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The Sketch Vector tool allows you draw shapes by placing and adjusting vector points on the canvas. Using this method gives you far more control in creating complex shapes.
You can see these and more features at the Bohemian Coding Features Page
- Select the Vector tool via the Insert menu or by pressing V on your keyboard.
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The pen or vector tool allows you to draw
shapes by placing and
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adjusting vector points on the canvas.
0:04
Using this method gives you far more
control in creating complex shapes.
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The vector tool can be selected via the
Insert menu or
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by pressing V on your keyboard.
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Click anywhere on the canvas to begin
drawing.
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As you move your cursor, the line from the
starting point
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will follow your cursor until you place
your next point by clicking on the canvas.
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If you click and drag to create a new
point,
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you'll see this extra line appear with
dots on the end called handles.
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These are used to create curved lines as
opposed to straight ones.
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And if you click and drag a handle, you
can adjust the arc over curve.
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If you look in the Inspector, you can see
the four point types that Sketch supports.
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Right now with this point, you can see it
is on the default Mirrored type
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Sketch gives you when you create a curve.
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If we create a new point without dragging
it to form a curve, it will be straight.
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But this is something you can alter.
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So let's change this point to Mirrored
too.
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When the setting is Mirrored,
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the two handles are an equal distance from
the point.
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If we change the type to Asymmetric, both
handles will move as you adjust the angle.
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But you can now make the distance of the
handles from
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the points independent to each other.
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To adjust them completely, select
Disconnected and drag a handle.
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As a result, the path could look quite
sharp rather than being a perfect curve.
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But this can be useful for certain things,
like creating the shark fin-looking shape.
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Selecting the last point to be placed and
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then moving our cursor will make the next
point we place curved as well,
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because of the Asymmetric point site that
this point has.
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But when I place it, it will create a
straight point unless I click and
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drag to make another Mirrored point.
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It is not something that is required.
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But it can be useful to close the path by
clicking on the first point or
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selecting Close Path at the top of the
Inspector.
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You need to do this if you wish to perform
a bullion operation on this shape.
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At any point during the drawing process,
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you can add new points by clicking on the
path.
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Or delete a point, by selecting it and
pressing Backspace.
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And you can also move points by clicking
and dragging.
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Once you want to leave the editing mode,
press Enter or select Finish Editing.
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It can also edit vectors of existing
shapes, like rectangles,
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by pressing Enter or Edit in the tool bar
when this shape is selected.
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Here you can also add or remove points,
change points types, or
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completely adjust the shape to something
else.
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Let me move this out of the way and draw a
rectangle.
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As well as editing the individual points
of a shape,
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you can edit the layer as a whole using
Transform in the toolbar.
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You can apply perspective to a layer by
clicking and
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dragging one of the circular handles that
appear.
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You can easily change this rectangle into
a trapezium just by applying a simple
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transform.
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Pressing Rotate in the tool bar will allow
you to rotate your layer by clicking and
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dragging one of the corners.
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You can keep track and adjust the angle in
the Inspector under the Height and
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Width fields.
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By default the layer will rotate from the
center, but
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you can adjust the rotation origin by
moving the cross haired marker in
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the middle to anywhere inside or outside
the layer.
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Finally we can flip the layer vertically,
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horizontally by these two buttons next to
the Rotate field.
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I typically use this after I've duplicated
a layer
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if I want to make something look
symmetrical.
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Masking is also something you can do with
layers in Sketch.
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There's a couple of different ways you can
do this, but
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we'll create a mask via the toolbar item.
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To mask something, we need to have two or
more layers that overlap each other.
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So let's take an oval shape and a
rectangle.
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If we change the rectangle's color and
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have it lie on top of the oval, we select
both and press Mask.
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As if by magic,
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the side of the rectangle will inherit the
rounded edge of the oval underneath.
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This isn't destructive at all, and you can
edit both layers however you like.
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Move them around and unmask them to how
they were before.
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