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Affinity Designer: How to create a transparent hole in a object.


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Hi,

I want to make an object (green square) with a transparent hole inside of it. How do you do this? I can't seem to find the option for this

So basically a square, with a circle inside of it, but you cannot see the fill of the circle as well as the fill of the square. So a square with a hole inside. 
In my attachment the circle is black, however I want it gone.
Black hole that should be transparent.afdesign 

If I try to make the circle a mask of the layer, I get a round circle...? How do I inverse this? Removing the circle not the green square?
Masked square that gives a round green circle.afdesign

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Hi @Kloë_Blackbird,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
Select both shapes (the green square and the black circle) go to menu Layer > Geometry > Subtract or use the respective icon in the main toolbar in Affinity Designer.
Another way is to set the Blend mode of the black circle layer to Erase on the top of the Layers panel although this last case will force the rasterisation of the shapes when you export to a vector format.

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2 hours ago, MEB said:

Another way is to set the Blend mode of the black circle layer to Erase on the top of the Layers panel although this last case will force the rasterisation of the shapes when you export to a vector format.

... and to be more specific when forcing vectors ...

If you use the erase blend mode and perform a SVG export, let's say a to SVG with the rasterize nothing option setup in order to keep all vectors, it will create all vectors but without the desired erase effect. Since to accomplish that blend mode behavior for SVG, some masking (<mask>) would be needed, which Affinity doesn't support for SVG. It can't yet generate that and it also cannot parse/read it. - One would have to alter the generated SVG code manually here afterwards, so building a mask out of the initial erase mode layer.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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  • 1 year later...

I do not get it. I select both layers and press subtract but alI I end up with is the one shape in the other one. If I offset the top layer somewhat then it cuts for real. What am i doing wrong? See attached.

[EDIT] I tried the Alternate Fillmode mentioned in another topic but, while it looked correct in Designer, that did not help when I exported to SVG - ending up with a solid where i wanted the transparency. I finally used Inkscape where I created the same shapes but going to menu: Path > Difference and then exporting as SVG gave the expected result. Would like to know how to do this correctly in Designer though.

 

 

Screenshot 2022-09-09 122415.jpg

Screenshot 2022-09-09 122440.jpg

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1 hour ago, plyoung said:

Any other suggestions?

If you can attach an example Affinity format file to a new reply showing what the layers look like before moving or subtracting anything, someone may be able to suggest something that will do what you want.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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For what it is worth I cannot seem to achieve the top screenshot's look no matter what I do. So a look at the document or at least the layers panel before and after would help.

1747383641_ScreenShot2022-09-09at11_09_27AM.png.7cf59a1d0c6b94ca2f0eec9ee38a35fd.png   

 546589043_ScreenShot2022-09-09at11_08_23AM.png.32f6c989b20fa69bbe9efe10907b9e36.png

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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51 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

For what it is worth I cannot seem to achieve the top screenshot's look no matter what I do.

To me, it looks like there is a single "(Curves") object consisting of 4 individual curves (because there are 4 red nodes visible), but I do not know how the OP created that.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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16 hours ago, PixelPest said:

Try: Select 1 node from the rounded rectangle and hit Action: Reverse Curves

That did it! Thanks so much.

Background, since it seems the way I "made" the shapes is what caused initial problem and might help someone else happening on this thread.

I am trying to create some icons which are placed into a font for use in a game as prompts (why I need SVG exports). In this case I needed the R, F, and V keys. I am using the font https://shinmera.github.io/promptfont/ and wanted to do something similar to the F1, F2, etc keys, but for R, F, and V.

So the 1st shape, that curved rectangle, is just the "F1" from the font inserted via the Glyph Browser. I then remove the nodes that made up the F1 carving so that it is a solid rectangle. I then create second object/layer, the R or example, and convert that to curves too. Then I select these two layers, R and the curved rect, and hit subtract, expecting the R to carve a hole in the lower layer rectangle. But I ended up with that R nodes inside the rectangle nodes. Not a hole.

First selecting a node (or nodes) from the rectangle and doing the Action: Reverse and then doing subtract worked.

 

 

 

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