Illustrator Strange action happening using Wacom tablet

[FastNOC]

OK this is strange. i'll try to explain.

several years ago I bought a wacom intuos3 6x8 tablet. but when i got it i got frustrated after trying to use it, so i put it in the closet.

I've gone through several courses now using Photoshop and Illustrator so i am familiar now, and thought I should try again. i decided to force myself to learn this thing.

i'm getting it but having an issue. Whenever I create a brush that uses pressure to increase or decrease the size, and I erase any part of a line I create, it changes all of that line to a single width fat line.

it's hard to explain, so I made two images to show you what happens.

image 1. a simple line, using pressure to change the width.



image 2. all i did was turn the pen around and run the eraser straight down. see what it did to my line?


Does anyone have an idea what I'm doing to cause this? i'm 100% sure it's my fault, I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

 

[Steve]

Try resetting your preferences.
Start Illustrator and immediately hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows)
or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS X).

You'll loose any custom setting you might have made

 

[FastNOC]

thanks for the reply.

that doesn't work. it still does the same thing. I actually already tried that, including deleting my AIPrefs file

 

[FastNOC]

I don't know if this makes a difference or not. In illustrator apparently no brushes are pressure active. you have to create a new brush to be able to do this.

So i'm using a custom made brush, but why it changes it when any part is erased just makes no sense to me

 

[hawkeye]

I agree it doesn't make sense but that's how Illustrator works. Try using the blob brush instead.

 

[Steve]

thanks for the reply.

that doesn't work. it still does the same thing. I actually already tried that, including deleting my AIPrefs file

Well you're in good hands with Hawkeye, he should be able to help you out.

 

[FastNOC]

Actually i found the answer. yay!
http://blogs.adobe.com/adobeillustrator/2009/04/mysteries_of_the_eraser_tool_r.html

bottom line, the answer is i have to expand the object or it will adopt the brush settings of the eraser when it's used on the stroke.

it makes sense now.

• Some objects will erase, but their appearance changes due to rerendering of attributes applied to the object. For example when a brush stroked object is erased, it is broken into separate paths. The brush stroke is then reapplied to each path, which can drastically change its appearance. To erase a brush stroked object and not have it’s appearance change, choose Object>Expand Appearance first.

Note the photo is exactly the same as what i posted.

 

[hawkeye]

Good find.

 

[agentmoeller]

I was going to guess that the problem only happened in Illustrator. Nice work on the solution.