Subtract Function Makes Both Objects Disappear

[ClaireE]

Hi. I'm working on a logo, and I'm running into problems with the Subtract function. 

1) I've attached a picture of what the finished product SHOULD look like.

2) If I remove the black background, you can see the black mustache looking thing (hiding the bottom of the sun). I'm trying to subtract that from the sun object so that this logo to be on any color background and look good.

3) So I have my sun object OVER the mustache and I hit Subtract and...

4) This happens. 😢 In fact, this also happens when I hit Add or Xor or Intersect. Both of objects just disappear.

[firstdefence]

Put the black moustache above the sun, to boolean subtract it.

Alternatively you could set the blend mode of the black moustache layer to Erase and nest it under the sun layer. You will also have to adjust the blend options, coverage map slightly on the sun layer.

 

[ClaireE]

1) So I tried your first solution and this is what happened. 🤔

2) I tried your second solution, and set the mustache to Erase blend, and it looked perfect...

3) ...but then when I nested it under the sun layer and changed the coverage it looked like the mustache never even existed.

(Edit: I've found that when I rasterize the sun rays, THEN the mustache will nest under in Erase blend and everything will look proper. But I really want the sun to remain as curves.)

Edited May 2, 2020 by ClaireE
More detail

[firstdefence]

Hi Claire can you upload the original file, so I can look at how you have it constructed?

[PixelPest]

Not sure if this helps; I built this from scratch and will work with the Boolean tools in a non-destructive way.

BChurch.afdesign

[ClaireE]

Thanks, PixelPest. Wow, I can't believe I could've used a cog to make the sun rays instead of doing it line by line. 🤦🏼‍♀️

firstdefence, here is my original file so you can have a look. I suppose I could just use PixelPest's file, but I do want to know what I'm doing wrong. 

FBC Logo 1.afdesign

[Jowday]

On 4/30/2020 at 11:02 PM, ClaireE said:

Hi. I'm working on a logo, and I'm running into problems with the Subtract function. 

• 1) I've attached a picture of what the finished product SHOULD look like.
• 2) If I remove the black background, you can see the black mustache looking thing (hiding the bottom of the sun). I'm trying to subtract that from the sun object so that this logo to be on any color background and look good.
• 3) So I have my sun object OVER the mustache and I hit Subtract and...
• 4) This happens. 😢 In fact, this also happens when I hit Add or Xor or Intersect. Both of objects just disappear.

Hi @ClaireE

I am not sure I understand what you are trying to do exactly. But perhaps this will help?

You are trying to subtract the moustache from the sun? These to I named Mustasche (should be moustache though  ) and Sun.

1. Select each of them in turn and select Layer -> Expand stroke
2. Select both - and subtract

Resulting shape:

Hope that was your goal.

You have to move the white cross up afterwards. I am not sure why you constructed it like this?

 

[ClaireE]

9 minutes ago, Jowday said:

Hi @ClaireE

Hope that was your goal.

You have to move the white cross up afterwards. I am not sure why you constructed it like this?

Hi @Jowday, YES that was exactly what I was trying to do. So the issue was I was working with lines/strokes and not shapes then?

What's wrong with the cross construction? I don't understand. To be honest, I don't understand what I'm doing half the time when I'm designing though.

(Also, in American English it's mustache. 😉 The US has a habit of creating unique spellings of words from the rest of the English-speaking world).

[Jowday]

6 minutes ago, ClaireE said:

Hi @Jowday, YES that was exactly what I was trying to do. So the issue was I was working with lines/strokes and not shapes then?

What's wrong with the cross construction? I don't understand. To be honest, I don't understand what I'm doing half the time when I'm designing though.

(Also, in American English it's mustache. 😉 The US has a habit of creating unique spellings of words from the rest of the English-speaking world).

Indeed it was. 🙂

The cross looks okay I just didn't understand the 14 px invisible stroke. That stroke materialized when I executed an expand stroke operation on it - I believed there was a reason behind the fat stroke  - but probably not then.😄

Don't worry - but monkey around and try to learn how a vector drawing program works. Learning takes years - but it is so much more fun than screaming out in frustration when you are stuck! And remember this quote from the scientist Niels Bohr:

Quote

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.

Yeah. I am Danish. I am caught in the middle between the many needless language variations between US and UK. Sometimes my software is localized in US-English with a UK spellchecker and the confusion is total.

Glad I could help. Stay safe "over there" 🙂

 

[ClaireE]

Haha, thank you.

Thanks everyone for your help! My problem is solved, and I've learned some new things.

[firstdefence]

Just a small note, and a Sunday morning brain workout 🤔
Affinity seems to have a big issue with it’s brushes when flipped rotated. Affinity rotates the brush style leading to an upside-down brush style, it can’t just reflect it.

This leads to this annoying effect.

The only when I have found to fix this annoying “this really shouldn't be happening in a quality app” effect, is to create a flip brush.

The only trouble with this is you have to manually recreate the original brush and flip it horizontally so that the flipped brush is a reflection of the original, the result of using this flip brush is to have a brush style correctly reflected.

So Affinity, I throw’eth down mine gauntlet and challenge thee to…
Either, sort this out so we have properly reflected brushes instead of rotated brushes, or, create duplicates of brush styles flipped.

These are the brushes I knocked up, it’s the top brush that effectively solves the problem, for consistency I’d also use the bottom brush for the right side of the book.
Engraving Left & Right.afbrushes

@ClaireE If you let me know which brush style you used I’ll make a flip brush for you.

[ClaireE]

@firstdefence Wow, thanks, I hadn't even noticed that!

So at this point, I have 3 different styles of the logo (the one in this forum being one of them) that I'm showing to someone and having him pick one. If he doesn't pick this one I won't worry too much about the brushes. If he does pick this logo, I will definitely let you know the brush style so you can make a flip brush for me. I really appreciate the offer! You all are the best.

[Jowday]

Do you need vector output @ClaireE

[ClaireE]

On 5/5/2020 at 4:02 PM, Jowday said:

Do you need vector output @ClaireE

Sure!

[Jowday]

34 minutes ago, ClaireE said:

Sure!

I thought so. Then you can't use that brush for the moustache! It is not a real vector brush. It is pixels on a vector path. Vector brushes in AD are not real vector brushes. When you export the file to SVG or PDF the moustache will be exported as pixels:

To get pure vector output from AD you now and then have to make everything by hand. In this case the moustache. 

  

[Jowday]

Try to export just the "vector" brush curve. You will get the discrete notification message "Some areas will be rasterized" which is bad news.

 

[ClaireE]

16 minutes ago, Jowday said:

I thought so. Then you can't use that brush for the moustache! It is not a real vector brush. It is pixels on a vector path. Vector brushes in AD are not real vector brushes. When you export the file to SVG or PDF the moustache will be exported as pixels:

To get pure vector output from AD you now and then have to make everything by hand. In this case the moustache.  

The frowny faces are very clarifying, thank you. 😂 

Also, I just heard back from the church that they are interested one of the other style logos I sent them. In which case I won't be doing any more work on this particular design. But thanks for the tips everybody!

[Jowday]

4 minutes ago, ClaireE said:

The frowny faces are very clarifying, thank you. 😂 

Also, I just heard back from the church that they are interested one of the other style logos I sent them. In which case I won't be doing any more work on this particular design. But thanks for the tips everybody!

🙂

Best of luck - and remember the frowny faces and their "vector" brush warning! ❕ 💥

[ClaireE]

Definitely. 👍🏼

Just curious, how would you go about creating that brush look manually as a vector? Drawing pen lines?

[firstdefence]

5 hours ago, ClaireE said:

Definitely. 👍🏼

Just curious, how would you go about creating that brush look manually as a vector? Drawing pen lines?

You could draw the shape you want with the brush and then trace over with curves (Pen lines)

[Jowday]

12 hours ago, ClaireE said:

Definitely. 👍🏼

Just curious, how would you go about creating that brush look manually as a vector? Drawing pen lines?

One approach I can think of without having Designer handy on this computer (I hope my memory serves us well):

• You can re-use the mustache path you used for the "vector" brush and use one of the only to brushes than can be exported as vector. I don't remember the name of the brush. One of the pen categories, topmost pen. You can use expand stroke on it to verify. If is turns into a shape with nodes after Expand stroke, bingo.
• Then you have a single line so duplicate it until you have five
  • First copy: press control + j to make a copy, then pull it down as desired
  • Third, fourth and fifth copy: press control + j three times (power duplicate; the copies will be transformed/moved down exactly like the previous duplicate)
• Adjust their width from beginning to end from the stroke studio using "pressure sensitivity"
• Adjust their lengths on the right side to match those from the "vector" brush
• Group them
• Duplicate the group
• Hide one of these groups (backup because now real work starts)
• Select layer -> expand stroke on each path (now they are regular vector objects with border and fill)
• Place a (rotated) shape over them and subtract it many times to get the dashed look (tip: here it is smart to use compound shapes, so you can fiddle a lot until a line looks okay. Layer -> Convert to curves to covert the compound shape to a regular vector object. (make backup of groups first)
• With node tool adjust as needed

One simple approach. My concentration is not world class right now. I just bicycled for hours and I can almost feel my pulse in my nose. I hope the recipe made sense. At least it should result in pure vector output. And flip horizontally on a copy should provide you with a correctly mirrored object.

[mamamunikabozena]

its not A MOUSTACHE ! Its Holy Bible !! 😆 😆