renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

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drichird
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renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by drichird »

In working with various shapes and using the add point tool and change curvature tool, I have many times seem to end up here and there with a point which has 2 bad behaviors. 1: I cannot change its curvature, it remains sharp. This even occurs when "sharp corners" option is turned off. 2: If I try to delete it, even if there are adjoining points on either side, it takes both left and right edges with it. By deleting it and then reconnecting broken edges I can eventually get back, but this messes up any previous point binding or animation for the shape.

Has anyone encountered this before? Thanks ahead!
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hayasidist
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by hayasidist »

yes. it's intentional -- it's an "end point" -- here's a long discussion about the subject. http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... IC_ID=1912

In short, if you have a "branching" path (e.g. as per tutorial 1.3), the order in which you add points can have a dramatic effect on how AS understands the path -- often I've drawn paths that look closed (i.e. that form a shape that can be filled), but which AS refuses to accept as closed until I find and remove that "rogue" point...
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heyvern
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by heyvern »

What you have is a point that may have been connected at some time to the middle of another vector. Like a "T" intersection. You would have then two points branching off on either side and if you delete one you get two connected end points. It appears to be a single vector but isn't. It's actually two end points connected together.

Image

It makes no difference the order of connection or creation of the points. This happens when you connect a new vector to the middle of a vector instead of connecting to an end point. This might happen with the freehand tool or when joining a vector to another vector and you don't "hit" that end point.

Also you can "force weld" splines and points with the translate point tool by pressing the space bar. If a point is close to another spline or point and you press space, the end point will connect, creating a smooth connection to an end point or creating a new point on a vector and attaching the end point.

What may be happening in these cases when you have no idea what is going wrong, is that you haven't really been in control of how all the paths are connected. Maybe you used the free hand tool, or auto trace or imported something. You can end up creating a lot of strange connections. Or maybe as you described, you were using the add point tool indiscriminately (not incorrectly or wrong, just without paying attention). Also you could peak points in areas where it then becomes very difficult to see where the end point might be.

When I am creating characters and drawing and creating the vectors, I am always pay close attention to exactly where I am connecting paths. I usually draw everything with the add point tool, so I know where all the points are connected. There are actually some tricks that I use for creating solutions to odd shapes that require unique point/vector connections, so I really need to know how everything is connected.


===================================
hayasidist wrote:yes. it's intentional -- it's an "end point" -- here's a long discussion about the subject. http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... IC_ID=1912
hayasidist, can you explain how that topic on the kellytown forum has anything to do with this one? It was about shapes and custom tool scripting and how "curves don't seem to match shapes... etc etc" or some such thing. The only mention of the "odd" end point connection error was someone who created his own custom add point tool or shape tool, that was potentially causing incorrect shape creation. I know first hand how a "bad" script can create some very odd things. The error discussed in that thread was potentially a user scripting error and has nothing to do with construction of curves in vectors here.

I have been using AS for a very long time and the add point tool DOES NOT create these "rogue points" unless I do it on purpose. I have never had a problem with it.
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hayasidist
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by hayasidist »

Hi Vern.

Wes's post in that thread Posted 04/28/2013 : 11:42:49 AM says more or less what you've said.

And I've had just the same experience with these "end points" as the OP... obviously it's down to the way I use the (standard) tools to create these branched shapes - and the remedy for me was to be meticulous about the order in which I created the "baseline" shape and the "T"-type branches... Many many times, in complex meshes, I've ended up getting it 'wrong' and have had to kill off branched segments then re-join them to make a visually identical but (when looking into the .anme file) differently sequenced set of points in order to convince AS that it's a shape that can be filled. But then I do use very complex shapes -- perhaps the moral is that I should keep it simple(r).
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heyvern
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by heyvern »

There are some "rules" about legal shapes. It doesn't really depend on how shapes are connected (branching connected end points etc). It depends on the number of points in the shape more than how they are connected.

For example, it makes no difference at all how points are connected but if you have a 4 corner box, split in the middle with a vector and try to select that whole thing to make a fill shape, it won't work. You have to have "extra" points in the connecting splines to tell AS where the fill is.

In this image the connected splines are done in both types of strange ways, single vector connections and "end point" connections. Makes no difference. Same fill shape rules apply.

Image

I have never encountered any of the issues as you describe or in that other thread on the other forum. I also make really complex paths for shapes.
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drichird
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by drichird »

Thanks very much heyvern and hayasidist for your inputs. Thanks to your explanations I can now at least replicate the problem manually. For example starting with an unfilled circle. If I try to add a handle (create a frying pan) to the circle by using add points, where the handle joins the circle by creating 2 new autoweld points, and then delete the edge between the 2 autoweld points of the handle, I get the frying pan shape, and I can create filled shape, but the autoweld points curvature are stuck on sharp and I cannot delete them without breaking the shape, just like you guys said. I think this is just another way of saying what you said heyvern with your "T" example.

So bottom line I guess not all points created equal and must be especially careful with autowelded new points, probably only surefire way to avoid problem is do not create new autoweld points between existing points of a shape, better to delete a shape's edge and then rebuild shape by adding points from either of the new gap endpoints?

Thanks again for all your help.
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slowtiger
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by slowtiger »

I should recommend this again: if you don't need stuff to be one continuous shape for a special effect fill, you're much better off with piling up separate shapes - the visual result is the same, but all those fills and stuff are much more reliable, and in the end you work faster.
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hayasidist
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by hayasidist »

thanks Vern and SlowTiger..

the shapes I was working with were way more complex than just the "need to remove path ambiguity by adding an extra point" as in Vern's example.

I'd succeeded in making "a fillable shape with heavily branched internal paths" -- the paths were often there to add texture from a custom brush -- or, indeed, just a heavily branched stroke-only shape..

For example:
> in the 2012 Christmas card (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytDGOJ7kbbA) -- the bear and the tree are examples of fill plus multiple-branch shapes; the bauble is stroke-only and uses path reveal, so the order in which points were added to its branched shapes became even more critical to ensure the correct outcome);
> and in the crossroads tryout (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpC0X2VykvM) -- the waves with their spray as they hit the rocks, and the shoreline itself are similarly fill/branch and branched stroke-only examples).

In both these short pieces, I've used branches off branches off branches off ... maybe to about 6 or more degrees. It was hard work making these branches off branches ... as said, I'd often get it wrong and end up needing to take out a branched segment together with some "outline" then put the "same" points back but in a different order...

And, as SlowTiger says - where there's no real need for such complexity, it really is best avoided (another lesson I've learned the hard way!) .. I think the only "need" was for the tree "skeleton" because of the way I'd chosen to animate it, and even that could probably have been done differently if I'd spent a little longer thinking before inking...
RichardU
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Re: renegade point stays sharp, removes edge if deleted

Post by RichardU »

I've seen the sharp point before on older models and all I could do is delete it.
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