Why doesn't it work when I trying to join curves?

[Jillybelly28]

Hi there, I am trying to trace a simple drawing of a rhino for making a logo. I somehow managed to get one arm attached, but am having difficulty getting his other body parts to work! I drag the node on top of the other node and it turns yellow and appears to have snapped together, but then when I click the join curves button it does not actually join them together. I would like to just be able to click on his body and have his whole entire outline light up with nodes all at once, rather than the head and his horn and the body and the arms being separate, etc. 

 

Thank you for any help!  :)

 

Jill

[crabtrem]

Have you tried selecting your shapes via the move tool, and trying Layers-Select-Geometry-Add.  Or use the boolean commands on the top of the page, right side of the snapping tools. 

[Jillybelly28]

Thank you for your quick reply! Prior to today, I knew nothing about graphic design software, but then I watched every tutorial and took handwritten notes to help myself remember what buttons to use in affinity designer, haha.

I tried both of your suggestions, but the results completed the shapes with additional lines that went through his body, rather than *glue the shapes on* to the points where I lined everything up.

[crabtrem]

Just so I'm clear on everything. I'm going to be pretty specific here. I am just a noob and newcomer too.  

First. Let me paint the picture. You have created object for the head, body, horn, legs, and tail of some animal. 

Each is it's own closed loop object, each on its own layer.  Closed loop objects allow you to fill them.  They also are pretty essential for the boolean commands to work well.

Make sure you have selected all the parts, and/or layers with a shift-select.

Then try the Layers-Geometry-Add, or its equivalent on the top right, just past the snapping tools section.

 

To even complicate things more, you can try to make a compound object too, but I don't think that will give you the node placements you are looking for.

Select all the layers, then press Alt and the Add button. 

I would send screen shots, but apparently there is a problem with uploading files on the forum.

 

Hope I didn't confuse the issue.

[crabtrem]

If they are open curves. Use the pen tool to draw the nodes together to close the loops, or connect your pieces. Then use the node tool to adjust, add, or remove nodes as needed.

[crabtrem]

As I think of this further. I think I may have had the same problem.  For your original post. If they are open curves. Two separate curves that you want to join using the node tool. You have to make sure both nodes are selected on the two curves.  So with one node selected, you have to shift select the second curve, and then select the other node, I believe shift select. Now use the join curves  or close curve command.

[R C-R]

As I understand it, the join action can only connect two ends of a pair of open curves (& requires using the close curve action to close the combined shape). I think this is because for closed curves there are no ends to connect.

 

To combine two or more overlapping closed curves, use the geometry Boolean options, choosing whichever one combines them in the way you want. Add basically discards all the overlapping nodes, leaving just the outline; Combine keeps all the nodes; & so on.

 

Snapping isn't a combining operation. It just affects where nodes or objects snap to when you move them.

[Jillybelly28]

Selecting both nodes using shift is exactly what did the trick! I couldn't stack them but I could get them to join riiiiiight beside eachother! Thank you so much for coming to the rescue on this issue, and so quickly, too. :)  it was driving me insane not knowing what to try! I am really impressed with this program and absolutely delighted in the amount of creative control that it offers. The last program I used to design or photoshop anything was... ummmm, let's see... Microsoft Paint in 2003-2004! The second I opened up Affinity I knew I was in over my head... "Vectors? Nodes? Layers? These things all sound like junk-food names."  ;) But it is all making sense now. Thanks so much.  :)  I did the whole drawing in one layer, labeled "Rhino" with groups and curves underneath, while I was planning to use separate layers for various images and fonts. I am not sure if that is how I should be doing it or not but I think I'll get the hang of how everything works pretty soon cause I can't stop playing around with it for fun! I feel like I can find a lot of ways to incorporate affinity into my everyday work life and fashion/art design process.  :)