What is the difference between "Bake Corners" and "Convert to Curves"

[davidbjames]

There are two features in AD that appear to convert "corner tool" corners to their appropriate nodes and curves, i.e. "Bake Corners" and "Convert to Curves". What is the difference between these two functions?

[stokerg]

Hi davidbjames,

From my understanding, there is no difference.  They both do the same thing, apply the corner and convert it to curves.  Baked is just a term often used in software when you are applying something destructively, eg can't be re-edited as a corner in this case. 

[GRH]

From playing around with it, as soon as you release the mouse when having done a corner, the rectangle (in this case) turns into a curve, as evidenced by the change of layer name from rectangle to curve.

If you click 'Bake Appearance' a centre node appears on the rounded corner just made and you cannot change it back to a sharp corner or make any changes using the 'Corner Tool'.

If you don't click 'Bake Appearance' you can change the rounded corner back to its original form (or make the curve a larger or smaller radius) by left-click-hold on the node and move the mouse.

You can also round any 'unrounded' corners after baking. 'Baked' only affects the corner(s) that have been rounded, so if you round just one corner and 'bake' you can still round the other corners, and bake them individually.

I guess the key thing is not to bake until you are happy with it.

I think 'Set' might be a better term than baked.

 

[RWhite]

To be honest as someone who is switching over from Adobe after many years, this is quite confusing. Bake Appearance and Convert to Curves sounds like exactly the same thing. Isn't it better for everyone if the Affinity Team stick to one term, preferably Convert to Curves.

[Meliora spero]

25 minutes ago, RWhite said:

To be honest as someone who is switching over from Adobe after many years, this is quite confusing. Bake Appearance and Convert to Curves sounds like exactly the same thing. Isn't it better for everyone if the Affinity Team stick to one term, preferably Convert to Curves.

Yes, 100%. "Bake corners" is a sudden and localized term only in the corner tool, but it actually performs "convert to curves," and the scenario is no different from when converting a shape to curves.

Affinity must maintain a consistent term for a function and not confuse customers.

[PaulEC]

Using "Bake Appearance" is recorded in History as "Convert to Curves", so why not just call it that in the Context Toolbar? There's no point in complicating things when you don't need to!