I’ve been using Artlandia’s SymmetryWorks plugin for Adobe Illustrator for years now to make patterns. I find it easier than any other software I’ve come across, but it also accomplishes many things that most of the other pattern making software has yet to achieve.
Today Artlandia announced a new version of SymmetryWorks, and the new features have me quite excited.
Have a look at the text from the Artlandia website describing the changes in SymmetryWorks 4:
SymmetryWorks 4 greatly expands what you can do with replicas, one of the handiest and most powerful features of the plug-in. Replicas (live copies) are tremendously useful for creating all kinds of patterns.
You work with a replica through its handle, which is a simple bounding box that you can move, scale, rotate, and mirror. The plug-in remembers your transformation and automatically rebuilds a copy of the original art once you edit the original. By adding replica copies, you can make your pattern as symmetric—or asymmetric—as you like. And you will still have only one original that needs to be edited when you are making changes.In SymmetryWorks 4, you can create replicas of selected elements. This simple feature is really the workhorse of the new version and it will change the way you design your patterns.
The other major addition is automatically generated multiple replica copies (multi-replicas). You can now create a replica and then instantly spawn its copies that will be arranged according to your recipe.
These and other new features in SymmetryWorks 4 let you quickly create many new types of patterns and make your design work even more productive and fun!
New Features in Artlandia SymmetryWorks 4:
- Replicas (live copies) of selected objects
- Addition and removal objects from replicas
- Enhanced support for all-over and tossed repeats
- New multi-replica feature for automatic generation of replica copies
- Editable spirals, mosaics, gradations, and other arrangements in patterns
- Automatically generated check patterns, eccentrics, guilloche backgrounds, and other linework
- New capabilities for creating optical, moire, and other special effects
- Rotational (pinwheels) designs of any order
- Support for applying live effects to replica art
- Replicas of hidden objects for creating counterchanged designs and sophisticated effects
- Combination layouts