Vector Flood Fill tool

[RaDaR]

I have created a design as attached using curves and am trying to fill the pattern using the new Vector Flood Fill tool, but I just cannot get it to work.  I have selected all the curves etc. but the fill bucket or the fill outlines never appear.  What am I doing wrong?  The Pixel Flood Tool works but that is not what I want.

Thanks in advance.

Edited June 5, 2023 by RaDaR

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

It's hard to be sure from just the screenshot, and a video might show us more of what you're seeing.

However, at the moment in that screenshot

• you seem to have the Move Tool selected, not the Vector Flood Tool, and
• you don't seem to have any curves selected.

[Hangman]

Hi @RaDaR and another warm welcome to the forums,

All should work as expected, though it would perhaps be helpful to have a closer look at how your file has been constructed as it's a little difficult to see from just the screen grab...

Feel free to upload your file if you'd like someone to take a closer look but this is how it should work in practice...

[RaDaR]

The screen shot was to show the pattern.
Video attached to show the issue.

[Hangman]

Are the curves that make up your Celtic Knot expanded... it's hard to tell looking at the layers panel but it looks as though you have a series of 'live' strokes... you will need to expand these first before being able to fill elements using the Vector Flood Fill tool...

Here's a file you can take a look at to see how's it's constructed and then play around with... Let us know if you have any questions.

Celtic Knot Vector Flood Fill.afdesign

[RaDaR]

You know I tried so many things to make this work that I probably buggered the whole thing up.  Your demo is exactly what I am trying to achieve.

So, I just expanded the strokes and it's working.   What does expanding the stroke do?

Thanks for the solution.
 

[Alfred]

4 minutes ago, RaDaR said:

So, I just expanded the strokes and it's working.   What does expanding the stroke do?

Please see Affinity Designer 2 Help: Expand stroke

[Hangman]

26 minutes ago, RaDaR said:

What does expanding the stroke do?

It bascially converts strokes into fillable Curve's ('Shapes')...

Approach

• Use strokes to create your initial Celtic Knot design
• Expand the Strokes
• Use the Shape Builder tool to merge the Expanded Strokes to create the overlaps and underlaps
• Use the Vector Flood Fill tool to fill the merged shapes