Creating special curve effects

You can use Lines to Fills, Expand Shape, and the Soften Edges commands to add special effects such as filling lines with gradients, or erasing portions of a line, expanding filled shapes, and blurring the edges of shapes.

Expand Shape and Soften Edges can produce unexpected results and perform slowly on shapes that are very small or have small details. Soften Edges may create complex shapes that can quickly increase the file size of a Flash Player movie.

To convert lines to fills:

1	Select a line.
2	Choose Modify > Curves > Lines to Fills.
	Selected lines are converted to filled shapes. This is useful for creating special effects such as filling lines with gradients or being able to erase a portion of a line. Converting lines to fills can make file sizes larger, but may also speed up drawing for some animations.

To expand the shape of a filled object:

1	Select a filled shape. This command works best on a single filled color shape with no stroke.
2	Choose Modify > Curves > Expand Shape.
3	Set the Distance in pixels and Direction in the Expand Path dialog box. Expand enlarges the shape and Inset reduces it.

To soften the edges of an object:

1	Select a filled shape. This command works best on a single filled shape that has no stroke.
2	Choose Modify > Curves > Soften Edges.
3	Set the following options:
	Distance is the width of the soft edge.
	Expand or Inset controls whether the shape will be enlarged or reduced to soften the edges.
	Number of Steps controls how many curves will be used for the soft edge effect. More steps will provide a smoother effect but will also create larger files and be slower to draw.