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I am trying to speed up the process of creating a train track. The track I am making goes into the horizon in the distance. The lines/pieces of "wood" in the track need to gradually expand in space between themselves to give the illusion of becoming closer to the viewer.

Is there a way I can automate this process to a) save time (in the future) and b) make the line spacing more accurate than if I manually did it?

enter image description here

I have tried using blending options to repeat the shapes between, but they stay evenly space out and I get this effect: enter image description here

I have tried different sized parallel line endings to blend lines between. p.s The half a broken line on the left side of the track is missing because there is a figure who will be taking up the foreground.

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You'd be better off using a transform effect (Effect → Distort & Transform → Transform...) on a single line. Just set a number of copies, some vertical movement and use vertical scale to create the change in spacing:

enter image description here

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  • Thank you so much! I just tried to replicate your suggestion and I believe it will work perfectly. I think I just need to play around with the vertical and vertical scale and movement a bit first to get what I need?
    – Cyrup
    Mar 21, 2017 at 9:23
  • Yeh just play around with the values until you get what you need... movement will control your spacing and scale will control the variation in spacing.
    – Cai
    Mar 21, 2017 at 9:26
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You can use Blend tool to also. it is a pretty neat and powerful tool for creating shades , repeated lines and perspective illusions.

Update:

I forgot to mention about the free transformation tool.

what you need to do.

  1. take thick short line and a thinner large line.
  2. blend it with Specified Steps
  3. expand them
  4. ungroup them
  5. Mark all and use free distort tool. use the perspective submenu.
  6. hold the top corner (left or right). Drag inside.
  7. Use the selection tool , mark all and only resize from the top . you will get the perspective view of the lines being adding distance in between

N:B: This might be a complicated method or overkill a bit. Just sharing how i did it. I will be updating the post with images ASAP. thank you.

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  • Unless I am missing something, blending doesn't work for this and the OP said she already tried blending. If you know how to make it work please edit and post a more detailed answer with screenshots, etc.
    – Lucian
    Mar 15, 2017 at 13:56
  • You can control the spacing with blend (see here), it's not the easiest though.
    – Cai
    Mar 15, 2017 at 14:57
  • Aware of this workaround. But your answer is 100% the way to go, so not sure what the 'policy' is when someone offers a clearly more complicated method. This answer will only confuse other members.
    – Lucian
    Mar 15, 2017 at 15:14

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