instant and free downloading of the Illustrator CS4/CS5 files (Matt may produce CS3 versions later).

Follow the simple instructions provided with each file to produce genuine vector repeating patterns such as the quick example shown above. Alternatively, look at Matt’s demonstration video below:

 

For the curious (and brave), if you want to see how the templates work, delve into the Layers and Appearance panels. Click on the Target button in the template’s namesake layer (highlighted with a red ring in the screenshot below) and explore the tower of Transform Effects in the Appearance panel…

 

Script Bay

With the release of the CS5 Creative Suite, Adobe decided it was time to try to unify an extension system for all major applications such as Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign. The full potential of this is yet to be explored, but InDesign extension developers In-Tools have produced a very interesting system which is relevant to Illustrator script users and developers. To quote from their announcement (in which is buried the download link):

Script Bay is a FREE script panel replacement for the entire Creative Suite CS5.

It currently works in InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. It is partially compatibility with Flash and Fireworks and to a lesser extent, Bridge.

Script Bay is very much a “work in progress”, but it is already far more usable than the script panel in InDesign, and without question more usable than the non-existing ones in Photoshop, Illustrator! We hope to add many exciting new features to Script Bay in the future!

After a quick test based on a script supplied with Illustrator CS5, it was possible to verify its use. A screenshot of it in action may be seen below:

It has to be noted that this is a project in development, for example “Applescripts and VBScripts in Photoshop and Illustrator do not currently work when run from Script Bay”. But it appears very promising and every encouragement should be given to the developers to get this to version 1.0.