Choosing multiple groups as masks

[CylonRaven]

Despite thinking I had a pretty good handle on selections and masks, I find myself unable to figure out what I am sure is the simplest way to do something....

In the picture below, I have a bunch of shapes (as Groups, consisting of Curves), and an image which I want to drag across all the shapes and appear only within the hexes. Essentially, turn all the individual hex groups into a mask that reveals the image layer, while the rest of the board remains transparent. I can select an individual group and choose Selection from Layer, and I guess I could save that selection, and the one by one add each group to a new saved selection until I have a selection consisting of all the groups, and then turn it into a layer mask, but seems like there is probably a simpler technique.

 

[Dan C]

Hi @CylonRaven,

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response here! 

I certainly believe there is an easier method using Clipping & Masking layers. Could you please provide a copy of this document, so I can provide an example using this?

Many thanks in advance

[Move Along People]

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[Gear maker]

On 11/22/2020 at 11:04 AM, CylonRaven said:

I have a bunch of shapes (as Groups, consisting of Curves), and an image which I want to drag across all the shapes and appear only within the hexes. Essentially, turn all the individual hex groups into a mask that reveals the image layer, while the rest of the board remains transparent.

 How about if you select all the hexes then do either an add or a merge to make your mask?

[Alfred]

Go to the Layers panel, group the hexagons, drag the group and drop it onto the thumbnail of the image layer.

[Dazmondo77]

The great thing about affinity is how you can use any shape or pic as a mask plus it's dead easy to reposition if you want to rejig your composition rather than just rely on a standard layer mask

[CylonRaven]

This is helpful, especially Dazmondo77's videos. But I got stuck right here:



How did you get the transparent hexes as a mask over the dog image?

Here are my layers after I dragged a filled rectangle under my groups like you did and "punched" through them with Subtract.




One problem I seem to have is that my hexes are not merely polygons. Each one is actually a group consisting of two polygons (an inner and outer hex outline) and an ellipse (a center dot). So I can't highlight the groups and subtract from the blue rectangle mask, I had to open each one and select just the outer hex polygon from each (using Ctrl+Click to multiselect). Is my only real option to use only single-polygon hexes for this?

I notice you are working in Publisher but switching to Designer to do the layer editing. Not sure if that made the difference.