Using flood fill tool

[cct]

Hi,

 

New user on testing Affinity on windows 10

 

Okay I'm testing out the flood fill tool on an imported pdf. The drawing is on one layer and it is a simple line grid 100mm x 100mm square with 10mm x 10mm squares.

I change the persona to pixel draw and start using the flood fill tool but nothing is happening ... I'm guessing it has something to do with maybe changing all the lines to a different state first - but how ?

 

All I'm trying to do at this point is to test out the flood fill tool with adding any different colours to the individual 10mm x 10mm squares!

 

I am new to using any illustrating program at all and I've tried out Drawplus and the flood fill tool works with that, but I'm not getting why it isn't working with Affinity.

 

I'm guessing it has something to do with vectors and pixels?

 

If this option isn't currently available in Affinity yet:

 

1. Is there a work around please ?

 

2. Is this option going to be implemented in Affinity for windows ?

 

Kind Regards

 

cct

[dominik]

I'm guessing it has something to do with vectors and pixels?

 

 

 

Hi cct, welcome to the forum,

 

I want to give you a very simple example on how to use the flood fill tool.

 

In the Pixel Persona you first have to create a pixel layer. You do this by clicking on the page icon at the bottom of the layers studio that is left of the trash bin.

 

Now you can click with the flood fill tool on this layer and it gets completely filled with the selected color.

 

If you want to fill only a part of the layer you first have to use the selection tool (press M = marquee).

 

Once you selected an area of the layer you then can fill that with color.

 

I hope this gives you a starting point.

 

Cheers,

 

d.

[cct]

Hi Dominik

 

Thanks, you explained things very well for me.

 

I am working with vector lines/entities - for example what if I had a star shape drawn with lines in a cad program, exported this to pdf, opened in affinity designer ... then what would I need to do please in order to select the star shape accurately and use the flood fill tool to colour it in?

 

What I need is a tool like the flood fill tool in Drawplus ... @Serif staff -will such a tool be implemented for Affinity Designer?

 

cct

[MEB]

Hi cct,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

If you are working with vector objects there's no need to use the Flood Fill Tool in the Pixel Persona. Simply select one one more (vector) objects with the Move Tool (in Draw Persona), go to the context toolbar right above the work area and click on the Fill colour well (rectangle) to pick another colour. All vector objects can have two colours assigned: one for the Fill and other for the Stroke (you must set a width in the width dropdown on the context toolbar to be able to see the stroke of an object). You can change Stroke's colour in the context toolbar too (near the Fill colour well).

 

The only case where this can be problematic, which seems what you are dealing with is when the shapes are not closed shapes, but just a group of overlapping lines forming a shape. 

Here you can either close the shape joining all the lines using the Node Tool and the Join command in the context toolbar - note you can only join two nodes at once - or drawing a new shape behind the lines and fill it with colour.

You can also group all objects, place them on a single layer and rasterise it - then you can use the Flood Fill Tool, but the objects will not be vector based anymore.

[dominik]

 

I am working with vector lines/entities - for example what if I had a star shape drawn with lines in a cad program, exported this to pdf, opened in affinity designer ... then what would I need to do please in order to select the star shape accurately and use the flood fill tool to colour it in?

 

What I need is a tool like the flood fill tool in Drawplus ... @Serif staff -will such a tool be implemented for Affinity Designer?

 

I think MEB explained it very good. Vectorshapes are different from pixel areas. It is worth in exploring this more. I find this basic explanation by Jen Lombardi helpful to get the idea.

 

Unfortunately I can't comment on Serif Plus because I never used that program.

 

Have fun with the Draw Persona of AD :-)

 

d.

[cct]

Thanks, Dominik.

 

@MEB, thanks, so far in Draw persona, I am testing with a simple 100 mm x 100mm square of 4 vector lines, drawn in cad, exported to SVG and opened up in AD.

 

In Draw persona, working on the one layer I select the 4 lines and using the fill tool try to fill the square .. but nothing happens.

[MEB]

The Flood Fill Tool only works with raster objects. So in that case you would have to group all the four lines (select all and press cmd +G), then right-click on the group layer in the Layers panel and select Rasterise. You can then fill the interior with the Flood Fill Tool.

 

If you want to keep the lines as vectors you can try this: use the Selection Brush Tool (in Pixel Persona) and paint a selection inside the four vector lines. It should pick the boundaries quickly. Then create a new pixel layer and use the Flood Fill Tool to fill the pixel selection.

[cct]

Okay thanks MEB, I genuinely thank you and Dominik for your support here, however this whole thing is becomingly increasingly frustrating to say the least. Of course affinity is a new application being developed now for windows also and of course Serif are well within their rights to develop things as they see fit ... but goodness me, to drop development on Drawplus and focus just on Affinity for windows without matching what is capable currently on Drawplus is not good.

 

I have added feature request to have what is already there in Drawplus to be added in affinity designer.

 

All of the big competitors out there have an option to work with dwg/dxf file formats .... jus a thought!

 

Kind Regards

 

cct

[MEB]

Hi cct,

As you can imagine it's not possible to integrate every functionality present in DrawPlus that was developed during more than a decade into a new software with a new codebase in two years. There's no development resources to do that or to keep the development of two different lines of products on Windows simultaneously. Affinity Designer is not intended to be a replacement nor an expansion of DrawPlus either, but an entirely new line of software on its own. As such It doesn't cover all functionality present in DrawPlus but it will certainly get closer and closer as development progress and more features are added. Meanwhile you can still use DrawPlus to complete your projects if you need too. 

I believe both DWG/DXF will be supported later in a future version.

[cct]

Thank you very much MEB, for your time and input to my posts here, I understand what you are saying here, for me I have only been trying out Drawplus and Affinity designer over the past few days .... however like you say 10 years of development has gone into Drawplus - I wonder how 10 years worth of Drawplus users feel about no more development with Drawplus?

 

In addition how much longer will Drawplus function on operating systems when they are constantly being upgraded?

 

I am honestly trying to find some middle ground here, you say carry on using Drawplus in the meantime, sure, you say Affinity designer is a new program, sure, not a replacement for Drawplus, sure I understand all these things, but what I'm thinking is you are hopefully wanting Drawplus users to migrate to testing and using Affinity designer but with a program that doesn't offer maybe for some the same tools/options and workflow?

[JimmyJack]

cct,

 

Are you saying that the imported svg is four separate vector lines? 

Do they intersect at the ends? (as opposed to crossing over each other.... that's another story)

 

If you use the node tool and make sure all the ends are snapped to each other and select all nodes and hit Close Curve you can fill the shape as a vector. At least it did on my test.....

 

(it's s "middle ground" solution for simple objects at least. BUT If no snapping is required.... just a select all and join, it could work on more complicated shapes)

 

Care to post the svg?

[MEB]

I already suggested that i my first reply Jimmy. If i understood this correctly the OP is importing files generated from a CAD program which usually generate all vectors as single lines thus making the joining process of all lines a pain.

[JimmyJack]

Ah, so you did. My apologies.

 

I will add though that joining together more than one pair of nodes at a time is (now) possible :) .

[MEB]

As far as i know joining/breaking multiple nodes wasn't implemented yet unless i'm missing something...

[JimmyJack]

Workin' for me!  :)  :)

All pairs joined at once except the endpoints of the newly made chain. That requires it's own repeat of drag snap.

(1.5 Beta 1)

 

 

(FWIW......BTW the final endpoint drag and snap doesn't respect each endpoints bezier handles.... which has been mentioned in several threads.)

 

Breaking is still one at a time....

[cct]

Thanks Jimmy Jack

 

It's a step closer, it does work indeed if you are only dealing with one shape at a time .. but for example consider that you had a grid 100mm x100mm containing 100 smaller squares in it at 10mm x 10mm, forming a grid, then we ad a circle in the middle at 25mm radius.

 

Now I want to fill each segment of our drawing with different colours, using your method, which by the way is potentially a step forward as a workaround, you only get a bit further before you realise that you need to isolate somehow each segment that you wish to independently colour in.

[JimmyJack]

Yup....was afraid of that.  :huh:

[Bri-Toon]

@cct,

I know this is an old topic now, but I can relate to this function you are wanting to do, and if you're still interested, I may have a solution. It is not recommended in vector editing, but I see that many artists use pixel fills on vector linework like in this video on Manga Studio. So if you want, I can show you how to do it, but it's not practical since you won't be able to edit the flood fills as you would with vector, but you will still get to edit the linework. Similar to what @MEB said on rasterizing, I would recommend to first duplicate the paths that make up closed regions, group them, then set them behind the original paths. If desired, decrease the stroke size before rasterizing them. (If not, you might get gaps in the lines that are the same size as your strokes when you apply your fills. The thicker strokes (vector) will be covering them.) Once you have the look you want, now rasterize them. Your original strokes will still be vector.

 

While I get this is more of pixel based operation, I would love if the Flood Fill Tool in both Designer and Photo had the option to fill "All layers" like Photoshop. There are people who have each of the same color fill on its own layer. And if they want to change it, they lock the pixels and just paint on the document changing only that color.