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How to make SVGs draw well?

QUESTION: What is the best way to make SVG images for videoscribe? (problem: SVG draws in the wrong order or draws outlines or draws things that are not visible or parts just appear, strokes don't draw etc.)


ANSWER: (Tips are for Adobe Illustrator but may work similarly in inkscape or other programs) I believe the tips below will give you the BEST results and the fewest problems. Breaking one or more of the "rules" may cause unexpected drawing results or may contribute to slow downs, freezing, crashing or failure to save, load, or render.


1) USE THE PEN OR PENCIL TOOL: They create stroked paths and that is what videoscribe "draws" by default. The paintbrush tool makes fills instead of paths.

If you want to use the paintbrush tool for your lines, you can make videoscribe seem to draw fills the same as stroked paths by drawing a stroked path over the paintbrush line and then making the stroked path transparent, similar to this tutorial: http://help.videoscribe.co/support/solutions/articles/1000033717-fill-an-image-with-colour-using-the


2) SIMPLER IS BETTER:  Properly made SVGs will generally be well under 100KB and contain only stroked paths and/or filled paths. It may be best to avoid problematic data like embedded images, or masking or clipping paths, or glows or other effects which may contribute to freezes or crashes. A hand drawn SVG will generally draw better than an jpg that has been "auto traced" to become vector art. If you auto trace, try to adjust the settings to provide smoother lines instead of hundred and hundreds of nodes.


3) DRAWING ORDER and color fills: In general, videoscribe will draw lines (stroked paths) in the same order that they were drawn when the SVG was made. If you use auto trace to convert an image to stroked paths then the drawing order may seem somewhat arbitrary. Using groups or any type of subfolders may affect the drawing order. filled areas appear last by default. You can use the trick mentioned in tip #1 to make videoscribe "draw" the filled colors. another related link is at the bottom of this list.


4) GROUPS, SUBFOLDERS, NESTED LAYERS etc: It may be best to just to avoid them because they may affect the drawing order in unexpected ways. Drag all paths out of subfolders/sub layers/groups into the root folder/layer


5) DELETE ALL HIDDEN LAYERS:  from SVGs when you make them. (hidden layers increase file size. larger file sizes require more memory to process.) Also there are are some youtube tutorials (not official videoscribe tutorials) that mention leaving embedded JPGs or pngs or other images in your SVG files but I wouldn't recommend that. They may contribute to freezing and crashing.


6) WIDE IMAGES: if the image is about as wide as it is high, it will probably import at a good size. If it is twice as wide as it is high, it will probably import at a good size. If it is REALLY wide and not very high (like a horizontal line), it will import HUGE.  for really wide images, it can be helpful to rotate them 45 degrees so they will have more "image height" and then you can import them and rotate them back to horizontal in videoscribe


7) SAVING:

recommended SVG save settings for illustrator:


EDIT: Regarding Embed or Link: If you happen to have a jpg or png or other images in your SVG, selecting "Embed" will include them in the saved SVG, which can be a useful, simple way to incorporate a photo or shaded illustration with your own vector line art. (However, be aware that embedding images increases file size and might possibly contribute to slowdowns or freezes, so you may want to use it sparingly or at least only embed images with smaller file sizes. ). Selecting "Link" instead of "embed" will essentially kick out any inserted images and save them as separate files which will make your SVG smaller, but videoscribe will not display linked images. My suggestion based on personal experience is to use only paths, strokes and fills in your SVG and to delete any extra images. That way it won't matter if you choose embed or link because there will be nothing to embed or link. (just my opinion- I'm just a user)


8) illustrator CC (creative cloud) has some new features that cause new problems with stroked paths. For example strokes draw several sizes smaller than they should, with very obvious thickening where the strokes intersect and then all the strokes thicken when the drawing finishes: http://help.videoscribe.co/support/discussions/topics/1000033902/page/last#post-1000058430


official support post: "Create your own images"

official support post: "Fill an image with color using the hand"


Hope that helps,

Mike (videoscribe user)



1 person has this question

I have been having difficulty creating my own svg images n Illustrator CC and uploading them to Videoscribe.  


I followed the directions in this video at 5:57 under the topic "Image Trace" and was able to successfully import a SVG image to videoscribe  using the directions in the video and the save settings found in this post.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6zAfrW4fi8&list=PLSraMTfTYtEIrn__P9EzxFY5bYHEPC6gS&index=4


Good luck, I hope i may have saved someone a bit of time.


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