How to keep pressure information when connecting curves.

[AlessioFB]

I use pencil, brush and pen to create my line art and I dose the pressure of my pen, tweak the curve afterwards, in order to get the best outline corresponding to my subject.

Then I connect the line to another carefully crafted line. Either using sculpt or by merging the nodes...

and all my work gets messed up. Instead of correctly enchaining the pressure data of the two curves, the result is new data. (This happens both in V1 and V2).

How can I avoid that? This would be extremely important for a good workflow! (Otherwise I have to choose between good line art and connected lines, which is a very sad choice to make.)

[walt.farrell]

I'm not sure you can avoid it. A single Curve has a single pressure profile in the current implementation, as far as I know.

But, I'm not an expert in this area, and perhaps someone else will know how to do it.

[GarryP]

7 hours ago, AlessioFB said:

Instead of correctly enchaining the pressure data of the two curves, the result is new data.

Assuming that it could be done, and considering joining just two curves for the moment, what would happen if the ‘end pressure’ of the first curve was different to the ‘start pressure’ of the second curve?
Would the software take the ‘end pressure’ as the best value, or the ‘start pressure’, or an average, or something else?
And how would the individual user decide/control what happens? (Not everyone will want to do it the way you want to do it.)

[loukash]

7 hours ago, AlessioFB said:

How can I avoid that?

You'll have to keep them separate. Do not join the nodes. Align the end points, but don't join them.
Then you can still merge them into one vector object: Layer > Geometry > Merge Curves
The original pressure remains for each separate curve, and each will also remain individually editable with the Node tool.

[Pšenda]

9 minutes ago, loukash said:

into one vector object: Layer > Geometry > Merge Curves

Just out of curiosity - does a group of curves merged like this have any advantage/difference compared to individual curves merged/grouped using a Group?

[AlessioFB]

@GarryP there would be no technical issues at all by connecting the single pressure curves. I made you an example by hand, following your very example:

As you can see, the "jump" from one end to the other is perfectly respected and looks exactly as it should. The data is the same and very easy to calculate (I really don't think there's any technical issue behind this problem).

@loukash thank you for your suggestion. Sadly it doesn't work, for two reasons.

The first one is that the fills would still be separate entities. Each piece of curve has its own part of fill. So the geometry isn't actually connected.

The second one, as you can see in the picture, is that when you merge three curves, all the curves get THE SAME pressure profile (the one of the first curve apparently) and they aren't editable separately.

 

[loukash]

14 minutes ago, AlessioFB said:

Sadly it doesn't work, for two reasons.

Fair points, absolutely.
In some scenarios though, it is an option.

14 minutes ago, AlessioFB said:

the fills would still be separate entities. Each piece of curve has its own part of fill. So the geometry isn't actually connected.

Yes, you would have to duplicate the curves, join them, remove the stroke and use the object only as a fill, grouped with the strokes.

14 minutes ago, AlessioFB said:

all the curves get THE SAME pressure profile

Then @Pšenda's proposal to use groups is the better one.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, AlessioFB said:

(I really don't think there's any technical issue behind this problem).

But there could be a usability problem when joining a lot of curves, each with its own pressure curve, that being the pressure curve graph could have so many nodes so close together that it would be all but impossible to edit it after joining. This would be less of a problem if we could expand the size of the graph or had some way to select a node numerically, but as it is it could be a real hassle to work with such complex pressure curves.

[AlessioFB]

31 minutes ago, R C-R said:

But there could be a usability problem when joining a lot of curves, each with its own pressure curve, that being the pressure curve graph could have so many nodes so close together that it would be all but impossible to edit it after joining. This would be less of a problem if we could expand the size of the graph or had some way to select a node numerically, but as it is it could be a real hassle to work with such complex pressure curves.

Do you mean something like this?

Yes, it is a issue.

It is already an issue. So, yes, it would be better to have the possibility to expand that ridiculously small window.

But again: that's already a problem because you can already create such curves, just by drawing with the pressure pen. So the possibility to join pressure curves correctly  doesn't create the problem at all. Actually it does the contrary: it allows for a better workflow. It would allow me to create single lines with correct pressure, fine tune them and then join them in a longer line. How it is now, if I draw a longer line, it's impossible to fine tune the pressure afterwards.

I also stress "correctly" because if I drawn 3 lines with a certain pressure, it's not up to the software to change that information once I want to join them. Those lines are as I drawn them.

[pbasdf]

In your workflow, would it work to use Expand Stroke on the separate curves, and then Geometry Add to combine them?

[Andy05]

15 hours ago, pbasdf said:

In your workflow, would it work to use Expand Stroke on the separate curves, and then Geometry Add to combine them?

Not with most of the "vector" brushes (which are not vectors at all).

[AlessioFB]

18 hours ago, pbasdf said:

In your workflow, would it work to use Expand Stroke on the separate curves, and then Geometry Add to combine them?

Thank for the suggestion.

Sadly this approach has some major drawbacks.

1) you can't edit the curves anymore (stroke width, pressure, Bezier curve, etc.)

2) you can't apply a fill to that line art.

[NotMyFault]

The feature you are looking for seems not yet available. The best cause of action in such situation sis to raise a feature request in the feedback section of the forum.

Please describe as detailed as possible for what purpose you need a combined curve of piecework segments with individual pressure profiles (or one combined pressure profile), e.g do you want to create a closed shape and use fill?

There are at lease 2 existing options to combine objects:

1. groups layers
2. vector (or Layer) layers 
3. compound layers (which oversteer stroke and fills, unusable here)

It really depends on what to you plan to do with the new objects of one the existing methods is suitable.

[AlessioFB]

On 12/4/2022 at 5:12 PM, NotMyFault said:

The feature you are looking for seems not yet available. The best cause of action in such situation sis to raise a feature request in the feedback section of the forum.

Please describe as detailed as possible for what purpose you need a combined curve of piecework segments with individual pressure profiles (or one combined pressure profile), e.g do you want to create a closed shape and use fill?

There are at lease 2 existing options to combine objects:

1. groups layers
2. vector (or Layer) layers 
3. compound layers (which oversteer stroke and fills, unusable here)

It really depends on what to you plan to do with the new objects of one the existing methods is suitable.

I would rather turn the question:

if I have three lines with pressure information and I join them, why isn't the pressure information of the segment maintained? The expected behaviour is a line with a pressure curve corresponding to the three segments combined.

The actual behaviour (the new curve gets the pression curve of the first segment stretched on its whole length) is completely arbitrary AND can be reproduced very easily: save the curve profile and apply it once you joined the curves. So it's not even a needed functionality.

In my specific case:

I want to be able to compose (build) complex shapes step by step (like using "build" with pencil) giving it also pressure information.

The ability to break down a complex line in smaller strokes is extremely valuable.

But I want that curve to be ONE curve, in order to handle it as such and for example use fill.

The only "solution" I found so far is to group the curves, duplicate the group, join the second group, remove the stroke and use that for filling. This of course means that if I change one curve I've to manually change the other two, that I can't apply formatting and FX in the same way as for other curves, etc. So it's extremely annoying. 

 

[NotMyFault]

6 minutes ago, AlessioFB said:

I would rather turn the question:

It seems I did not express myself properly.

it does not matter what you think is right or wrong. Or is factually right or wrong. I personally share that it would be the better way.

What matters: if you want to have the functionality implemented by Affinity, you can and need to file a feature request, or hope someone else will do.

If you don’t file a feature request and continue arguing that you interpretation is the only correct one, nothing will change.

[AlessioFB]

4 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

It seems I did not express myself properly.

it does not matter what you think is right or wrong. Or is factually right or wrong. I personally share that it would be the better way.

What matters: if you want to have the functionality implemented by Affinity, you can and need to file a feature request, or hope someone else will do.

If you don’t file a feature request and continue arguing that you interpretation is the only correct one, nothing will change.

Sorry, it's not your fault (lol), I just spontaneously answered here, but I'll file a feature request. I have little hope it will bring anything, but it's still worth the 5 minutes needed to write it.

[loukash]

1 hour ago, AlessioFB said:

I have little hope it will bring anything

My gut feeling tells me that this issue is at a very low position on Serif's massive to-do-list…
That said, there's at least some hope that such "niche features" may become fully scriptable, once the – already acknowledged – scripting support is eventually implemented. In a decade. Or two…  

Edited December 6, 2022 by loukash
see below

[AlessioFB]

16 minutes ago, loukash said:

In a decade. Or two…  

I wanna cry.

I just realized today that there were people asking for a simple shortcut to rename layers already in 2017 and they haven't implemented it yet.

I really don't understand why though, because there features are all but difficult to implement, not comparable with something like a scripting (this is a huge feature and extremely risky).

[loukash]

53 minutes ago, AlessioFB said:

I just realized today that there were people asking for a simple shortcut to rename layers already in 2017 and they haven't implemented it yet.

And I just noticed that I have replied to a wrong thread here…  
My last comment above was actually meant to go in your other thread: 

 

56 minutes ago, AlessioFB said:

I wanna cry.

Take it easy  

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, AlessioFB said:

I just realized today that there were people asking for a simple shortcut to rename layers already in 2017 and they haven't implemented it yet.

Was this for some kind of batch rename function, maybe using a search & replace method, or something to replace or augment the existing one-at-a-time method of double-clicking on the layer in the Layers panel?

[AlessioFB]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Was this for some kind of batch rename function, maybe using a search & replace method, or something to replace or augment the existing one-at-a-time method of double-clicking on the layer in the Layers panel?

We risk to go out of topic here, you can follow the link posted by Loukash, everything is there

[R C-R]

21 minutes ago, AlessioFB said:

We risk to go out of topic here, you can follow the link posted by Loukash, everything is there

I still do not understand how this would work -- since you still have to select a layer yo rename it, how would a keyboard shortcut do that & permit renaming it in one step?

As it is, I just double-click on a layer in the Layers panel to select it to enter a name -- so I am unsure how that could be improved on.

[Old Bruce]

23 hours ago, R C-R said:

I still do not understand how this would work -- since you still have to select a layer yo rename it, how would a keyboard shortcut do that & permit renaming it in one step?

As it is, I just double-click on a layer in the Layers panel to select it to enter a name -- so I am unsure how that could be improved on.

We can use Option + [ or Option + ] to select the next previous layer. All that is needed is a keyboard shortcut to enter into the editing of the name. Then there would be no need to take my hands off of the keyboard and onto the mouse to double click.

[R C-R]

8 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

We can use Option + [ or Option + ] to select the next previous layer.

On my Mac it is CMD+Option+[ & CMD+Option+] that does that, but as has been mentioned, if no layer is currently selected that does nothing, and it will not navigate into a group, at least for me.