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I am so stumped. This would be so easy in Photoshop but after a day of trial and error and googling, I remain perplexed. I am making a logo that should over lap in a chain-link sort of way.  I tried going to pixel persona and making but the selection tool is incredibly ragged and imprecise. I could get it to work in a rigged sort of way if I didn't need the white stroke, but i do.   Here's an example of what I'm trying to do... So much to learn. Any help/tips would be greatly appreciated.

 

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Edited by Christina Upton
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You could either cut the invisible part out of the background object – or you place a copy of the foreground object which you limit by nesting its layer in a masking object. For instance:

1019210387_ringback-front1.jpg.7155b953806b75eb91042e626f308afc.jpg

 

780200462_ringback-front2.jpg.981d773b01e341471c1130e61d443bc3.jpg

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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1 hour ago, thomaso said:

You could either cut the invisible part out of the background object – or you place a copy of the foreground object which you limit by nesting its layer in a masking object.

The latter is how I would do it. Clipping/nesting a duplicate of the lower ring (to show only a small part of it on top of the upper ring) is very straightforward, but accurately cutting out the part of the upper ring that you want to make invisible is likely to be quite fiddly.

Create two small shapes (squares in this example) to cover the overlaps, and then create a duplicate of the yellow ring and move it above the blue ring in the layer stack:

71F100D3-5F8C-4A23-953C-8BB6AAB9F36F.jpeg.924cea3c1672ce01f87023c9715dbba7.jpeg

Cover the overlap with one of the squares

C5F515D9-9051-4F4C-A33E-B2AEF0E0864F.jpeg.90882c69f26ba6d3cdbf155ac3cd143f.jpeg

and then nest the duplicate ring inside the square:

083CE36E-4442-4872-856E-92C27F25A75B.jpeg.532ea44cf073ecbe466ba5840fc593a3.jpeg
 

Now create a duplicate of the blue ring, move it above the red ring in the layer stack, and cover it with the other square:

7B7751B1-6C9E-4C20-9046-52C90AD57DD3.jpeg.4d4be87b9406c8b231d728e23e419f46.jpeg
 

As above, nest the duplicate ring inside the square:

F2C8887B-B324-446E-9B2F-DEEBAEDF1F9F.jpeg.e2a57b742c2dab8b402e3c259256191d.jpeg
 

Here’s the result with the nested object deselected:

DC3E9263-4BAD-4509-99FF-87D2F3A456A4.jpeg.33eae27d8ed58874fb025232e25b7fa7.jpeg

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Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Hi @Alfred,

I think thomaso used the same procedure as you. He only talked about masking, but also used clipping (see your Layers panel).

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So thanks much for the help. I learned a lot - did not know about adjusting the gap of the donut and that worked fairly well but not completely.  The problem I am running into is I need to have a stroke around the letters (actually "cbc") and when I try the various ways to accomplishing the cutout, I end up with a funky stroke because the letter is in pieces.  I tried making the little overlapping pieces, and yes, that was quite fiddly,  but I was thinking I could use those to make a vector mask and that might work? Vector masking, another thing I've got to go do a tutorial on.  My brain thinks in Photoshop....

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9 hours ago, Pšenda said:

talked about masking, but also used clipping

Isn't clipping always masking? Like a picture frames masks the larger (> invisible) parts of a nested image.

What exactly is the difference?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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10 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Isn't clipping always masking? Like a picture frames masks the larger (> invisible) parts of a nested image.

What exactly is the difference?

Masking simply constrains visibility of the masked object. Clipping does that but also the clipped object is blended with the clipping object.

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> Masking simply constrains visibility of the masked object. Clipping does that but also the clipped object is blended with the clipping object.

May be I have a language (translation) problem? Do you mean with "the clipped object is blended" that one of the objects is nested inside the other? 
("Blending" in my understanding is like "merging" or "mixing".)

Yes, a mask does not need a nested object, this way not every masking is clipping has a nested object – but every clipping is masking, isn't it?

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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9 minutes ago, thomaso said:

May be I have a language (translation) problem?

I use Affinity language - naming conventions.
https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/pages/Layers/layerClip.html
https://affinity.help/designer/English.lproj/pages/Layers/LayerMasks.html

Affinity Store (MSI/EXE): Affinity Suite (ADe, APh, APu) 2.4.0.2301
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Dell Latitude E5570, i5-6440HQ 2.60 GHz, 8 GB, Intel HD Graphics 530, 1920 x 1080, Windows 11 Pro, Version 23H2, Build 22631.3155.
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11 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Hi @Alfred,

I think thomaso used the same procedure as you. He only talked about masking, but also used clipping (see your Layers panel).

Yes, indeed. That’s why I responded to his comment

12 hours ago, thomaso said:

You could either cut the invisible part out of the background object – or you place a copy of the foreground object which you limit by nesting its layer in a masking object.

by saying

11 hours ago, Alfred said:

The latter is how I would do it. Clipping/nesting a duplicate of the lower ring (to show only a small part of it on top of the upper ring) is very straightforward, but accurately cutting out the part of the upper ring that you want to make invisible is likely to be quite fiddly.

As Christina has observed, problems arise if you crop an object which has a stroke around it (or if, for example, you crop an object which has a 3D effect applied): the cropped edges acquire the same appearance as the uncropped ones. When you use clipping, you create a ‘clipview’ window through which you view the underlying object, so any strokes or effects are still applied to the whole object (instead of being applied only to the visible part of it).

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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12 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Affinity language - naming conventions.

The naming conventions used by Affinity aren't really unambigous. As in the help text, "masked" is used to describe the clipping action:

Quote

Layer clipping

Clipping involves positioning one object inside another. The path of the parent object becomes the new boundaries for the child object. Any areas of the child object which lie outside the parent object's path are masked (hidden).

So, when I wrote above "(...) which you limit by nesting its layer in a masking object" isn't it clear and unambiguous?
Not "in a (Mask) object" (> layer label) but "mask" as action. This latter mask can be of various types with various layer labels, one is "(Rectangle)".

The difficulty appears similar to the difference between "(Layer)" and "layer", in which the sound is the same, but the difference is only clear from the spelling.

In this sample "officially" only the triangle is a mask (see the cropping symbol in its layer thumbnail) – but the cloud does masking, clipping and cropping, too, doesn't it?
1638260772_maskingisclippingtoo.jpg.f07ec8521b844abcac93031be000817e.jpg

Note the different insets of the thumbnails: An "official" mask thumbnail is inset slightly more than the half of the thumbnail width, whereas the "official" clip is inset a little less than the half. – By the way a difference which isn't shown in the useful overview of hakoo's link.

 

11 hours ago, Alfred said:

problems arise if you crop an object which has a stroke around it

Another option for OP's ring example would use no fill but stroke color only + AD's Appearance Panel. If the stroke is set to "Butt Cap" then its color won't appear at its cut ends:

1652568875_strokewith2colorsButtCap.jpg.9571e25649c646d3ed5c4c0417804c73.jpg
(Any idea why this two-color curve appears in its layer thumbnail so tiny?)

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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50 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Note the different insets of the thumbnails: An "official" mask thumbnail is inset slightly more than the half of the thumbnail width, whereas the "official" clip is inset a little less than the half.

Note also that the mask thumbnail bears a ‘crop’ icon, whereas the clip thumbnail doesn’t. Users often seem to post about cropping, masking, clipping and nesting as if they’re four different things, but when you’re discussing vector masks they’re really only two.

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52 minutes ago, Alfred said:

Note also that the mask thumbnail bears a ‘crop’ icon, whereas the clip thumbnail doesn’t. Users often seem to post about cropping, masking, clipping and nesting as if they’re four different things, but when you’re discussing vector masks they’re really only two.

Is this meant to correct my experience or opinion – or rather to confirm my impression that these various words for "(partially) hiding" are not at all clear and unambiguous, neither in human language nor in Affinity terms?

I wonder since I wrote in the post you quote: 
In this sample "officially" only the triangle is a mask (see the cropping symbol in its layer thumbnail)

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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18 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Is this meant to correct my experience or opinion – or rather to confirm my impression that these various words for "(partially) hiding" are not at all clear and unambiguous, neither in human language nor in Affinity terms?

I wonder since I wrote in the post you quote: 
In this sample "officially" only the triangle is a mask (see the cropping symbol in its layer thumbnail)

My apologies, Thomas. All it’s meant to do is confirm that I didn’t read your post carefully enough! blush.gif

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3 hours ago, Alfred said:

As Christina has observed, problems arise if you crop an object which has a stroke around it (or if, for example, you crop an object which has a 3D effect applied): the cropped edges acquire the same appearance as the uncropped ones. When you use clipping, you create a ‘clipview’ window through which you view the underlying object, so any strokes or effects are still applied to the whole object (instead of being applied only to the visible part of it).

For objects with a 3D fx and an external glow for example, someone (I think it's @JimmyJack) had proposed a solution: instead of using a square, draw on each intersection a shape that exactly follows the contours of the shapes.

2020-07-20_150447.jpg

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