Contour tool creates some weird shape and crashes app

[IsabelAracama]

See video attached. When I apply the contour tool it creates a weird broken contour that I am not sure is supposed to be like that. Is there maybe a way I can avoid this?

Also, I hardly can work with it as it freezes the app and I have to restart it.

 

Thanks.

[AllAppsUser]

Admittedly I've not been able to access your mp4, so I hesitate to try to help, but here goes with some general advice.

I've extensively used what Affinity are calling a contour tool in the past, and these things below can cause issues - speaking generally.

Basically - complexity in the paths:

• Path where there's nodes sitting on top of each other, duplicated (and worse, when they only overlap slightly). Booleaning often adds these.
• Too many nodes. There'll be a crash threshold where there's just too many that'll depend on the memory of your kit and how big the file size is in other respects. There is a simplify path feature, though I've found it rather crude compared to other apps.
• Sections of paths with lots of nodes clustered closely together (kind of the same as above, but only sections of the path involved)
• Paths that loop back on themselves too (difficult to describe, but you'll know if you inspect close-up and see a teeny-tiny loop or three.).
• Reversing the direction of the path sometimes helps too (I believe you can do that  - in Designer - think I saw it in passing.. might be wrong)
• Also, your settings can be an issue (too big a jump, or too many jumps). You might have to do it in stages.. but the above should sort most things out.

All the above can take some hunting down. You need to zoom-in.

If you've drawn your path, then it should be fairly clean, depending on how much booleaning (add, subtract etc.) you've done. I'd counsel you to still check it over.

If it's imported... hum, beware = Messy complex paths R Us.

If it's a traced path = same as above.

Zoom-in, have a really good inspect, simplify and clean-up. Be nit-picky and pedantic about having really clean paths is my counsel ->  "Craft your path"!

Also, last, if you're doing it in what's already a complex file... perhaps copy and paste it outside, do the contour operation in a new document, and then paste it back in.

Hope I've helped. Apologies if the mp4 shows something I've not covered and I'm wide of the mark.

[IsabelAracama]

@ProDesigner thanks very much. It's 3 circles from primitives into a compound overlapping. And the video.. sorry.. I don't know why you cannot see it... but anyways... I think I am going to try some of your suggestions... I might have gone too far using the contour. thanks again.

[AllAppsUser]

No worries @IsabelAracama. I think there's something about how the forum stores or links to mp4's. So it's not you.

Hope you have success.