Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
Thanks for the explanation Acorn. It's probably that as a Xara user of many years (as yourself), long before rounded corners and smart shapes when we had to create them on our own. So this is my method of choice.
I admit I've never dabbled with, nor understood opacity masks and having followed your instructions to the letter did get the exact same result as yourself. I just couldn't understand what I could do with it beyond that.
I always keep a copy of my constructions on the pasteboard should I require further adjustments.
I enjoy looking at your inventive alternatives, thanks.
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
so opacity masks are rather like intersections with some editable features afterwards such as level of transparency, positioning and size..... useful; I learnt something :D
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Boy
Good stuff, Acorn.
Looking forward to how you'll apply the lost outlines. I tried a number of things with 'Shapes' but didn't succeed.
Boy, this is the best I have managed:
Attachment 130836
Add back a Complete Stroke
1.Clone Masked Shape - Ctrl+K
2.Set Line Width to None
3.Detach Opacity Mask - Alt+O
4.Ungroup - Ctrl+U
5.Delete any White Mask Objects
6.Select all and Arrange > Combine Shapes > Intersect All Shapes
7.Delete all Black Mask Objects
8.Add in Line Width
The result is destructive so you need to keep the original.
Acorn
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Acorn
Attachment 130836
Add back a Complete Stroke
1.Clone Masked Shape - Ctrl+K
2.Set Line Width to None
3.Detach Opacity Mask - Alt+O
4.Ungroup - Ctrl+U
5.Delete any White Mask Objects
6.Select all and Arrange > Combine Shapes > Intersect All Shapes
7.Delete all Black Mask Objects
8.Add in Line Width
The result is destructive so you need to keep the original.
Even if the final result is destructive, masking is a good method to let you see real-time the desired result (minus the outline) as you can move around/change the cutout shapes.
As per Egg, steps 6 to 8 can be replaced with Select all and Substract shapes (Ctrl+2).
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Boy
Even if the final result is destructive, masking is a good method to let you see real-time the desired result (minus the outline) as you can move around/change the cutout shapes.
As per Egg, steps 6 to 8 can be replaced with Select all and Substract shapes (Ctrl+2).
Boy that is useful.
Add back a Complete Stroke
1. Clone Masked Shape - Ctrl+K
2. Set Line Width to None
3. Detach Opacity Mask - Alt+O
4. Ctrl+Select and Delete any White Mask Objects
5. Select all and Arrange > Combine Shapes > Subtract Shapes - Ctrl+2
6. Ungroup
7. Add in Line Width
Acorn
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
Going through it once more, steps 2, 6 and 7 are actually not necessary.
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
in my workflow i can see a real use for opacity msks as a means of quickly repostioning/reorienting a 'visibility window' that is punching through an object; pity that to actually edit the mask shape you need to go 'inside' [like clipview] which means you lose sight of the context and so the usefulness
I never went much for the non-destructive aspect of xara and could quite happily live without it... 'ctrl+z' is usaually all I need; like egg I save out asset though in my case i export rather than pasteboard if it is specific; indeed having to make bitmap copies to fix before applying trace or effect is a nuisence to me
the one area where it is useful though is erase/shapebuild which I now see as a form of opacity masking...
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handrawn
in my workflow i can see a real use for opacity msks as a means of quickly repostioning/reorienting a 'visibility window' that is punching through an object; pity that to actually edit the mask shape you need to go 'inside' [like clipview] which means you lose sight of the context and so the usefulness
I never went much for the non-destructive aspect of xara and could quite happily live without it... 'ctrl+z' is usaually all I need; like egg I save out asset though in my case i export rather than pasteboard if it is specific; indeed having to make bitmap copies to fix before applying trace or effect is a nuisence to me
the one area where it is useful though is erase/shapebuild which I now see as a form of opacity masking...
handrawn, have you tried to just Detach Opacity Mask, adjust and re-apply? The Mask objects are then visible and grouped but you can isolate any one with Ctrl+Select.
Acorn
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
thanks acorn
up to a point... thing is, correct me if wrong but:
if you edit inside you only see the object[s] that has the mask[s] applied
if you open the opacity mask you only see the masking object[s]
if you detach the mask you can no longer see through the masked area
which ever way you are doing it you cannot edit the masking shape whilst being able to see what is being revealed/hidden in real time
there is a way round this by detaching the mask and temp given the mask[s] and masked objects[s] transparency, but that in itself can introduce visibility issues and become a tad unwieldly
Re: Fancy Corners with Masks
Quote:
Originally Posted by
handrawn
thanks acorn
up to a point... thing is, correct me if wrong but:
if you edit inside you only see the object[s] that has the mask[s] applied
if you open the opacity mask you only see the masking object[s]
if you detach the mask you can no longer see through the masked area
which ever way you are doing it you cannot edit the masking shape whilst being able to see what is being revealed/hidden in real time
there is a way round this by detaching the mask and temp given the mask[s] and masked objects[s] transparency, but that in itself can introduce visibility issues and become a tad unwieldly
handrawn, I think you have overlooked a step.
In the Page & Layer Gallery, expand the Opacity Mask.
In my example, these were named tl, tr, bl & br (in full).
You can select any of these and move it around, rotate or scale or skew - all in interactive mode.
Acorn