Converting between brush strokes and vector paths

A brush stroke and a plain vector shape aren't permanently different things in Formo. The relationship between them runs in both directions, and starting with one doesn't lock you out of the other. Both conversions are reached the same way: right-click → a specific menu item. Neither has a keyboard shortcut.

Flattening a stroke into a plain vector shape

How to do it. Select a brush stroke, right-click it, and choose Flatten to vector from the context menu.

What actually happens. The stroke's painted outline — the actual filled shape your ink occupies on screen — gets adopted directly as a plain vector shape's geometry. The result looks pixel-identical to the stroke a moment before, but it's now a different kind of object entirely: a static vector shape with points, fills, and strokes like any other, not a brush stroke anymore.

What you lose in the trade. The raw pressure-and-tilt input data (the actual recorded gesture your hand made) is discarded. That's specifically what powers the "select it and adjust smoothing/size to regenerate the whole line" behavior covered in Reshaping a Brush Stroke; once flattened, there's no raw gesture left to regenerate from. Nib configuration, curve settings, and brush-specific properties go with it too: the flattened shape has none of them, because it's no longer a brush object.

What you keep. The exact visible shape: every bit of the outline's geometry, including any nib angle, pressure taper, and width variation that was baked into that outline at the moment you flattened it. Visually, nothing changes; only the underlying data model does. Any manual width-point edits from direct path editing are part of that same outline, so those are preserved in the flattened geometry too. They just stop being editable as "width points" afterward and become ordinary path geometry instead.

Undoing it. Press Ctrl+Z (or use the Undo action from the tools bar). It's an exact restoration: the original brush stroke comes back with its raw input data completely intact, as if the flatten never happened. You can flatten, decide you want to keep editing it as a brush stroke instead, undo, and lose nothing.

Inking a vector path with the current brush

How to do it. Select a plain vector shape — anything from a pen-drawn path to a rectangle, ellipse, star, or polygon — right-click it, and choose Ink with brush.

What actually happens. The shape's own outline becomes the centerline for a brand-new brush stroke, painted with whatever nib, size, and curve settings your brush is currently set to. The result is a brush stroke following that exact path: same nib, same pressure profile as anything you'd drawn freehand, and just as editable afterward: selectable, sculptable, and its smoothing/size adjustable the normal way.

It works on more than just pen paths. Because the action first bakes whatever shape you selected down to a plain path if it isn't one already, this works directly on a rectangle, ellipse, star, or polygon too. Draw a precise geometric shape with the shape tools, then ink it, and you get a brush-quality stroke tracing that exact geometric outline. This is a useful shortcut for combining precision (a perfect circle, an exact hexagon) with the brush's expressive, textured look.

One limitation. There's no recording behind an inked path the way there is behind something you actually drew by hand — the "raw gesture" a hand-drawn stroke remembers doesn't exist here, because there was no gesture, just a path. Adjusting nib and size afterward still works normally; it's specifically the "regenerate from an original hand movement" behavior that has nothing to regenerate from, the same gap flattening leaves behind.

Why both conversions exist

Together, these two conversions mean you're never actually choosing between "precise" and "expressive" up front. Sketch loose and expressive with the brush, then flatten once you're happy with the final shape and just want simple, static geometry. Or build something exact with the shape tools or pen first, then ink it for the brush's textured, tapered feel. Either direction is one right-click and one menu choice — reversible, not a one-way commitment. Between the two, a natural loop emerges for iterating on a shape's feel: ink a precise polygon, sculpt or width-edit the resulting stroke until it feels right, flatten it once you're happy, and you're left with clean, simplified vector geometry that still carries every bit of the texture you sculpted in, without the stroke's editable weight sitting on the document forever if you don't need it.

Next up — Custom dynamics: wiring pressure, tilt, and other live inputs directly into a stroke's shape.