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Okay. I have this confusion that maybe someone here can straighten out. I LOVE designing all kinds of things! However, when I create my images, I just bring one object to the front of other objects. I suppose this is technically "using layers" (even though it's all on one layer). But I never use the layers function. Is this a bad thing? Can I do more WITH layers? Like what, specifically?
Help me understand this. Thanks in advance.
Mark
Mark,
One of the things I find is that when you do a drawing that has a lot of shapes in it, it gets to be very unwieldy without using layers. It is nice to have all objects that are associated with the same portion of the drawing on the same layer.
The other thing I like to do is to lock a layer so that I do not inadvertently move a object or make a change to it as I am working on something else. This allows me to work on just the parts of the drawing I want to concentrate on.
I am sure there are a lot more reasons but I find these are my top 2.
Ray
You can treat layering as same approach to painting with watercolours - it is a form of construction.
You can add effects and control them more easily by revealing or promoting layers - it is a level of abstraction.
A tree, with and without leaves - it is a form of control.
Acorn
I agree with Ray. For simple drawings selecting an object and bringing it forward, to the top or backwards or to the back is fine.
But for complex drawings, layers are great. You can make them visible or invisible and isolate parts of your drawing.
If you don't feel the need to create and use layers that's fine. Everybody has different ways of creating and Xara gives you a lot of different ways to accomplish the same task.
you can look at it as an organisational tool one step up from grouping - so you can 'group' things together without them becoming one object
Have you ever tried to do a portrait drawing of a person or even a cartoon, the stacking order of things gets complicated. The easiest solution is to use layers for things like hair, mouth eyes, ears ................. and head.
The next thing that layers are used for is for printing where you would always place any text that you have stacked at the very top for clean and clear text. OK I hear you say so long as I place text in the top of my object palette I will get the same effect. Yes you would if you were printing it directly from Xara but you can get weird effects if you export as SVG, P.S. or PDF where the export filter renders your lovely vectors as bitmaps. Overprinting and trapping can really mess your clean vectors when it comes to things like blends, transparency and gradients so again we use layers to help the separation between 2 distinct parts of your drawing. In gradients over a large area when printing we can end up with miserable banding which can make you PDF export look terrible so the solution here would to make a bitmap copy. So after doing that you have to decide whither to delete the vector or hide it and it's so much easier when you use layers to select the vector. Transparencies and blends fall into this as well and if you ever have to edit a PDF which has a complex blend in it you'll understand why using layers work.
I agree with all of the above and would like to add that layers are useful if you want to copy & paste elements of one file into another.
I find layers are also good for trying stuff out. I tend to build my images with layers, and then duplicate a layer and change the colouring, or perhaps use different fonts. I can then turn layers on or off and decide which I like best. It's useful to have one 'master' image to work with.
Chris,
What a USEFUL idea. I never thought of that! Thank you for the input.
Mark
Great idea, Boy!
Mark,
Imagine you had an illustration of a stove/cooker.
You make the base of the stove first - with burners and the racks for putting cookware on.
Next you add a kettle to put on top at the back.
Now you add a cooking pot at the front.
It looks wonderful.
Now your client says it would look better with the kettle at the front and pot at the back. You have to rejig the stacking order of every one of those layers (if you didn't group them).
Then the client says that they want images of the stove with just a kettle, just a post and just the stove. And now they want two pots, one to be red.
Now you can do all this by careful grouping, but all the while you are in danger of messing things up because all these parts sit one on top of the other and if you want to add a pot, you can accidentally move the kettle or change it.
When you have layers you can distribute all of these parts to different layers - one for the stove, one for the kettle, one for each pot.
Now you can control each object through the layers. You can draw the stove and lock that layer. Then you can draw the kettle on the stove, but the stove is protected. You put the kettle on one layer, lock it then draw the pot on a new layer.
If you want a new pot, duplicate the layer.
If your kettle needs to move in front of the pot, change the layer order.
You can rejig the artwork on an isolated layer, knowing you won't screw up your other work.
I don't know how people can make complex images and avoid layers without making a lot of work for themselves.
also you can still group parts which each exist on separate layers, keeping them on their separate layers, by using soft grouping - useful if they need to be moved in sync [say they are all parts of one character
I can tell you that having the option to turn Xara layers into PDF layers when exporting to PDF is super useful. I've created character sheets for RPGs that are set up so I can turn various layers on and off in the PDF via javascript controls.
-- Ben
:cool: I DID IT! My first drawing with layers. I took an image of a skull that had no background, just a line drawing. And, using my trusty filter forge plug-in, I created this image (which I hope I figured out HOW to post it). Attachment 114735 A sort of BEFORE and AFTER! YAY ME!! And I used 3 layers to create it! :)
You're welcome!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark321