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Why Can’t I Expand Curves On An Object With Brush Effect?


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Hey there @serif, thanx for a great product. I’m wanting to create outlines on an object so I can ‘subtract’ from a solid layer below to use as an area to be cutout from this layer. Now I have created a ‘circle’ and then applied a ‘brush stroke’ and then went to ‘convert to curves’ and then to, ‘create outlines’. The latter two options don’t seem to apply. Thank you!

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Hi Bowzer!

"Create Outlines"  ("Expand Stroke"), if this is what you mean, only works with pure vector curves ("Solid Brush") in DESIGNER. Your curves consist of pixels aligned to a vector curve, even they may be created by using a vector brush ("Textured Intensity Brush" in this case). Those unfortunately can't be converted to outlines.

So you can only follow Lee's hint. But in that case you will get a pixel image, and loose some of the advantages of the vector graphic.

Edit: But your circle shapes are not too complicated. I think it shouldn't be too difficult to vectorise that shapes with the pen tool. Then you will get outlines and will be able to subtract it from the cloud shape.

Edit again: Or try this: Draw a circle shape over your circle shape. Click "Expand Stroke" (menu "Layers"). Give the outlines a thin stroke and set the Fill to transparent. Change to the Node Tool. Hold Shift and drag the nodes of the expanded shape to fit to your original. Shift will enable you to drag exactly horizontal or vertical. Use the result to subtract it from the cloud shape.

Hope that helps!

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13 hours ago, Lee D said:

I'm unable to view your video, however the Create Outlines is available from the Select menu within the Pixel persona, so you'll need to switch to that and use the selection tool to make your selection before using Select > Outline.

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13 hours ago, Lee D said:

I'm unable to view your video, however the Create Outlines is available from the Select menu within the Pixel persona, so you'll need to switch to that and use the selection tool to make your selection before using Select > Outline.

Hey there Lee D, ok I’ll give this a try. This would indeed make it easier for mor complex brush shapes. I was able to replicate the brush shape using a stroke and tapering off the ends, then expand stroke and subtract from solid the layer beneath to get the desired effect. Thanks for your suggestion. Cheers

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13 hours ago, iconoclast said:

Hi Bowzer!

"Create Outlines"  ("Expand Stroke"), if this is what you mean, only works with pure vector curves ("Solid Brush") in DESIGNER. Your curves consist of pixels aligned to a vector curve, even they may be created by using a vector brush ("Textured Intensity Brush" in this case). Those unfortunately can't be converted to outlines.

So you can only follow Lee's hint. But in that case you will get a pixel image, and loose some of the advantages of the vector graphic.

Edit: But your circle shapes are not too complicated. I think it shouldn't be too difficult to vectorise that shapes with the pen tool. Then you will get outlines and will be able to subtract it from the cloud shape.

Edit again: Or try this: Draw a circle shape over your circle shape. Click "Expand Stroke" (menu "Layers"). Give the outlines a thin stroke and set the Fill to transparent. Change to the Node Tool. Hold Shift and drag the nodes of the expanded shape to fit to your original. Shift will enable you to drag exactly horizontal or vertical. Use the result to subtract it from the cloud shape.

Hope that helps!

Hey there iconoclast, thanks for the run through, I didn’t know that about the brushes. This is great food for thought, and yes I was able to replicate the simple brush stroke by creating a vector stroke…tapering the ends and the creating outlines to subtract from the solid layer below exposing the solid layer below that. Lee D made a good point as this would be great with more complex brush shapes that would take quite sometime to draw out with the vector pen/pencil tool. Cheers and thanks for those words of wisdom. Cheers

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You're verry welcome!

One additional hint for more complex shapes. Some apps can autotrace images. That means that you can load pixel images in that apps and let the app vectorise them automatically. For example the free vector graphics software Inkscape can do this. I hope that Designer will also have this feature in the future. One disadvantage of this is that the nodes are spread quite randomly, so that it is often not easy to do corrections of the curves afterwards. But it is often helpfull anyway.

Attention! If you want to download free software you should always do that from their official websites. In case of Inkscape it is inkscape.org. I say that because some criminals have occupied the top level domains of some softwares like f.e. audicity to spread malware. Normally you can find the original links to the official websites in the Wikipedia-articles about each software.

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Hey there iconoclast thanks for the reply. Yeah look your not wrong, the auto trace option would be great in Affinity Designer. There is one in Vectornator that I’ve tried but it seems pretty dismal. Thanks again for the Inkscape tip I think I’ll look at it. Cheers

……I took a look at Inkscape and it seems pretty good the only thing is I don’t have a computer and there doesn’t seem to be an app for IOSiPad.

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OK, I don't really know that, but as far as I know unfortunately only very few developers of open source software owe a Mac, so the development of Mac-versions is often a little bit neglected. They are mainly focused on Linux and Windows, I think. That's one of the main reasons why I'm still on Windows.

But however, Inkscape is a very nice piece of software, but not really a substitute for Designer for me, because there are some important things missing in it. For example, the color management doesn't support CMYK.

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16 hours ago, Bowzer said:

……I took a look at Inkscape and it seems pretty good the only thing is I don’t have a computer and there doesn’t seem to be an app for IOSiPad.

Have a look at Vectorize! Currently 50% off and does a great job of converting to vectors. 

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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