Artlandia SymmetryWorks
SymmetryWorks by Artlandia is an awesome plugin for Illustrator. This plugin allows you to create symmetrical images quickly and easily. This is a plugin that you have to have if you do a lot of design work. Even if you don't do a lot of design work and especially if you are not design oriented you will want this plugin. Draw one line or shape and create many patterns.
There was no way for me to include every pattern I created with SymmetryWorks in this review as they were created so quickly I had too many patterns to be able to include them all.
The SymmetryWorks panel has preset algorithms that make creating patterns quick and easy.
You don't access the SymmetryWorks menu from the Filters menu as you do with most plugins. The SymmetryWorks menu is found under the objects menu. This makes sense as you are working with an object.
I don't think pattern creation could be any simpler. You draw a shape, go the to SymmetryWorks menu and click on Make. Then using the SymmetryWorks panel you choose an algorithm and how many tiles you want vertical and horizontal. If you don't like what is happening simply go to the SymmetryWorks menu and click Release. You'll have just your original shape back.
It takes seconds to create a great variety of patterns based on one simple shape.
Below is a simple line shape. Bet you can't make blade grass as fast as I did with SymmetryWorks without using SymmetryWorks.
You can edit the paths or nodes and the pattern is updated automatically as you edit.
I could play with this plugin forever. It is absolutely design inspiring. Just by drawing a shape, and manipulating it gives many ideas for artwork. Within a minute or two of using Artlandia I was back at Christmas time with the image below.
The Artlandia web site has some awesome examples and tutorials of what you can do and how it works. It is well worth looking at. The pattern sampler is particularly interesting and really gives you an idea of just how easy it is to create symmetrical patterns with SymmetryWorks.
Aside from creating unlimited patterns with SymmetryWorks I find this software a valuable aid for design ideas. Just getting in there and playing a little caused me to think of the many many things I can do with SymmetryWorks that I would have balked at before just because of the sheer work of it. SymmetryWorks will save you tons of hours of work by creating fantastic patterns and designs in just seconds or minutes. It is well worth the asking price and more.
Below is an example of using a single simple line to create a variety of different patterns that can be used for many things.
The above single line creates the following patterns and more in seconds
Want to get even more excitement out of SymmetryWorks? Well, if you are a Macromedia Flash user like I am, then you will find that the patterns created in SymmetryWorks (which are vector shapes) are just a copy from Illustrator and paste into your Flash movies. I only tried this with Flash 5 and it did work. I didn't have to save the pattern in Illustrator, just select all, copy and then paste into Flash. I am even more sold on SymmetryWorks because of it.
Yes, Flash 5 gave me a little whine about Adobe Illustrator EPS files etc. However, ignoring the warnings and closing the warning dialog my paste into Flash 5 worked. The only thing necessary to be able to edit the separate parts of the patterns was to break them apart. SymmetryWorks is amazing. Think about how much work would go into creating these patterns in Flash without SymmetryWorks. This is a must have plugin.
Oh, ok, well, here are a couple more.
I kid you not. This is a very good plugin to have. You will definitely have fun with this one not to mention the increase in productivity. I might mention that it is very habit forming and I'll have to ask Artlandia if they'll start a SymmetryWorks Anonymous group for us.
Pricing
$124.95 (US)
System Requirements
Macintosh: MacOS 8.x / 9.x or Windows: 98 / NT / 2000
Adobe Illustrator 8.0 or later
0.5 MB of RAM
8 MB of available hard disk space
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