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Need Some Help With Creating a Chain


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Hey Guys,

 

I'm tying to maek a chain for a project but I'm having some issues trying to figure out how to make it look realistic.

 

I made the individual chain links using rounded rectangles. When I go to connect the links, I place one piece over the other.  I can't figure out how to make it look like they are actually linked though; I'm not sure to get it to like they are weaving in and out through each other so a part of the link will be on top and apart of it should be behind the second link.

 

Does anyone have any ideas or tutorials I can watch? I tried looking on youtube for some but they weren't too helpful.

 

 

thanks

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Hello Hdoowop,

 

In AD there is a "Chain" brush provided (bottom on the drawing).

You can also draw the string as you started to do, with rounded rectangles.

In my example I represented the white links with rounded rectangles and the red ones with a line of the same thickness.

I simply positioned the red links on the white links to simulate their nesting.
 

Chaîne.png

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If you want to represent all the links flat, draw the first link (blue in my example), copy and paste it, move it and change the color. Glue the blue link a second time on itself and above the assembly.

 

Draw a transparent shape without borders on the crossing that should not change.

In the layer thumbnails, take the upper circle and drag it into the shape thumbnail until you get a horizontal blue rectangle on the right and bottom of the thumbnail.

 

 

Repeat at each new link, it's a lot of work!

Chaîne_2.png

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4 minutes ago, reglico said:

Repeat at each new link, it's a lot of work!

 

You can reduce the workload a little by adding the cropping shapes (via 'Layer > Geometry > Add') so that you only have one layer that you need to move.

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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Hey Reglico,

 

thanks for the info. I didn't know there was a chain brush in AD. I'll take a look.

 

One thing though, my chain links are all going to be white with a black stroke, and they're going to be flat. The examples you've posted seem a bit more 3Dish, Im guessing thats becuase of the shading you've put on to the chain? I'm really new to this whole design thing so my bad if I'm overlooking the obvious.

 

Also, are you able to provide me with some more detail with your second example? I'm not quite sure what you mean you say glue the blue link on itself...

 

thank you again for the help.

 

 

 

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HDoowop, thanks for the feedback,

 

I made you a little video about the second example, sorry for the quality, I have a small configuration and everything is not always fluid!

 

Draw the first link, copy it. Paste it a first time on itself, move it to the desired place and change the color.

 

Paste the link on itself a second time: you get two blue links on the left (as they are superimposed you see only one) and a red link on the right.

 

The red link must be located between the two blue lines (see the layer panel).

 

Then draw the transparent shape (no fill or contour) on the crossing, which must not change. When you drag the thumbnail of the upper link into the transparent shape layer, the opposite crossing changes.

Maillon.wmv

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3 hours ago, Alfred said:

You can reduce the workload a little by adding the cropping shapes (via 'Layer > Geometry > Add') so that you only have one layer that you need to move.

 

2 hours ago, reglico said:

Thanks for the tip but I confess I don't understand the procedure to follow!

 

Please see the attached AD file. I started with two blue links and two red links (which I grouped, but only for neatness) and then I duplicated the blue links, selected both and Alt-clicked the 'Add' icon in the Geometry section of the main toolbar to create a compound object/layer. I put a green circle at each of the three places where I wanted the blue link to remain on top, and again performed a compound 'Add'. If you go to the Layers panel, drag the green circles thumbnail and drop it onto the blue links thumbnail (so that when you hover before releasing the mouse button you get a short vertical pale blue rectangle instead of a long horizontal one) the two blue links will be cropped so that they are only visible where the green circles were.

 

Reglico's-links.afdesign

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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26 minutes ago, Alfred said:

 

 

Please see the attached AD file. I started with two blue links and two red links (which I grouped, but only for neatness) and then I duplicated the blue links, selected both and Alt-clicked the 'Add' icon in the Geometry section of the main toolbar to create a compound object/layer. I put a green circle at each of the three places where I wanted the blue link to remain on top, and again performed a compound 'Add'. If you go to the Layers panel, drag the green circles thumbnail and drop it onto the blue links thumbnail (so that when you hover before releasing the mouse button you get a short vertical pale blue rectangle instead of a long horizontal one) the two blue links will be cropped so that they are only visible where the green circles were.

 

Reglico's-links.afdesign

Thank you Alfred, the attached file was very useful.

 

At first I didn't understand that you could do "Add" with shapes that didn't touch each other. I thought the shapes had to overlap. 

 

Thank you for enlightening me on this point and for taking the time to make the file!

 

This method is much more pleasant.

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Ok Reglico, I tried it out and it worked. Your video was really to follow; thank you for uploading it!!

 

I still have to go through your method Alfred, Ill try it out in a little bit.

 

 

thank you again for helping me out with this guys!!

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Hello HDoowop,

 

Thanks for the feedback, I just wanted to bring a little precision: I used for my example rings with a 3D effect and that's why the shape I add is transparent. If this shape is coloured the change is well done but it leaves a trace on the trace. Please see my screenshot.

 

On the other hand, in the case of rings without any applied effect, I use coloured shapes like @Alfred and yesterday he taught me that we can make compounds between shapes that don't touch each other, which saves a little time for this kind of drawing. 
 

Cercles imbriqués.png

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Hey Reglico,

yeah I guess I spoke too soon lol,

your method works but then i run into issues when i try to extend the chain so it has about 20 links in it; the layer hierarchy makes things real messy and i dont know if I can make the chain longer without messing up the previous links.  I tried Alfred's method but I haven't been able to figure it out yet.  Im really new to the program so I don't understand what a compound shape or group is yet... I'll try to see if I can find some videos about it on youtube and figure it out. If you or Alfred are able to put up a step by step or a quick video that I can slow down and watch that would be amazing!!

 

thanks

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Sorry I didn’t get back to this thread yesterday to offer more guidance. I’m glad you managed to figure it out for yourself!

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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  • 4 years later...

The chain brush is one of a collection of image brushes that were supplied with the app. If you don’t see the Image category in the installed brushes in the Designer (vector) persona, you can add them by importing the *.afbrushes file attached to this post.

 

Image brushes.jpg

 

Image brushes.afdesign Image.afbrushes

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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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  • 2 weeks later...

For some reason I did not have the image category in my brushes for P and D.  I downloaded both of the tiles you attached, I tried to drag and drop them into a AP & AD. I could not find any though in the drop-down of the brushes. The image brushes finally opened up as pictures now in Layers. Karen I'm supposed to put that into my drop-down list somehow. 

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13 hours ago, Graphix_Guy82 said:

For some reason I did not have the image category in my brushes for P and D.  I downloaded both of the tiles you attached, I tried to drag and drop them into a AP & AD. I could not find any though in the drop-down of the brushes. The image brushes finally opened up as pictures now in Layers. Karen I'm supposed to put that into my drop-down list somehow. 

Simply double-click on the file "Image.afbrushes", the brushes will be installed automatically (in Designer Persona) 

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1 hour ago, G13RL said:

Simply double-click on the file "Image.afbrushes", the brushes will be installed automatically (in Designer Persona) 

That will depend on which app is set as the default for opening .afbrushes files, which could be different for each user. For some of us, that might install those vector brushes into Photo, where they'd be useless (and hard to delete).

Better to go to the Brushes panel in the app you want them in, and click on the panel settings icon ("hamburger menu"), and install from there.

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
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24 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Better to go to the Brushes panel in the app you want them in, and click on the panel settings icon ("hamburger menu"), and install from there.

For me, even though all three applications are open, the brushes always installed in AD, without having it set as default (I wouldn't know where to make that choice either). Maybe it's because AD was the first application installed. When I install brushes in AD, I do it from the application, as you suggest.

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