Shapes - this drives me crazy

[Jkoseattle]

I have a lot of trouble with plain old shapes in Moho. I have never gotten the hang of what I'm doing and spend a lot of time clicking around until something manages to work. Here's a recent example - I am completely baffled by this. Could someone please watch this video and let me know what I'm doing wrong?

http://imgur.com/a/Zidu2

[synthsin75]

It looks like you have masking setup, but your add to mask layer doesn't cover the art of your other layer, so it's not showing.

I always suggest turning on the option to auto-name new shapes. That way, when in doubt, you can check the Shape dropdown in the Style window to see how many shapes the layer has.

Also, if the select shape tool to available, you do have shapes in the layer.

[Jkoseattle]

Looks like masking is the issue, which brought me to this:

http://imgur.com/a/cH6kt

[hayasidist]

looks as though there is no fill in the eye outline... so the only "filled" pixels are those in the stroke ... and with the masking option you have the only place that the masked layer will show are where there are filled pixels ... so the iris won't show cos there ain't no white of the eye

[Jkoseattle]

OK, that was it. I could have sworn I filled it, but I guess I hadn't. Is there any difference between 1) using the Paint tool to fill something and 2) the Create Shape tool with the fill button checked and 3) drawing a new shape with Auto-fill checked? I know that sometimes, I can't reproduce the sequence, I will fill something and the fill color will actually obscure the inner half of the stroke, and so I have to re-paint the stroke again to get the whole stroke back in there.

[Greenlaw]

I believe using Fill won't necessarily reproduce the shape it's filling exactly. I think the way it works is that it auto-traces the empty space and creates a new shape based on the trace data. This method works as a fill technique but the new shape probably won't deform the same way. Normally, you might use this with non-deforming shapes, like in FBF drawings.

Preferably, you should select the shape using Select Shape and create a proper fill shape. This way the new fill shape is based on the selected shape so you get an exact match. Note that the new shape will share points with the selected shape but you can still push these merged shapes up and down independently of each other.

[hayasidist]

yes -- sometimes you'll want to have many shapes sharing the same set of points...


for example: I draw a path (freehand / shape tool / add point tool) with auto fill off and auto stroke on:
Now I select the shape and check the "fill" box in the style window. This adds fill to the ONE shape that I have.
OR
I select the path using the create shape tool and select "fill" (not stroke) then I create shape. I now have 2 shapes - one with fill and one with stroke. I can swap the shape order so that the fill is on top of the stroke - and that hides the "inside half" of the stroke under the fill

I believe using Fill won't necessarily reproduce the shape it's filling exactly

I think that's paint bucket ??... Paint bucket is useful when working with intersecting paths ... it can create a shape (with fill and/or stroke) and new points in the intersection (e.g. I have 2 partially overlapping rectangular shapes both with stroke and fill; I can use paint bucket to create a third shape in the overlap

[Greenlaw]

You're right, I meant Paint Bucket...sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Jkoseattle]

Umm... does anyone else find all this impossibly confusing? I make these paths, which consist of a very thin line with little boxes representing points, and then sometimes I might connect them up so that they are a closed polygon, yet this closed polygon MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be considered a "shape" by Moho, depending on whether auto-fill or auto-weld or auto-stroke or merge strokes is selected, but whether it is or is not considered a shape, it will look exactly the same, a thin line connected by little boxes, and then I can fill it either by telling Moho it's a shape (which it already looks like to me, but how do I know what Moho thinks it is?), or else by using a Paint tool which, depending on what stroke/fill options are selected, might or might not fill it with some color, which now I'm told may or may not correlate to the set of lines and boxes representing the shape, or path, or whatever it is, and I better be sure to select the fill or stroke color at the right time, and I better have selected it first, which puts a checkerboard in the fill shape, making sure it's impossible to know what's going on until I click off it and see what color it really turned into.... it's confusing.

[Greenlaw]

Basically, you need to think of curves and shapes as entirely different things.

Curves are not renderable and while they may define a shape, they are not by themselves shapes. Curves can have other uses in Moho besides defining shapes.

Shapes are the renderable fills and strokes created from the curves, and even though they are attached to curves, they are separate objects from the curves.

It may seem confusing at first but there is method to the 'madness' and you'll eventually appreciate it after you've completed a project or two. I would experiment with some simple objects to understand how they work and gradually work on more complex drawings.

FYI, I never use the checkerboard pattern when viewing shapes. I find the pattern makes it difficult to see what I'm doing so I always keep it disabled. You can disable it by unchecking Checker Selection in the Style panel. With checkers disabled, it's still pretty obvious which shape you have selected and less distracting.

[synthsin75]

Umm... does anyone else find all this impossibly confusing? I make these paths, which consist of a very thin line with little boxes representing points, and then sometimes I might connect them up so that they are a closed polygon, yet this closed polygon MIGHT or MIGHT NOT be considered a "shape" by Moho, depending on whether auto-fill or auto-weld or auto-stroke or merge strokes is selected, but whether it is or is not considered a shape, it will look exactly the same, a thin line connected by little boxes, and then I can fill it either by telling Moho it's a shape (which it already looks like to me, but how do I know what Moho thinks it is?), or else by using a Paint tool which, depending on what stroke/fill options are selected, might or might not fill it with some color, which now I'm told may or may not correlate to the set of lines and boxes representing the shape, or path, or whatever it is, and I better be sure to select the fill or stroke color at the right time, and I better have selected it first, which puts a checkerboard in the fill shape, making sure it's impossible to know what's going on until I click off it and see what color it really turned into.... it's confusing.

Sometimes you may need to move some points to make sure they're connected and you have a closed curve. Just because a point on one curve is on top of another curve does not mean they are welded together. Also, if you're missing a point(s) from your selection, Moho can't guess what you're wanting to do. While the paint bucket does do a good job guessing, I never use it because it can add points I really don't need.

You can always select a shape and add or remove fill or stroke, as long as the original shape was created on a closed curve, otherwise you can only change stroke.

Working through the Help tutorials and manual can help.