Connecting to Adobe Illustrator
In this section we want to explain how the export for adobe illustrator works. We will start from an existing last prepared as seen in this chapter and we assume that the last has UVs and that these are what you want to export for designer to use in Illustrator.
Once we have our meshes that we want to export we can use the B_StartAISync
to export the .ai file that you can open
in Illustrator to prepare the design. The situation in AI once the file is open should be this.
Note
If the illustrator botcha plug-in is not installed it can be installed from the
options in Rhino under the tab Botcha Options.
Preparing the model in Illustrator
First we want to prepare the document in Illustrator using the appropriate button. By clicking on the
Setup document button the curves in the document will be converted to guides and an appropriate
number of artboards will be created.
Warning
In some versions of Illustrator the artboards are not created properly. They will be offset down with respect to the guides. You can just move the guides down to have them re-aligned properly with the artboard so that the texture export match the original UVs.
It may happen that the artboard are re-ordered randomly, depending on the version of illustrator. You can just identify and re-order the guides accordingly to prepare the model.
Work in AI and visualize in Rhino
Once the model is prepared, you can easily work in Illustrator and click on the Refresh texture
button and each artboard will be exported as a single texture that is applied to the original
last. This process can work on any mesh that has UVs and you can generate however many artboards
and textures you want.
Info
Each mesh will be assigned a custom material when you export for Illustrator. These material will be listed in the materials panel in Rhino and can be edited and adapted to suit specific workflows.
Alternative ways of texture editing
You can always manually create similar workflows using the features in Botcha and Rhino. If you want to edit textures in an external editor you can export the UV layout. Using the save button in the UV editor will allow you to save the currently selected layout to a file that can be used for texture editing in any tool you like.
