Changing the Scatter Brush Options
When the Scatter Brush tool is selected, a pop-up dialog box of options becomes available on the Options bar, as shown in Figure 14.3. Using these options, you can alter the randomness of the object’s orientation, its spacing between objects, and even its color. There are also options to enable the object to randomly flip horizontally and vertically.
Figure 14.3. Scatter Brush Options.
Setting the Angle Jitter
The Angle Jitter setting sets the maximum value that the object can rotate from the direction that the mouse is moving. An Angle Jitter value of 0 will make all objects line up in the direction that the mouse is moving and a value of 360 will let the object be rotated randomly to any angle. Figure 14.4 shows a series of arrows with progressively greater Angle Jitter values. The top line is set to 0 and each line downward is set to 45, 90, 180, and 360. Notice how the arrows in the second to the last line still all point to the right but that the last line has arrows pointing any direction.
Controlling Object Spacing
The Spacing setting sets the required space that must appear between each object. This value is measured using object size, so if the Min Width value is set to 40, then for a Spacing value of 1, the mouse must move at least 40 pixels before a second object is drawn and if the Spacing value is 2, then the mouse must move at least 80 pixels before a second object is drawn.
If this value is set to less than 1, objects can be drawn on top of one another. If the Min and Max Width values are quite different, the spacing will also be altered. For example, if the Min Width value is set to 10, the Max Width value is set to 100, and the Spacing value is set to 1, then an object that is 10 pixels wide would only require the mouse to move 10 pixels before drawing another object, but an object that is 80 would require a movement of 80 pixels. Figure 14.5 shows a set of stars with different Spacing values.
Note
The Spacing value represents only a minimum required spacing. If you move the mouse fast enough, the spacing between objects could be much greater.
Changing Colors
The Color Jitter value can be set between 0 and 100. At a value of 0, the objects are drawn without any change in their color, but greater values will cause a random slight color change between different objects. These changes are still within the same hue, so a yellow star set to 100 would change from white to light yellow to dark yellow, but that is all.
Flipping Objects
The Flip X and Flip Y options allow the objects to be flipped horizontally or vertically or both. When enabled, the objects are not consistently flipped, but enabling these options allows them to sometimes be flipped. Figure 14.6 shows a string of letters with the Flip X option enabled. Notice that some letters are vertically flipped and some are not.
