How to have a transparent stroke ?

[lilyrose]

Hello

On Affinity designer, I have a stroke on a shape and another shape behind.

I'd like to keep a space between my 2 shapes like a transparent border without seeing the shape behind.

I didn't find how to do that. Do you have an idea ?

Thank you

[Gabe]

Hi @lilyrose,

Welcome to the forums. 

You can either set the stroke to "None" or use the Opacity Slider. 

EDIT: My bad. I thought the gray line stopped right on the edge of that black stroke. You can follow @Dazzler, or @Pšenda advice. Actually, setting the blend mode to Erase would be a lot easier. Duplicate the circle, set the blend mode to ERASE, and resize it from the center (Hold CTRL + SHIFT while resizing). Make sure your the bigger shape with erase blend mode is below the base shape and above the gray line. 

Thanks,

Gabe. 

[Dazzler]

If the above answer is not what you meant (I think you might mean something slightly different, because making the stroke transparent will reveal the shape behind again), then there is another way involving subtracting shapes.

First make sure the shape with the stroke is converted to outlines. Then under the Layer menu, select 'expand stroke'. This will make the stroke into an object of it's own. You can then duplicate this outline object and use the subtract tool to subtract it from any shapes that it overlaps - I say duplicate because you'll also need to subtract it from it's original fill shape to maintain the 'outline' thickness. That will give you a completely transparent space that was the thickness of the original stroke. You'll need to duplicate the outline shape for each shape that you need to subtract it from, as the subtract method removes the shape that is being subtracted. 

 

[Pšenda]

Group this object, and Blend mode set to Erase.

[Dazzler]

14 minutes ago, Pšenda said:

Group this object, and Blend mode set to Erase.

Oooh that's kind of nice! Any idea what happens upon export etc to a vector format? Does it retain it's erase state?

[John Rostron]

I just clicked on @lilyrose's image (with the boundary stroke on the right in white (transparent). The image which popped up had this stroke as black! Was that intentional? If so, how does one do it?

John

[lilyrose]

Wow, thank you !

It works and it's really simple with Pšenda method.

 

Dazzle, I tried your method, it was what I tried to do before posting here, but I can't have my blank space, it's only transparent then I see the behind shape. I certainly do something wrong.

 

[carl123]

32 minutes ago, John Rostron said:

I just clicked on @lilyrose's image (with the boundary stroke on the right in white (transparent). The image which popped up had this stroke as black! Was that intentional? If so, how does one do it?

John

That's the magic of transparent pngs, download the image and all will be explained

[John Rostron]

3 minutes ago, carl123 said:

That's the magic of transparent pngs, download the image and all will be explained

Of course! It's obvious really.

John

[Pšenda]

5 hours ago, Dazzler said:

Any idea what happens upon export etc to a vector format?

Vector export is problem, because this is a Serif specific function.

[Dazzler]

20 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Vector export is problem, because this is a Serif specific function.

Yes I tried it out and the effect becomes a raster, so no good for export really unless you are going to raster format, but still a great function to know about for speed/quick proofing etc.
 

 

On 8/28/2018 at 3:12 PM, lilyrose said:

Wow, thank you !

It works and it's really simple with Pšenda method.

 

Dazzle, I tried your method, it was what I tried to do before posting here, but I can't have my blank space, it's only transparent then I see the behind shape. I certainly do something wrong.

 

I'm confused - what do you mean by 'I can't have my blank space'? Maybe you're missing out the 'expand stroke' bit?  That is necessary to convert the stroke to it's own shape. It's that shape that you duplicate and subtract from the shapes surrounding your original object. You do also need to subtract from your orginal shape because a stroke normally sits over part of the fill, so if you remove the stroke the object gets larger by half of the stroke width (or smaller that what originally was with the stroke by half the stroke width!). You don't need to make anything transparent with this method - you are simply cutting shapes away from other shapes. 

[buildpax]

On 8/28/2018 at 8:46 AM, Dazzler said:

If the above answer is not what you meant (I think you might mean something slightly different, because making the stroke transparent will reveal the shape behind again), then there is another way involving subtracting shapes.

First make sure the shape with the stroke is converted to outlines. Then under the Layer menu, select 'expand stroke'. This will make the stroke into an object of it's own. You can then duplicate this outline object and use the subtract tool to subtract it from any shapes that it overlaps - I say duplicate because you'll also need to subtract it from it's original fill shape to maintain the 'outline' thickness. That will give you a completely transparent space that was the thickness of the original stroke. You'll need to duplicate the outline shape for each shape that you need to subtract it from, as the subtract method removes the shape that is being subtracted. 

 

This is exactly what I was looking for! Trying to describe this was tricky, but you totally nailed the answer for me. Thank you!