Does anybody have a great suggestion to make a piece of artwork with too many points more functional in Illustrator? We have tried making the artwork a brush, a symbol, etc., but replicating the artwork (trees, bushes) a few hundred times in the layout piece makes for an enormous, dysfunctional file. See jpg to help explain what I mean.
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1Will you be duplicating the same few trees many times?– WelzCommented Apr 8, 2019 at 18:14
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Relevant answer, not a duplicate.– WelzCommented Apr 8, 2019 at 18:15
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1 Answer
I don't think the bush example on the left can be significantly improved (other than the flowers) and keep its qualities, but I think the one on the right could easily be improved a ton - the basic leaf shape there could be managed with half the anchorpoints or less, and still have significantly the same feel - especially if there won't be a deep-zoom-in close look at the leaf-element level: one assumes from your symbols & brushes attempt that the intent is to have a lot of these - like a siteplan or a decorative motif.
I'd grab all the leaves on a copy of the right one, and run the Object>Path>Simplify tool and see how many anchorpoints you can lose whilst keeping your same basic feel: I'm guessing you can cut your anchorpoints by as much as 75% whilst keeping that look. I'd do the same to the flowers on the left-hand bush, BTW.
The tool gives you a live preview of the impact of your impending edit, and a rough estimate of the impact on the anchorpoint-count on the given item. I'd do one leaf first as a tester, and provided you're OK with the results, move on.
As you can see, less than half the anchorpoints and still enough of the same shape and feel to pass muster - and my initial anchorpoint density was about a tenth of your right bush.
If the viewer will never see the leaves close-up, they should really be held by only 4 anchorpoints - that's all they should need for a basic elongated / tapered ellipse.
Only after you've done this type of cleanup to all your art would I make my symbols of these - and yes, I would do that for sure: symbols will really help keep your filesize down.
Hope this helps.
answered Apr 8, 2019 at 18:21
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1No matter how simple the shapes are, once you clone it hundreds of times - you end up with massive path volume which decreases performance. Best is to simplify the path and definitely utilize symbols.– WelzCommented Apr 8, 2019 at 18:29
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@WELZ - yup. I was intending OP set up symbols after doing cleanup - I'll add that to my answer for clarity - thanks mate! Commented Apr 8, 2019 at 18:41
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Yes, I should have cleaned up the paths on these. I have done so on others.I've tried making symbols, brushes, converting the artwork to psds, and then some. For site plans, the shear bulk of the replication becomes unmanageable. Then I have to take a wonderful vector file and convert it to a photoshop file to use in printed materials. I'll continue trying to perfect the clean-up/symbols method. But if anybody has found that magic solution, let me know. Thanks to everyone!– SueCommented Apr 9, 2019 at 13:59
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I spent a long time doing illustrative site plans in Illus traitor: my approach is a lot looser, squigglier, and managed via graphic styles: that way, you leave bushes & trees as circles, apply the graphic style and you’re good. Less detailed, yes, but easier to manage on huge files. Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 14:15
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cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/015/816/084/large/… Commented Apr 9, 2019 at 14:15
