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Hi ! :)

I'm beginer in vector design and i need help.

How i can combine two shapes with a transparent stroke to create a negative space ? Like this icon :

 

SXgkBYh.png

 

In the tutorial, the author chose to add a stroke with the same color of his background color but this solution don't suit to me.

 

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Since a 'transparent stroke' is effectively the same thing as no stroke at all, you will have to create the negative space using separate shapes for each 'positive' part. There are several ways to do this. The best one to use will depend on the complexity of the icon (or whatever) you want to create.

 

One way is to start with something like the tutorial shows & use that as a template for creating the separate parts. You can use boolean subtractions to cut away parts that would otherwise be represented by strokes, like by using a duplicate shape enlarged to the stroke boundaries to cut away parts of other shapes, like where the hamburger shapes overlap the cup shape.

 

Strokes can also be expanded into filled shapes, but due to bugs in how that works, it usually creates far more nodes than necessary.

 

Others will probably have more & better suggestions for this, but 'thinking negatively' can be hard to do without a lot of practice & experimentation.

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Here's an approach I came up w. There are some tweaks still needed for the final image, as there are some "ghost" lines, but the process works tho' somewhat tedious.

 

It relies on the "erase" blend mode.

 

I used several shape tools, and turned some to curves to adjust the shape. I then duplicated all of them. I removed the fill from those, and added a 10 pt. stroke. Then I made the blend mode erase. At that point I had white lines, as the erase effect goes all the way to the background. So I had to nest several copies within each of the primary shapes.

 

post-34886-0-96268700-1483627718_thumb.jpg

post-34886-0-82820800-1483627752_thumb.jpg

 

Not an elegant procedure, I'm sure there are better methods. But the level of erase can be adjusted w. the opacity modification and transparency tool, leading to interesting fade effects.

 

post-34886-0-69478400-1483627782_thumb.jpg

 

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Let´s see if this helps:

It would help more if expand stroke did not so often create a bunch of unneeded extra nodes.  :angry:

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I´m with you here and other threads regarding path conversion - no question. The implementation of SVG standards seems pretty lousy.

But we have no other choices inside the Affinity world right now. Maybe we should flood the bug report area with issue cases.  :D

I hopefully think the dev-team know it already - no?

 

Cheers

P.

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I am fairly sure MEB and/or other staff members have said the developers are aware of the extra node issue & are working on a better implementation of the expand stroke function & related problems.

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Hello Enif, and welcome to the forums.

 

What you are looking for is called a knock out group, and it is listed on the roadmap. For the time being, I will explain my way to accomplish this. First, make sure you have a rough sketch that you can trace over on.

 

 

1. Trace the entire outer shape with a fill and no stroke. (You may lower the opacity to see the rough sketch.) Lock the layer after tracing so you don't select it by mistake.)

 

2. Trace the other outlines in a new layer using a stroke but no fill. (Make sure you are happy with the size of the stroke.

 

3. Select all of the strokes, and go into Layer > Expand Stroke. This will convert them to fills.

 

4. With those new fills selected, merge them with the "Add" icon. (It is the first button in the second set in the top right.)

 

5. Unlock the other layer and increase the opacity back up. Select it and select the new fills, and now subtract them with the "Subtract" icon. (It is the second button in that second set.)

 

I hope this helps.

 

 

t relies on the "erase" blend mode.

 

I never would've thought to use a blend mode. That's a neat idea, as the gaps would still be editable.

 

It would help more if expand stroke did not so often create a bunch of unneeded extra nodes.  :angry:

 

As long as you use the boolean operations after, it shouldn't matter.

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As long as you use the boolean operations after, it shouldn't matter.

It does if you want to tweak the final shapes -- it is very annoying to discover they have dozens of nodes when just a few would just as accurately define the shape.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
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  • Staff

I´m with you here and other threads regarding path conversion - no question. The implementation of SVG standards seems pretty lousy.

But we have no other choices inside the Affinity world right now. Maybe we should flood the bug report area with issue cases.  :D

I hopefully think the dev-team know it already - no?

 

Cheers

P.

 

Hi PixelPest,

We are well aware of the Expand Stroke and Boolean Operations issues. This is being looked into and will be improved in future versions/updates.

Bear with us while we get there.

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The burger steak is not clean. :/

 

I see R C-R's point about the nodes. Well since the shape of the steak patty seems to be the only flaw, trace over it with one of the shape tools like the Rounded Rectangle Tool and then drag the orange node to change the roundness until it matches the shape of the patty.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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It may be quicker just to remove the excess nodes, leaving only the ones that define rounded ends & end-most horizontal connections. For this shape it is easy to do with the Node tool & a dragged out marquee selection.

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Hi everyone,

Thanks for your participations ! :)

I tried to expand stroke and subtract it to the other shape to create a negative space but i have this problem :

 

 

The burger steak is not clean. :/

Some minimal overlapping of bun&patty would had helped.  :D

 

Cheers

P.

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Some minimal overlapping of bun&patty would had helped.  :D

 

I'm not so sure that the overlapping should be minimal! I think the (expanded) strokes on the bun and patty/steak should overlap completely.

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I didn't say I thought it wouldn't work! All I meant was that if the strokes are completely overlapping then you get the same amount of negative space between the overlapping objects as you get between the objects and the background, but if you have minimal overlap then the amount of negative space is almost doubled (so there's an overly large gap above and below the patty/steak in the present example).

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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