Multiple Object Fill?

[jonwalker]

Hi All,

Does anyone know how to fill an area with a colour in Xara 6, when that space is surrounded by different 'objects'?

So say I drew 3 separate lines to form a triangle. How can I fill that triangle with a colour? If I select the Fill Tool and choose a colour, then click in the centre of the triangle nothing happens.

If I were to do the same thing in Illustrator then it would simply create a new shape that fitted the space.

Perhaps this is not possible? Such a simple thing though, I feel I must be missing something. Is it perhaps available on Xara 7?

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks, Jon

[ShapeShifter]

If you draw three straight *joined* lines with the shape editor or straightline tool the triangle will auto fill with the currently selected colour.
If you wanted a triangle shape, you'd use the quickshape tool (star icon) and set it to 3 sides.

[handrawn]

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...ht=#post404628

might be useful

[Xhris]

Hi. It's not possible to do it live, but it is possible to do it statically. I made a video a while back here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39WUYZMdXcc

[MarcT]

It would surely be useful to have some kind of paint bucket/boundary detection feature in Xara

Marc

[jonwalker]

Thanks for the replies. :-)

Yes this is what I thought, in that it is not possible to do. This is why I do not use Xara so much, because I draw in free hand. I then at some point want to colour the drawing, it is too tedious to connect all the lines (and sometimes I don't want them connected for the design). So then I have to export to Photoshop to colour it, creating masks, feathering and so on. It takes a long time.

Really I'd be happy with Xara if it just let me draw lines of different thicknesses and then fill shapes.

What confuses me is that nobody else seems to come across this problem? Perhaps there is some method in my drawing process that I am missing? Or maybe nobody uses Xara for illustration so much and instead uses Adobe Illustrator?

It really has me stumped, such a simple basic feature that is missing and on version 7? Such a shame as Adobe Illustrator is bloated and slow in comparison, but still I have no choice but to use it!

[handrawn]

I use xara designer for illustration and very little else - and I also draw freehand

yes, a bucket fill tool would be useful - but such tools function according to algorithms that will not give perfect results under all circumstances, and this includes illustrator

there is a lot to be said for having your fill shapes separate from your line art, especially if you want to feather the fill edges, use clipview to manage highlights and shadows, apply blur etc... having the colouration on the same shape as the lines can work fine for simple tasks, but sooner or later it can end up a pita in itself

duplicate the layer that has your line art [which remains unjoined]
select all lines on the bottom layer [ctrl+a]
from arrange menu select 'convert line to shape'
then arrange menu combine shapes > add shapes [ctrl+1]
[if you have the pro version you can set a keystroke for 'convert line to shape' - even quicker]
then you can arrange menu break shapes [again you can set a keystroke for this in pro] - remember there will be a top shape hiding the shapes below this is often useful to colour white and send to the back so you can use it to block the background out when applying transparency to the other shapes

it won't work if there are gaps in the line art - but then that's true of illustrator [there is a auto gap feature in illustrator live paint, but again it aint perfect]

also good practice to have all your text on seperate layer[s], especially if you export to PDF where you may have to convert text to shapes first for it to work properly [equivalent of converting to outlines in illustrator]

[PhilM]

Hi Jon,

A simple method that might fit your workflow is to draw a freehand filled shape after you've drawn your outlines. I.e. identify an area you want to colour, use the freehand tool to quickly trace over the bounding lines and make sure you complete the shape so that it fills, then click a colour. You can then use "Put to Back" to push it behind the bounding lines.

Often if the bounding lines are thick enough the filled shape won't "leak" outside them but if it does it's easy to adjust the filled shape in the Shape tool. (A bit of colour leaking outside the lines is sometimes OK if the drawing style is quite loose.)

That simple technique can be refined in various ways:
* Use a special layer to contain the filled shapes.
* Use Stain transparency to allow the filled shapes to stay on top of the lines and give a different character to the drawing.
* Use the Freehand smoothness slider to make the filled shapes more accurate.
* Use Sketch mode when drawing the filled shapes to speed up the process by preventing autojoining of shapes.


SketchCube.xar

Phil

[Guest]

Hi Jon,

A simple method that might fit your workflow is to draw a freehand filled shape after you've drawn your outlines. I.e. identify an area you want to colour, use the freehand tool to quickly trace over the bounding lines and make sure you complete the shape so that it fills, then click a colour. You can then use "Put to Back" to push it behind the bounding lines.
Phil

Hi Phil,
that method is always there of course. But does it match the elegance and straightforwardness of the rest of Xara? Surely not.
Before I started drawing lots of already existing shapes once more just in order to fill them I'd rather jump over to Illustrator
which even gives fills to not exactly closed shapes and lets me define tolerable gap-widths.
Just look at this Clip: The Author redraws every single shape just in order to get a fill. Do you feel that this is the way it should work?

[handrawn]

there again a really good illustration has more than one shape for a fill area - some have dozens in order to get the effect realistic....