Tuning Your Artwork¶
A fill straight out of the box looks good. A fill after ten minutes of parameter tuning looks like you spent a month with a burin and a copper plate. The Properties Panel is where that transformation happens.
The Properties Panel¶
When you select a fill layer in the Layers Panel (or click on a fill's strokes in the canvas with the Editor tool V), the Properties Panel on the right displays every parameter that controls that fill's appearance. The exact set of parameters varies by fill type (a Halftone fill has dot-shape options that a Linear fill doesn't), but a core set appears across nearly all fills.
This article covers the universal parameters. For fill-specific parameters, see the relevant article in Part 2.
Interval¶
What it does: Controls the spacing between strokes: the distance from one stroke's centre to the next.
Why it matters: Interval is the most powerful single parameter. It determines the overall density and fineness of your vector artwork. Nothing else changes the visual impact as dramatically.
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
| Small (0.3–0.5 mm) | Dense, fine detail. Approaches photographic fidelity. |
| Medium (1–2 mm) | Balanced detail and graphic presence. The sweet spot for most work. |
| Large (3–10 mm) | Bold, abstracted. Strong graphic character. |
Tips: - Match Interval to your intended viewing distance. Fine intervals read well up close but merge into flat grey from across a room. Larger intervals read clearly from a distance. - Two fills at the same Interval produce even crosshatching. Two fills at different Intervals create a primary/secondary hierarchy: the coarser fill dominates while the finer fill adds subtle tonal detail. - Very small Interval values on large documents produce enormous numbers of paths, which can slow rendering and make exports heavy. See Controlling When Vexy Recalculates if performance becomes an issue.
Angle¶
What it does: Rotates the fill pattern, in degrees.
Why it matters: Angle changes the visual character without changing the density or tone. Horizontal lines feel calm. Diagonal lines feel dynamic. Vertical lines feel solemn. Same image, same interval: a 45-degree rotation changes the mood.
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
| 0° | Horizontal lines. Calm, wide, restful. |
| 45° | Classic engraving diagonal. Dynamic and conventional. |
| 90° | Vertical lines. Tall, solemn, rain-like. |
| Any other angle | Unconventional. Can feel fresh or unsettling. |
Tips: - 45 degrees is the "safe" angle: it avoids visual interference with the horizontal and vertical edges of rectangular images. - For crosshatching, use two fills 90 degrees apart (e.g., 45° and 135°, or 0° and 90°). - Angle wraps at 180°: a fill at 0° and a fill at 180° look identical, since lines have orientation but no direction.
Image Threshold¶
What it does: Controls which brightness values in the source image produce strokes. Displayed as a histogram with adjustable handles for shadows, midtones, and highlights.
Why it matters: This is your tonal editor. The histogram shows the distribution of brightness values in your source image. By moving the handles, you decide which parts of that distribution generate strokes.
The three handles:
- Shadows handle (left side): Sets the darkest brightness value that produces strokes. Move it right to start dropping the very darkest tones, leaving pure shadows empty.
- Highlights handle (right side): Sets the brightest value that produces strokes. Move it left to stop generating strokes in highlights, leaving bright areas completely white.
- Midtone handle (centre): Shifts the tonal balance. Drag it left to weight the fill toward highlights (lighter overall). Drag right to weight toward shadows (darker overall).
Practical examples:
| Adjustment | Result |
|---|---|
| Default (full range) | Strokes everywhere: darks are thick, lights are thin |
| Pull highlights handle left | Bright areas go completely blank. High-contrast look. |
| Pull shadows handle right | Dark areas go blank. Ethereal, highlight-only rendering. |
| Narrow both handles toward midtones | Only mid-brightness areas get strokes. Shadows and highlights both go blank. |
| Shift midtone handle left | Overall lighter rendering. More white space. |
| Shift midtone handle right | Overall darker rendering. Heavier coverage. |
Tips: - If your fill looks too dark and muddy, pull the highlights handle leftward. The white space you create adds contrast and clarity. - If your fill looks washed out, push the shadows handle rightward or shift the midtone handle to the right. - The histogram shape tells you about your source image. A peak on the left means lots of dark pixels. A peak on the right means lots of light pixels. Adjust accordingly.
Stroke Thickness¶
What it does: Controls how source image brightness maps to stroke weight. Three modes, each producing a different tonal curve.
The three modes:
- Linear: Proportional mapping. Brightness maps directly to stroke weight with no bias. The most neutral and predictable mode.
- Thick: Biased toward heavy strokes. Dark areas become very dark; mid-tones are rendered with more weight than Linear would give them. The overall effect is richer, inkier, more dramatic.
- Thin: Biased toward fine strokes. Light areas stay light; mid-tones render with less weight. The effect is airier, more delicate, with more visible white space.
| Mode | Character | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Linear | Neutral, even tonal range | Technical illustration, balanced portraits |
| Thick | Rich, heavy, dramatic | Bold graphics, high-contrast art, dark subjects |
| Thin | Light, airy, delicate | Bright subjects, watercolour-like effects, minimalism |
Tips: - Try all three modes on the same fill. The difference is immediately visible and you'll develop a preference quickly. - Thick mode on a dark source image can produce nearly solid black areas. Combine with Image Threshold adjustments to keep things open. - Thin mode on a bright source image may produce barely visible strokes. Increase Interval to compensate, or shift the midtone handle toward shadows.
Smoothing¶
What it does: Controls how smooth the generated stroke paths are. Higher values produce smoother, more flowing curves. Lower values allow more angular, pixelated stroke edges.
Why it matters: At low Interval values, individual strokes follow fine brightness variations in the source image. Without smoothing, these strokes can look jagged: their edges jitter as they respond to pixel-level brightness changes. Smoothing averages these variations into fluid curves.
Tips: - Higher Smoothing produces more elegant strokes but may lose fine detail. It's a trade-off between smoothness and fidelity. - For organic subjects (portraits, landscapes), higher Smoothing usually looks better. - For technical subjects (architecture, machinery), lower Smoothing preserves hard edges. - Smoothing also affects export file size: smoother curves can sometimes be described with fewer control points, producing smaller SVG files.
Randomization¶
What it does: Adds controlled disorder to stroke placement, on a scale from 0% (perfectly regular) to 100% (maximum chaos).
Why it matters: Perfectly regular patterns can look mechanical: too precise, too digital. A small amount of randomisation introduces the kind of organic variation that makes output look hand-made rather than computed.
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
| 0% | Perfect regularity. Every stroke exactly where the algorithm places it. |
| 5–15% | Subtle variation. Looks hand-drawn without being messy. The sweet spot for most work. |
| 25–50% | Noticeable disorder. Strokes shift and jitter visibly. Energetic, sketchy feel. |
| 75–100% | Heavy chaos. Pattern structure nearly dissolves. Useful for abstract textures. |
Tips: - Even 5% Randomization makes a surprising difference. Try toggling between 0% and 5% on a Linear fill to see it. - Randomization interacts with Interval: at large Intervals, small percentages produce bigger absolute shifts (because the spacing is larger to begin with). - High Randomization with Scribble fills can produce genuinely chaotic, expressive textures. High Randomization with Linear fills tends to look messy rather than expressive: the contrast between "supposed to be straight lines" and "they're not" reads as error rather than style. Know which fill types benefit.
Shift¶
What it does: Offsets the entire pattern from its default starting position, sliding it across the canvas.
Why it matters: When stacking multiple fills, Shift lets you prevent exact alignment between layers. Two Linear fills at the same Angle but different Shifts produce a moiré-like optical effect that can be beautiful or distracting. Shift gives you control.
Tips: - If two fills at similar angles produce visual interference (moiré patterns), nudge one with Shift to break the alignment. - Shift is also useful for precisely positioning a pattern relative to a specific feature in the source image, such as centring a ring pattern over an eye.
Dynamic Color¶
What it does: When enabled, each stroke samples the colour of the source image pixel beneath it, instead of using a flat fill colour.
Why it matters: This single toggle transforms monochrome vector artwork into full-colour illustration. A Linear fill with Dynamic Color produces a striped colour rendering of your photo. A Halftone fill with Dynamic Color produces coloured dots. Every fill type gains a colour dimension.
Tips: - Dynamic Color requires a colour source image (obviously). If your source is greyscale, Dynamic Color produces greyscale strokes: functional but visually identical to choosing a grey fill colour manually. - The colour is sampled at the stroke's position, so fine Intervals produce more colour fidelity (more strokes = more samples). At large Intervals, colour becomes impressionistic: broad swaths of the average colour in each region. - Dynamic Color increases visual complexity. For clean, graphic looks, monochrome fills often work better. For illustration and artistic expression, Dynamic Color opens a wide creative range.
Layering Fills: The Composition Principle¶
One fill is a sketch. Two fills become an engraving. Three fills approach the richness of a mezzotint.
Each fill layer in Vexy Lines is independent: its own algorithm, its own parameters, its own mask. Stacking fills is how you build complex, layered artwork:
- Crosshatching: Two Linear fills at perpendicular angles.
- Tone + texture: A fine Linear fill for tonal rendering, with a coarse Scribble fill for energy in the shadows.
- Mixed media: A Halftone fill for the background, a Trace fill for edge definition, a Handmade fill for expressive foreground detail.
There's no limit to how many fills you can stack (beyond your computer's patience and the refresh controls). Each fill reads the same source image independently and generates its own vector paths.
To control where each fill appears (the Halftone fill only on the background, the Linear fill only on the face), you use masks. That's the next article: Hiding and Revealing.