Merge Curves ... in Designer

[DarkClown]

Maybe someone can help me understand the following behaviour:
I did 3 curves with an assigned brush looking like this:

When I try to make these 3 curves one object by selecting Geometry>Merge Curves (for some reason Geometry>Add just deletes all curves) - the shape of the curves drastically change:

Can someone help me to understand this effect?

Cheers, Timo

[GarryP]

My first guess is that the merging process created a lot of new/extra nodes in the merged curves which make the brush 'restart’ more often (somehow) than it did in the original design, but I can’t tell because I can’t see the nodes or the brush settings.

[Old Bruce]

I would try and Expand the three strokes then add those curves together.

I think what is happening is that whatever brush you used on the curves has been applied again with some other set of settings.

[debraspicher]

Curiuos, when you did this, was the stroke profile different from this before your 2nd screen? (left next to the 201,3 pt)

[DarkClown]

7 minutes ago, debraspicher said:

Curiuos, when you did this, was the stroke profile different from this before your 2nd screen? (left next to the 201,3 pt)

Nope, everything remained the same ...

[DarkClown]

19 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I would try and Expand the three strokes then add those curves together.

I think what is happening is that whatever brush you used on the curves has been applied again with some other set of settings.

Good point .... Expand Stroke does not work any more in AD V2 ....

[DarkClown]

And when I combine all 3 pathes all layers disappear ... just try it out .... create 3 pathes and do an "Add" ... all gone ...

[Old Bruce]

23 minutes ago, DarkClown said:

And when I combine all 3 pathes all layers disappear ... just try it out .... create 3 pathes and do an "Add" ... all gone ...

Well you have two paths/curves inside a closed curve. That will give you a circle with no fill because that is what your circle has, no fill.

[DarkClown]

Just now, Old Bruce said:

Well you have two paths/curves inside a closed curve. That will give you a circle with no fill because that is what your circle has, no fill.

I was talking about an open path. It works in AD V1 but not in V2 any more

[Old Bruce]

Yes, it appears to be a regression. There needs to be a fill.

Have you tried to make a compound using Layer > Make Compound?

[DarkClown]

Did some further investigartion. It seems the "Expand Stroke" does only work when no brush is assigned ... (I thought this was possible as long as a vaector brush is used - probably my mistake) - So it works with a simple path with thickness.

Still - adding all pathes (Geometry) makes all object (incl. the according layers) diappear (even when no brush is assigned) - this works in AD V1

And yes - compound somehow works (unlike Geometry->Add from the toolbar)

[jmwellborn]

@DarkClown  I may be the village idiot, but can't you just group your three curve layers to a single object?   Then if you want to use it as a logo, export your group as a PNG so that you have a  transparent background?  

[thomaso]

8 hours ago, DarkClown said:

8 hours ago, debraspicher said:

Curiuos, when you did this, was the stroke profile different from this before your 2nd screen? (left next to the 201,3 pt)

Expand  

Nope, everything remained the same ...

Are you sure? I first thought the two screenshots show different brushes assigned. The stroke preview in the context toolbar of the curves object looks quite like the object – whereas it doesn't really correspond with the 3 layer version before the merge.

If not different brushes, what about a changed brush parameter, as for instance below "Stretch" | "Repeat"?

.

[DarkClown]

8 hours ago, jmwellborn said:

@DarkClown  I may be the village idiot, but can't you just group your three curve layers to a single object?   Then if you want to use it as a logo, export your group as a PNG so that you have a  transparent background?  

Not an Idiot at all ... but as I mentioned I can't group pathes together (bug in V2?) ... and I need it as an vector file (svg) to work with it in Blender .. So "Extrude" would be the desiered solution since I need the object as a surface.

I'll record a video to show the probelms ...

[deeds]

10 hours ago, DarkClown said:

Did some further investigartion. It seems the "Expand Stroke" does only work when no brush is assigned

That's a pretty huge bug/regression for almost all kinds of vector work. Baffling how that got through. 

[deeds]

Try exporting it as an SVG, then creating a new document in Affinity, and importing that SVG, and then expanding the stroke, as the SVG might have lost the concept of it being a brush.

If that doesn't work, try exporting as an EPS and importing that to a new Affinity file, and then expanding the stroke and/or merging the resultant parts so you get a single vector object...

 

 

[deeds]

More generally, on 3D text:

 

It's better to start with clean (no brush noise) shapes, and to extrude these in 3D, then add the noise and "texturing" to the subsequent model than it is to attempt extruding a noisy spline. A noise spline will create "grooves" across the extrusion/bevel rather than the (more likely) desired "texturing" of the 3D surface, which will be most easily done with a noise texture influencing normals and "denting and raising" the surface of the beveled/extruded text object such that it's got the character you're looking for.

This does, of course, depend on the look you're ultimately aiming for.

If you want to look at C4D, they've recently added an incredible feature for doing pseudo super brushes with splines that might be of extreme interest, have a look at this:

 

 

 

 

[firstdefence]

Vector brush Hmmm, Debatable!!!

Using a basic brush allows curve expansion but as soon as you use a shaped brush, that is, any brush that uses a png image to define its shape, it ceases to be a "vector brush" and becomes an "image brush on a vector curve" hence no expansion.

There does seem to be an issue with merging curves at the moment in V2

[DarkClown]

5 hours ago, deeds said:

That's a pretty huge bug/regression for almost all kinds of vector work. Baffling how that got through. 

That's been like that already in Version 1 - and I do understand this for pixel based brushes.