Expand stroke does nothing

[jackmcbrezel]

Hi together,

I want to do the following: I've painted a stroke with a vector brush and now I want to substract this stroke from a square, so that the filled rect is transparent where the stroke is. Now I came so far that I have to expand the stroke to a path that I can substract it from the square. But when I select the stroke and click the "Expand stroke" function nothing happens. The stroke stays as it is.

What am I doing wrong? Or is the expand function only not working for vector brushes?

stroke.afdesign

[Jowday]

7 minutes ago, jackmcbrezel said:

Hi together,

I want to do the following: I've painted a stroke with a vector brush and now I want to substract this stroke from a square, so that the filled rect is transparent where the stroke is. Now I came so far that I have to expand the stroke to a path that I can substract it from the square. But when I select the stroke and click the "Expand stroke" function nothing happens. The stroke stays as it is.

What am I doing wrong? Or is the expand function only not working for vector brushes?

stroke.afdesign 173.54 kB · 0 downloads

I have bad news for you. Just a couple of the built in "vector brushes" are real vector brushes. The rest are... bitmap. In Affinity Designer a "vector" brush is a bitmap brush on a vector path. To add insult to injury the menu item is not ghosted/inactive when there is no vector brush to expand. So a misleading term (at best), a misleading active menu item and no feedback from the program when you select expand stroke.

It is exactly how not to do it. And Serif did it exactly like that.

 

[jackmcbrezel]

@Jowday Thanks for your reply. This makes things much clearer. A good example how to not implement usability things (Don't wanna complain as I like the rest of the app).

Is there any indication if a brush is a "real" vector brush or only a textured path brush?

 

Hoping that Serif will at least grey out the menu item at the next release...

[Jowday]

9 minutes ago, jackmcbrezel said:

@Jowday Thanks for your reply. This makes things much clearer. A good example how to not implement usability things (Don't wanna complain as I like the rest of the app).

Is there any indication if a brush is a "real" vector brush or only a textured path brush?

It is not complaining. You are a paying customer and you are entitled to give Serif your honest feedback. Silence and no feedback is not progressive or helpful for anyone. Serif does value all customer feedback directed at Serif here. I know for sure. 🙂

There are two or three methods to know the difference:

1. The one you tried. Nothing happens after expand stroke.
2. Draw a line with the brush in an empty document and select file -> export, choose SVG or PDF. If you see this label "(Some areas will be rasterized)"... boom. Bitmap.
   In a real complex drawing you will not be told WHAT will be rasterized...
3. Chances are almost zero anyway that it is real vector, so ... 

[keiichi77]

I've bought Tattoo Art Brushes by The Artifex Forge from Affinity store to create svg icons.
There is no information about these brushes being pixel brushes. So when I created my icons,  I had to realize it, because I couldn't expand my drawings.

The sad thing about this missleading product is that it is available for Illustrator too as real vector format.

The description of the brushset in the Affinity store claims these are vector brushes.
But not.

I really don't know who needs pixel brushes in the vector persona. If I want to draw with pixel brushes, I change for the pixel persona.

 

[bobwal]

Sorry for the thread dredge but I'm just encountering this issue after buying a Frankentoon brush set. Is there any change on this issue? A little disappointing.

[Redbird]

So as i understand there is no fixes to expand stroke to work?

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, Redbird said:

So as i understand there is no fixes to expand stroke to work?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums, @Redbird.

The ‘Expand Stroke’ command in Affinity Designer only works with pure vectors, creating a filled shape that mimics the stroke. Since most of AD’s vector brushes are actually raster images laid down on a vector path, there’s no stroke to mimic.