Zig Zag Effect - How is a segment calculated on a circle?

I have a perfect circle, to which I have applied the Zig Zag effect. I have specified 2 ridges per segment. If I am correct in assuming that a "ridge" is the high, outer part, I end up with 6 ridges on my circle. If I specify 10 redges per segment, I get 22.
So what does Illustrator consider a segment on a circle, and other than trial and error, how can I get a desired number of ridges?

Ridges Per Segment means Points Per Segment. Expand Appearance and then count the points.
Then try it again, but set the Size slider to zero.
In both cases, you'll have 12 points; the original four and eight added (two per segment).
You have six "star points" because there is an anchorPoint at each trough and each crest; 6 pairs of trough and crest makes six waves.
JET

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Zig zag effect for shading

Hi there,
I'm wondering what tools I can use to create this zig-zag effect used for shading in illustrator. Thanks in advance!

There's no effect to generate that. But you could use brushes to draw those triangle-shaped lines. You could even draw more than one at a time. Or you could use blends.
THis only one example. You could use art brushes for other forms of strokes:

Symmetry Question, Zig-Zag Effect

I'm working with the Zig-Zag effect and have noticed an anomaly, or not the result I expected. The effect seems to be symmetrical except on one area of the underlying path at one anchor point. Relative and Absolute both yield a non-symmetrical result. Is there a way to get complete symmetry with this effect? I'm working on some snowflakes to import into After Effects and would like for them to be symmetrical.
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks, Bob

There are a lot of unobservant designers out there.
This one came from Wiki:

Extraneous line appears when using Zig Zag effect

This is the procedure that I'm using:
1. Create 3 horizontal lines with only a stroke color, no fill. Each line is a different stroke color.
2. Using the Blend tool, blend the three lines to get a nice linear gradient.
3. Make an Art Brush from the 3-line blend.
4. Create a path, for example, just a straight line, and apply the new brush.
5. Choose Effects > Distort > Zig Zag with Smooth turned on. If the zig zag is shallow and diagonal line appears in the path that does not belong, ruining the effect. The extraneous line will print, so it's not just something that appears on the screen.
Is there any way to avoid this? If the bumps in the wave are steeper, the diagonal line doesn't appear.

Hello Jay,
 
 What I did is to use really small circles (3 Circles: Red, Yellow, and Blue) Blend them together with specified steps of 100 (Option+Blend Tool+Click). The amount of steps depends of the distance between each circle.
 
 Then I created the "Art Brush" and apply it to a straight line.
 
 After that, I rotated a copy of the line 45° and a third line another 45° (this will make 90° with 3 lines).
 
 Selected the Vertical and Horizontal lines, then select the "Zig Zag" effect and set the values that you want. The diagonal line I reset the size of the "Zig Zag" effect to very low value.
 
 After that I use "Convert Anchor Point Tool" (Shift+C) to smooth the curve of the blending. To have better results I suggest to use more than 3 lines to make a 90° turn (Just keep in mind that the middle lines should have a "Zig Zag" effect size of low value.
 
 
<a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1fm7KrGLb3VxTRWESwjMVlnShprH" /></a>
<img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1fm7KrGLb3VxTRWESwjMVlnShprH_thumb.jpg" border="0" />
 
 But another solution is to first make the Mask of the shape that you want, create a Rectangle with the gradient that you want and use the "Envelope Distorted" ("Envelope Distorted"+ "Make With Warp" + Style "Arc"). Please make sure that you already selected "Distort Linear Gradients" under "Envelope Options"
 And then make the mask.
 
 
<a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1vG69C4xb8gausk6fxfmkMOE4ggtzB" /></a>
<img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1vG69C4xb8gausk6fxfmkMOE4ggtzB_thumb.jpg" border="0" />
 
 
<a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1IUevEolmMjG7JkjMAKgf2N4zlb0" /></a>
<img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1IUevEolmMjG7JkjMAKgf2N4zlb0_thumb.jpg" border="0" />
 
 I hope this helps!

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I'm wondering if there are any effects that would distort or zig-zag the last frame of a shot for a "passage of time" emulation. Or, is this something I'd have to do in Motion or After Effects?
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In FCP, there is a ripple filter. You need to key the effect, in effect, making a transition. TO do this extend the length of video by about 30 or 45 frames (or what ever you need) and then with the blade tool, cut it. add the Ripple filter.. Key it, and add the cross dissolve transition over it.. Take your incoming video and place it on a track below.... you can also try cutting a piece there and add the ripple effect, and see what effects result. Hope this makes sense.

Create a zig zag effect in array

I have a one dimensional array that holds the pixels values for the image. I currently go through it like so:
for (int y = 0; y < height-1; y++) {
 offset =y*width;
 for (int x=0; x < width-1; x++) {
 pos = offset + x;
 oldPixel = pixels[pos];
...What I now want to do is instead of going in a constant left to right motion is to go in a zig zag motion. This means I want to go left to right on the first line then the second line is from right to left and then back to left to right again for the next line.
Any ideas on what would be the best way to do this?
Thanks.

4fingers wrote:
Any ideas on what would be the best way to do this?Are you sure about the limits? It usually looks like this,
for (int y=0; y<height; y++) {
The above will loop height times.
Anyway you can introduce a boolean variable called say leftToRight which is controlling the scanning direction,
boolean leftToRight = true;
for (int y = 0; y < height; y++) {
 offset =y*width;
 if (leftToRight) { // from left to right
 for (int x=0; x < width; x++) {
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 oldPixel = pixels[pos];
 } else { // from right to left
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Zig zag line following a curve

how do i make a zig zag line follow a curve and have the 'teeth' be evenly spaced/sized?

ok, i think i got it nailed..heres how it works for me.
1.draw the free form line.
2. apply Roughen Effect, set size at 0, DETAIL value affects the "'teeth' per inch" spacing, POINTS set at-smooth
3. apply Zig Zag Effect, SIZE affects 'depth/height of 'teeth'", check 'absolute', RIDGES PER SEGMENT-set at 0, POINTS--is checked corner because i need a sharp edge 'tooth'
thats it..Very cool, thanks to all who answered, this is something i have always been trying to figure out, and now i have an answer..Great resource, i will recommend to my colleagues too!

How to make it look like the camera is following a zig zagging line

I have an animated video where a person clicks a button and an arrow appears coming out of the right side of the computer. I would like to make it look like the camera follows the arrow as it zooms along a zig zag path and eventually ends at another computer. Does anyone know of any good tutorials for this?
Thanks,
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This is just a matter of keyframes for camera position and point of interest.You are probably not going to find a tutorial that exactly matches your project. Try this:
Open up 2 views, one active camera, one top view.
Set a position keyframe for the camera where you want the movement to start.
Drag the point of interest to point at your subject (animated arrow)
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A zig zag box

hi all
how do i create a box with on edge zig zagged like the one in this website
http://www.danielmoir.com/
any insight would be grateful

Illustrator - 4 paths. Apply Effect > Distort & Transform > Zig Zag to bottom path. Join path corners. Copy... Paste into Photoshop as Shape layer.

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Okay, this is the most interesting problem I've seen today. It looks like a bug, but we're going to have to reproduce it to fix it.
The following basics would be very helpful in this regard:
Read Before Posting: How To Get A Useful Answer To Your Question
At that point I can get a bug filed for you.

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I am using Illustrator CS4 on a Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion...on to the issue.
The first time I used the zig zag filter today I got exactly the effect I wanted:
Then when edited it to to take it from 15 ridges to 14, this is what happened:
I didn't change anything but the number of ridges per segement.
Subsequently I tried opening a new document (as well as restarting Illustrator) and creating a totally new line and applying the zig zag filter and got the same weird result again. I compared my appearance panel settings and everything is the same except the appearance of the thumbnail. I know this must be something easy that I'm overlooking but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is!

Your path has a fill. You went from an odd number of points making the start and end at the top of the zig zag, to an evwn number of points making the start at the top and the end at the bottom. Illustrator is simply auto-filling an open path.

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Straight lines become zig-zag when viewed in Premiere Elements 11

I am sure there's an easy answer to my problem but I can't seem to locate it. I am new to video editing and Premiere Elements 11. I have a Sony HDR-CX200 that I use specifically to record tennis matches. I have a recorded a tennis match in 1080i at 60i fps that was transferred from the camcorder to my Window 7 computer using Sony's PlayMemories software which creates a .m2ts file. When I viewed the .m2ts video in both PlayMemories and Windows Media Player the video looked great. I want to be able to view the video in HD on both computer monitor and tv.
I imported the .m2ts file into Premiere Elements 11 using drag and drop.The file appeared to impotrt without any issue and the still pic looked good. However, when I pressed play the pic broke up. You can easily see this in the tennis lines which start out straight but when played they break into a zig-zag look. I have attached a short video that shows this problem. I want to be able to edit my tennis videos in Premiere because I've already just paid for it and it's suppose to be one of the best video editing programs out there.
I have looked over discussions of interlacing but don't understand why the pic only looks bad when played in Premiere Elements and looks good in Windows Media Player and Sony's PlayMemories. I wonder if there is some setting I am overlooking.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So far, this is a guess.
Viewing and playback of a video is a medium difficulty task for a computer. Taking the same file into an editing situation is a high difficulty task. Editing AVCHD video, is an extra high difficulty task for a computer. It is doubtful you will work your computer harder doing anything else.
The real time preview in the monitor during editing can be improved with what is referred to as "real time rendering". You know when it is necessary when a yellow colored bar shows up above the time line. When you see it, press Enter and wait a bit.
Can you provide more information about the computer and how you got the short video to YouTube? Also, how did you open the project? And can you check what the project settings are? The YouTube looks nothing like what I have uploaded using my two Sony camcorders.
I think this is fixable. Lots of people get great results from PrE11.
Bill

Peaks and valleys detection of a zig-zag shape waveform

Hi,
I have 2 waveforms coming in and I would like to detect the peaks and valleys(with the location, or ) and write them to a spreadsheet file.
In a pattern like this
peak #1(waveform 1)            peak #1(waveform 2)                  Location of peak#1(waveform 1)    Location of peak #1(waveform 2)
valley #1(waveform 1)           valley #1(waveform 2)                Location of valley#1(waveform 1)             Locationo of valley#1(waveform 2)
peak #2(waveform 1)            peak #2(waveform 2)                  Location of peak#2(waveform 1)              Location of peak #2(waveform 2)
valley #2(waveform 1)           valley#2(waveform 2)                  Location of valley#2(waveform 1)            Location of valley #2(waveform 2)
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Thanks.

If you search the forums for peak detect, you will find a number of hits. Also, here is a recent thread discussin peak detection without setting a pulse width.
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Kenny

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Hello Illustrator experts out there!
I'm stuck trying to apply a gradient to a zig-zag object that I've created on Illustrator. I want every peak to be black and the gradient should be kind of rounded (but not radial). The center of the shape should show the transition betwen the darker color and the lighter one.
Please see image attached:
How do I achieve this using the gradient tool?
Many thanks in advance and I look forward to your replies!

I hope this is what you're talking about. In the Gradient panel, first change the direction of the gradient. Then add in 3 other markers to your gradient bar and position them accordingly. (You can type in the exact position where it says Location. If you double click on a marker, you will then see a K (levels of black). Type in the numbers shown in my preview for each marker. I hope this helps.

Zig Zag Effect - How is a segment calculated on a circle?

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