Turns out, it was partial user error, partial software error - the pen tool in smart mode added some points at overlapping angles when I was clicking about trying to follow the video, and I'm not familiar enough with vector editing to have figured it out immediately. The cause for the issue only became apparent once I moved onto the next step in the video and tried to use the corner tool.
I'm working my way through the Affinity Designer tutorial videos to familiarize myself with the program, and there's some inconsistent behavior between what happens in the app on my machine and in the video.
When alt-clicking the add button to create a compound shape, the video tutorial merges the shapes into a non-destructive compound shape. Yet, on my computer, doing so causes the top shape to disappear.
The strange part is, the top shape will reappear if the position of the tear drop is moved far away from the top shape:
or moved higher up into the top shape:
Additionally, even though both shapes have the stroke set to none, there's still a gap between the two shapes, which indicates that it's not possible for Affinity Designer to do a non-destructive compound addition properly:
It's very confusing to have the program behave so inconsistently when following an in-house tutorial video — is this (another) bug, or did I miss a step and not set an option/preference properly?
thechexican got a reaction from PaulDean in Affinity Designer For beginners Too: Alt Clicking Add Button Causes Shape to Disappear