Shape Builder not working properly (or is it me?)

[DamijanI]

Hello there! Sorry if I haven't put this to the right topic, because to be honest I dont know if its the tool or because I am a noob....

What I want to accomplish is to cut the "I" into three pieces by using the new shape builder and putting the letter "D" on top, so that I can cut with the half-elipse of the "D" through the "I". By the end I should have one top and one bottom piece and also one middle piece as seperate objects.

But what sounds so easy happens to be really tricky in reality... No matter how I put the layers it always shapes them weirdly into different shapes which I have no use of.

And I dont know HOW exactly I can pick the right shapes to make it right because it automaticly picks the wrong ones.

Why is that so? The Objects are already transformed to curves. Is it a configuration problem? Is it the Object? Is it me??

Note: If I use the "old" Object shape it also doesn't work.

I am a beginner on this, so please do only roast me If you are willing to help me first  

Thank you! 

Damijan

 

 

[Komatös]

Hi @DamijanI

You are doing everything right so far, the problem is the shape builder, which has problems with shapes created from fonts.

As far as I know, the developers are already aware of this.

[DamijanI]

Thank for the feedback @Komatös!

Ok, so this means the only workaround for this is to build shapes without fonts but with normal shapes? 

Or does that issue the same thing to normal shapes?

At least it's not me

😂

Greetings from Germany

Damijan 

Edited November 28, 2022 by DamijanI

[Komatös]

Ja, mit normalen Formen funktioniert es, Aber Fonts mag der Shape Builder irgendwie nicht.

Wenn die Du Buchstaben oder Worte mit dem Zeichenstift nachzeichnest, dann könntest Du diese "Pseudo" Zeichen auch mit dem Shape Builder verwenden.

 

Yes, it works with normal shapes, but the Shape Builder somehow doesn't like fonts.

If you trace the letters or words with the drawing pen, then you could also use these "pseudo" characters with the Shape Builder.
 

[4dimage]

Tried to find a workaround with several path conversions. Used the "old fashioned" montage group with boolean subtract for testing this.

boolean-operations-path-from-text-workaround_1-1.afdesign

The only workaround that produced "correct" pathes from text was to convert all vertices in the text -> path to "smart" vertices. Whatever "smart" means ?!

Then the boolean operation (subtract rectangle from letter shapes) works as expected. Unfortunately the original shape is terribly deformed and can not longer be used...

There must be something special with these vectors from text 🤔

 

[DamijanI]

Thank you guys!

[Dan C]

Hi @DamijanI,

Thanks for your report and our sincerest apologies for the delayed response here. We are exceptionally busy following the release of V2 and we thank you for your continued patience and understanding here.

I can confirm I've replicated this issue here and I'm getting it logged with our developers now, I hope this helps

[KCP]

I'm now into more than a dozen design files having used the shape builder and it fails half the time. It especially fails to combine and subtract shapes when I drag over them, regardless of how fast or slow I drag the mouse. I really hope that the developers are addressing these bugs because they make it impossible to use the software in a professional workflow. 

[KCP]

After watching my vid, it occurred to me to try changing the stroked shapes to solid colors, after which I was able to combine the shapes. Illustrator has no problem combining stroked shapes. I don't know if Serif is doing this by design or if it's a bug. Here is a video of Illustrator handling this design with strokes: 

 

I also find the gradient tool in Affinity to be less refined. Fwiw, none of this is meant to disparage the software. I actually support Serif's efforts to bring an alternative to Adobe and hope that these refinements are important to the developers. Adobe has taken the path of market cap through general consumers at the expense of its professional users who have depended on its software. I would happily pay more for Affinity if there were a concerted effort to bring the product up to commercial specs. 

[KCP]

This time, the app posted a "Shape Builder Failed" message.

[KCP]

I converted my grid-line strokes to curves and the shape builder didn't crash. The problem here is that converting my grid lines to curves created tiny composited star shapes on which I had to zoom way in to combine. That process is not only tedious and time-consuming but also easy to miss these tiny shapes. See attachments. I really want app this to work, especially now that I've ended my Adobe subscription, although I'm surprised that the shape builder function for Designer actually graduated from the beta stage. 

[Aammppaa]

The fact that you are getting little stars suggests to me that your lines were not perfectly aligned to start with. Those tiny overlaps always existed, and were probably what is tripping up the Shape Builder.

How did you create your grid? I used a Triangle Grid, with Snap to grid enabled, and things worked well. I did get one stray line left in a resulting shape, but that was easily deleted.

Post your files if you want someone to experiment with your design.

For what it is worth, I tried out both examples, and with minimal fiddling was able to get both to work. Also I find the Illustrator example to be very inefficient, and would suggest only making ¼ of the knot, then using Symbols to fill in the other ¾ automatically.

[KCP]

14 minutes ago, Aammppaa said:

The fact that you are getting little stars suggests to me that your lines were not perfectly aligned to start with. Those tiny overlaps always existed, and were probably what is tripping up the Shape Builder.

How did you create your grid? I used a Triangle Grid, with Snap to grid enabled, and things worked well. I did get one stray line left in a resulting shape, but that was easily deleted.

Post your files if you want someone to experiment with your design.

For what it is worth, I tried out both examples, and with minimal fiddling was able to get both to work. Also I find the Illustrator example to be very inefficient, and would suggest only making ¼ of the knot, then using Symbols to fill in the other ¾ automatically.

The stars come from the lines being shapes instead of strokes. The same issue occurs with square grids. The software problem is that the shape builder doesn't play well with strokes, which is why I showed the difference with shapes. 

[Dan C]

2 hours ago, KCP said:

The software problem is that the shape builder doesn't play well with strokes, which is why I showed the difference with shapes. 

As can be seen here - https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/ObjectControl/join_shapeBuilder.html?title=Adding objects by shape building

Quote

Shape building lets you add geometric and closed shapes into a single, identifiable real-world shape, e.g. a guitar, steam train silhouette, celtic knot, etc. You can also delete unwanted areas that result from overlapped shapes for interesting cutout effects. Open filled and unfilled curves can also have concave or enclosed areas deleted.

Unfortunately the Shape Builder is designed for shapes and not strokes at this time, though we do hope to continue to improve this tool in future updates

[KCP]

3 hours ago, Dan C said:

As can be seen here - https://affinity.help/designer2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/ObjectControl/join_shapeBuilder.html?title=Adding objects by shape building

Unfortunately the Shape Builder is designed for shapes and not strokes at this time, though we do hope to continue to improve this tool in future updates

Thanks for the response, Dan. Fwiw, it's not lost on me that Adobe has much deeper pockets for R&D (approximately $20b vs $30m in revenues), which makes Serif's product development respectable at this point. Props for that. Regarding the stroke issue, it only came up when making custom grids from which to create shapes with the Shapebuilder as well as when attempting to rotate strokes around a "transform-origin" point. I've discovered workable hacks for both, which I'm happy to share if desired. 

[CRWillow]

Hello Gurus, I have a question about the shape build and see others are having some issues too. I'm just play around with it trying to get the idea of what works and doesn't so this could definitely be a me problem and not a AD problem. I was following a YouTube demonstration for a ying and yang which I thought worked but when I started filling the shapes I find that both little circle end up together instead of where they are supposed to be.

I used the donut and ellipse tools as shown in the copy. You can see that the black circle is under the white one in the layer's panel instead of filling the empty space on the white yang? shape. I tried it several times and depending on which shape I add to first is where the circle disappears. If I start on the left, the circles are on the bottom, start on the right, they're on the top. So they're sticking to the last shaped added to. Any thoughts?

[Dan C]

Hi @CRWillow,

I'm a little confused at your exact workflow described, however the following steps should allow you to achieve this -

 
I hope this helps

[CRWillow]

I did as you showed and it worked as long as I had a fill and stroke color and the two small circles are together on one layer, which you divided.

However I tried it again without a fill or stroke and got the following results.

The steps I took were -

Draw a large circle, add donut with 35% hole at the top of circle, duplicate and place at bottom of circle. Select all layers, clearing fill and stroke. (Capture 1)

Click shape builder while all is selected, click the +/ add button and draw through the outer donut and the left side of large circle. (Sometimes the piece stays empty as in Capture 1a, Sometimes it goes grey as in Capture 1b) Now a double small circle appears on the first shape created. Plus as you see in 1a the second shape lost the small circle and left the outer part not joined to the large circle. In 1b the first shape changed to grey, gained a circle and the other side stayed clear without a fillable circle - just the hole.

Now on something simple like this I can clean it up but on a more complicate design I can see a headache arising. Are the shapes and lines suppose to have strokes and fills?, I don't remember reading that they needed to be plus most of the tutorials I've watched aren't filling the shapes until they finish the design.

[Aammppaa]

There shouldn't be any need to have a stroke or fill for the Shapebuilder to work.

@Dan C I can confirm @CRWillow's bug on Windows 10, Designer 2.1.1 with a stroke.

File attached with history.

 

Shapebuilder Yin Yang Bug with History.afdesign

[Dan C]

Thanks for your further steps provided above CRWillow & your sample file Aammppaa - this is certainly appreciated!

I can confirm I'm now able to replicate this issue and I'm logging it with our development team now.

I hope this helps

[CRWillow]

Thank you all for confirming there's a problem, I'll play with and make copies so as not to restart from scratch.