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Closing Curves. Why so challenging?!


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10 minutes ago, firstdefence said:

Lets hope the devs take this and apply it's logic.

I would be extremely unhappy if they did that! That is because I rely on nudging to move things by exactly the nudge distance I have set, regardless of if it is the "first" nudge (whatever that is supposed to mean in any of several different possible contexts) & regardless of any snapping setting in effect at the time.

With all the various & interactive snapping options now available, it is one of the few constants I can rely on. Please do not change it!

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11 hours ago, JimmyJack said:

HA (I'm laughing with you O.o)! I've got no idea!! see below. I'm not using any modifiers and it's all one click and drag....at the very end I use divide to get one sharp point.
At first I thought it was the approach angle. But every time I think I understand what's happening the behavior appears to be different each time I try. 
Want to post one of your curves to see what happens on my end??
(Edit: Seems to be more stable on the latest builds.)

39715725_curvesnap2.gif.425c2085aed98660a6a0800d39f3ef61.gif

First, I should say that I never seem to get the behavior you do where the handle of the moved node does not change when placed over the other node. I don't have a clue what triggers that behavior.

But more to the point (no pun intended), shouldn't that always be the default behavior? From what I can tell, nobody wants that handle to change.

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1 hour ago, Lagarto said:

Perhaps there could be a modified, e.g., Shift + nudge would force the nudge to align to nearest pixel in the direction of the arrow key?

At least on Macs, Shift+nudge moves by the user set "Modifier Nudge Distance."

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3 hours ago, R C-R said:

I would be extremely unhappy if they did that! That is because I rely on nudging to move things by exactly the nudge distance I have set, regardless of if it is the "first" nudge (whatever that is supposed to mean in any of several different possible contexts) & regardless of any snapping setting in effect at the time.

With all the various & interactive snapping options now available, it is one of the few constants I can rely on. Please do not change it!

It can be an option not a fix.

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There are some not so obvious things about forcing 'pixel perfect' grid alignment worth mentioning here. Consider these 6 simple vector shapes:

1643585232_pixelperfect.jpg.8bcac12a9f893e4990bf3425de8df373.jpg 

The 3 vertical lines have butt caps. The 3 rectangles each have a center-aligned stroke & miter corner joins, so everything is as squared off as is possible. They are all properly aligned to the pixel grid, but only the two shapes marked "2px" fit perfectly into the pixel grid, completely filling all the pixels their paths touch. Thus, they are the only two that won't be anti-aliased if rasterized. The other two lines would have to be moved ½ pixel horizontally to avoid anti-alias blurring effects. The 1 & 3 px rectangles would either have to be moved ½ pixel both horizontally & vertically or their strokes changed to use either inner or outer alignment, which would change their size.

As should be obvious, it would be the same for any other mix of vector shapes with odd & even path widths. This means that for everything to look "pixel perfect" if rasterized, even for these very simple rectilinear shapes, there is no one 'universal' first or any other nudge distance that can be applied globally that will work for them all.

So how do these other apps handle this? Basically, they cheat, selectively changing some combination of the position, size, or stroke alignment of your shapes to fit into some algorithmically determined 'nearest' whole pixel values.

That may well be desirable or at least acceptable for some projects, but it is no panacea for them all, particularly where maintaining precision of closely spaced objects is important.

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46 minutes ago, dutchshader said:

don't know why, but this allways seem to work:

It works for me when moving two or more selected nodes, but that is not always acceptable. :(

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3 minutes ago, R C-R said:

It works for me when moving two or more selected nodes, but that is not always acceptable. :(

Placing 1 extra node behind the node you move works the same, it's better than the deformation you would otherwise get.;)

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19 minutes ago, dutchshader said:

Placing 1 extra node behind the node you move works the same, it's better than the deformation you would otherwise get.;)

True, but all this would be unnecessary if moving just one end node over the other end node did not deform its curvature to begin with. >:(

If it did not do that & 'close curves' simply converted the pair of nodes into a single one without defoming anything, it would be so much simpler.

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1 minute ago, R C-R said:

True, but all this would be unnecessary if moving just one end node over the other end node did not deform its curvature to begin with. >:(

If it did not do that & 'close curves' simply converted the pair of nodes into a single one without defoming anything, it would be so much simpler.

I totaly agree

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2 hours ago, Lagarto said:

If you use pixel alignment, I think that this is the price you are ready to pay. The interest is in pixel alignment rather than in keeping non-pixel based dimensions.

That depends on what kind of project the designer is interested in creating. If it is a resolution-independent all text & vector project, or a mixed vector, text, & raster project, then perfect pixel alignment is probably not the most important design criterion.

Besides, pixel perfect alignment is possible only for rectilinear objects, so only simple block text glyphs, a few simple vector shapes, rectangular pixel & image layers that are not rotated to any angle other than multiples of 90° could be fully aligned to a pixel grid, & only rectilinear hard edged clipping & masking & a limited number of layer effects & blend modes could be used with them.

Basically, anything that causes anti-aliasing must be avoided if the project involves outputting to a raster-only format, so short of defeating anti-aliasing & accepting the "jaggies" that creates, there will be at least some unavoidable blurring.

I doubt this is a price most designers really are ready to pay.

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Well, I'm glad everyone is seeing the issue.

Unfortunately, I'm no longer getting the friendly connection when dragging ends together :(.
It's a very bad sign when a glitch has better functionality than the actual software ¬¬.

I can offer a workaround that doesn't involve extra nodes though.
(that this is even necessary 5 years in is........ :51_scream:)

Oh, and hitting "Divide" to close something is... hilarious.

1424559561_joinendsworkaround.gif.9223325f8890f5333b5f3aa2e981b0d8.gif

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Lagarto, you have to use the knot tool and straighten the direction points with ALT in the center of the cross.

outil nœud.jpg

French talking, but I can use Google Translate :)

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1 hour ago, JimmyJack said:

I can offer a workaround that doesn't involve extra nodes though.

I don't currently use a browser that allows me to pause GIF's, so I am not exactly sure what your workaround is, but it really doesn't matter.

This is something that never should have required any workaround to begin with. I can understand why some things like expand stroke might be hard to program to work the way we would like them to, but the current behavior that changes the node's angle seems like something they had to program intentionally, & I have no idea why. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but either way I hope it is a behavior they can change to something more use friendly ASAP.

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Seriously @JimmyJack you should make a stickie post and call it JimmyJacks Workarounds :D

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  • 2 years later...

I deem the behaviour of this node joining and breaking utterly random. Is frustrating and weird. After hours of trying, reading a lot of text and studying the forum, I just dont get it lol.

Thanks for this very thorough information regarding this absolutely easy topic. Maybe I get it after reading those lines just over and over and over...

 

image.png.79be2ed7850b52dcb342beded85d2499.png

First Curve, Second Curve, with node tool and shift both curves selected, join curves. wtf?

image.png.0f9bd8abbb29c74599166226911dbd2b.png

Close curve INSTEAD of join for comparison

image.png.91c47e4ef6c3b0d8b037c5d2aead90f4.png

And why is there break close and join, but no open option. I can break, close and join, but i cannot open? Clarify your terms and their usage by making better definitions thanks, its so diffusing and hard to understand the mechanics. I also watched all the offical Designer help videos about curves that I was able to find.

Edited by NicoPsyral
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