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Simple question about angle snapping


Sharppatch

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Hey,

I'm a fairly in-experienced photoshop user and am using it for some isometric sprites. (actually quite a lot so this is pretty important to me)

So I am using the line tool and making angles of 26.6 degrees to create the perspective. And after much searching on the internet I couldn't find any solution to a very simple problem. I need the line tool to automatically snap too 26.6 degrees. By default it snaps vertically, horizontally and 45 degrees. At first it seemed trivial, just go into the settings and add a snapping angle. After looking around however I just got extremely confused that there seemed to be no way to do this.

Am I missing something or can you not change the snapping angle?

Help very much appreciated!
 

MrToM

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Try this:

1. Using Transform Rotate, rotate the layer by typing in 26.6 in the menu bar angle box.
2. Accept the rotation by clicking the 'tick' or pressing return / enter.

From here on use: Ctrl + Shift + T to duplicate that rotation.
Every press of that key combination will rotate the layer by that angle.

If you want to make a duplicate of that layer AND rotate it at the same time hold ALT as well.

This should work for as long as PS is open....not sure if it works across documents but its pretty simple to set up if it doesn't.

EDIT: I just tried this across documents and it works fine.

Regards.
MrToM.
 
Last edited:

Sharppatch

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Try this:

1. Using Transform Rotate, rotate the layer by typing in 26.6 in the menu bar angle box.
2. Accept the rotation by clicking the 'tick' or pressing return / enter.

From here on use: Ctrl + Shift + T to duplicate that rotation.
Every press of that key combination will rotate the layer by that angle.

If you want to make a duplicate of that layer AND rotate it at the same time hold ALT as well.

This should work for as long as PS is open....not sure if it works across documents but its pretty simple to set up if it doesn't.

EDIT: I just tried this across documents and it works fine.

Regards.
MrToM.


Just tried this method, and although its a pretty nifty work around it doesn't fit my workflow at all.

1. Making a new layer for every line is a pain
2. It is difficult to predict the length of each line (and if I rotate an entire square at once it messes up the line thickness and produces anti-aliasing)
3. It doesn't always rotate in the proper direction
4. You cannot adjust the length of the line on the fly
5. In the end it's a lot easier to manually find the angle

Don't mean to bash your solution, it just isn't working for me.

How hard would it be to add the very simple functionality of being able to change the snap angle of the line tool? Theres gotta be a plugin for this!
 

IamSam

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Hello.

I'm not saying that a plugin does not exist, but I have never heard of one. Sorry.

You say that you are fairly inexperienced with Photoshop, perhaps there's a much easier way to accomplish what your trying to do. Perhaps, if you post some images of your project with some explanation, we may be able to help you with a better idea.
 

Tom Mann

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Here's another "Try this" type of suggestion: Do what people used to do in days of T-squares and pencils - make yourself a grid with lines at 0 degrees, plus and minus 26 deg (1:2), +/- 45, and 90 degrees +/- 26 (2:1). Here's an example with just a few of these lines.

isometric_guide_grid.gif


Save the grid on its own layer, so you can put it on top of the layer stack in the item you are working on and turn it on and off when needed, invert the colors if you are working on a dark background, change blending modes, etc..

Nothing will directly snap to it, but it will allow you to get very close to these angles. In fact, so close that over short line lengths and small numbers of pixels that you can then snap with accuracy to the correct pixels in the underlying pixel grid.

Tom M
 

Sharppatch

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@IamSam

I am making isometric sprites with the line tool using about 2 pixel wide lines. (Also I have the line tool in pixel tool mode not shape or path)

@Tom Mann

Hey thanks, I already do have a grid set up on its own layer, I use this as a helpful guide when drawing isometrics. But I have learned apparently you can only change angle constraints in Illustrator and not Photoshop.

Oh well, my current method of 'finding the angle' rather then snapping to it is a little more tedious but fairly quick as well.

Thank you guys for the help ;)
 

Rich54

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What if you temporarily rotated your entire image by 26.6 degrees? Then, when you draw your perspective lines, snapping them to horizontal will give you the correct angle.
 

hawkeye

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Photoshop really isn't capable of what you are trying to do. Illustrator would be a better choice, the line segment tool would be a better way to get the precision you are after.
 

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hawkeye

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The more I thought about this the more I can see that while it may not seem quite as easy as in Illustrator, in fact you could accomplish the same thing in Photoshop and in some ways it might be easier.

Using the line segment tool in Illustrator creates a path, and the path can be transformed. Length, height, rotation etc. and stroked to any thickness desired. Each time I add another line it is another path and separate from the last line on a new layer. You can also duplicate a path segment, just alt+drag the line with the selection tool and it creates a new path on a new layer.

We can do pretty much the same thing in Photoshop. We can create a path in Photoshop, although getting the initial angle to the correct 26.6° isn't as straight forward as in Illustrator, it can be done. You can duplicate a path the same way alt+drag with the Path Selection Tool. However, unlike Illustrator, the new path will be on the same path layer, but both paths remain independent.

A path in Photoshop can also be transformed in exactly the same way as in Illustrator (Ctrl+T). (as long as it isn't at 0°) To manually change the length of the path without changing the angle hold the shift key, or if you are using the transform menu, set it to maintain the aspect ratio.

If you wanted the duplicated 26.6° path to be the reverse, select it hit Ctrl+T then set the rotation to -53.2° in the menu. Once you have the paths you can move them as required, resize, and then stroke them, place them on individual layers, etc...

The specifics are difficult to comment on as the OP hasn't posted a screenshot of the objects he is creating.
 

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Tom Mann

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Hawkeye: "...although getting the initial angle to the correct 26.6° isn't as straight forward as in Illustrator, it can be done. ..."

Just a minor comment ... Don't forget that 26.6 deg is simply the hypotenuse of a triangle with a ratio of 1 unit of vertical for every 2 units of horizontal, so if someone doesn't want to type in an angle or set this angle by any other method, they can always set up one pair of vertical guides and one pair of horizontal guides with the right spacing, snap to them, and draw the path between the corners of the rectangle that is formed by the guides.

T
 

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