Sharp Corners?

[Greenlaw]

I've been able to do that (weld stacked shapes) sometimes but never understood why sometimes it worked and other times not very well. This is why I generally avoided stacking shapes directly on top of each other.

I'll have to give your trick a try and see if that works more reliably for me.

I would love to see shape stacking with shared points as a normal feature. I don't see why this would be considered confusing...I mean I don't think anybody would do that by accident. I hope they bring the feature back. (But I'd still want the stroke options.)

[Greenlaw]

...create one shape, select at least two extra points (so Moho thinks it's a different collection of points), and create the second shape. You can then delete the extra points...

Just tried it and this is much easier and more predictable than the nonsense I was doing. Thanks for posting this tip, Wes.

[Greenlaw]

What I needed the other day was a shape like this, with outside-only stroke around most of the shape and no stroke at all around the 'joint' edge:



But I was having trouble with reliably welding all the points so I could deform the stacked shapes together as 'one' shape. Using your trick, this seems to work the way I need it to.

Will try it in an actual character setup next.

[synthsin75]

I don't see why this would be considered confusing...I mean I don't think anybody would do that by accident. I hope they bring the feature back. (But I'd still want the stroke options.)

Oh, it was one of those frequently repeating problems once upon a time. New users would accidentally stack shapes (usually trying to use the paint bucket to "change" colors, which just created more shapes...that can still happen with that tool: viewtopic.php?p=184289#p184289 ), and the compound anti-alias render compositing would make edges look aliased...so they decided it gave a bad impression of Moho in newbie hands.

When I have time, I'm probably going to see about implementing this workaround automatically in a modified create shape tool.

[synthsin75]

Here's a create shape tool mod that allows for stacked shapes: [See below for new link]

[hayasidist]

I had a thought about the ease (or relative lack thereof) of selecting shapes in a stack. OK there's the ctrl up/down arrow to step through the stack (which BTW doesn't seem to know how many shapes there are -- e.g. repeatedly pressing "down" after reaching the last shape keeps increasing the "depth" even though there are no shapes at that depth) ... but:


lets say you have a polygon that you want to have multiple shapes. Create that path. (no fill/stroke attributes yet!)

outside the render area add another path for a "reference" polygon (e.g. circle). Select all the points and create shape with the first set of attributes for the target polygon.
outside the render area add another reference polygon path. Select its points along with the target polygon and create shape with the next set of attributes …
etc etc.

Now selecting the required shape is as simple as clicking on the reference circle outside the render area.

[synthsin75]

Okay, here's an updated create shape tool that allows for stacked shapes and a new select shape tool to help manage stacked shapes:
https://sites.google.com/site/synthsin/ ... ects=0&d=1

The new select shape tool features:

• A shape stack indicator: Shape ID: 0 [1] 2
  • When you select a shape, this shows all the IDs for the shapes below the cursor.
  • It indicates which shape in the stack is selected with "[ ]". So you can see either your selection change, using Ctrl+Up/Down, or the shape order change (IDs move), just using Up/Down.
  • Left to right is top to bottom in the stack.
• No more Ctrl+Up/Down overrun...where you keep hitting the arrow and nothing happens.
• You can also make contiguous shape selections in the stack using Ctrl+Shift+Up/Down. All selected shapes in the stack are indicated by "[ ]" and can be moved as a group.

After coming up with this, I'm kicking myself that I never thought of it before. This will save a crap ton of guess work, especially for stacked shapes.
Let me know what you guys think. Hope you enjoy it.

[TheMinahBird]

How would I go about editing the shape seperately after creating another shape on top of a previous one?
The tool is awesome I’m just not sure how to do that.

[synthsin75]

How would I go about editing the shape seperately after creating another shape on top of a previous one?
The tool is awesome I’m just not sure how to do that.

Select the shape and use Ctrl+Down_Arrow to select shapes under it. Or if you're using it to do an external stroke, just click on the expose stroke of the lower shape.

[TheMinahBird]

Okay wow thanks! I was trying to do the exposure thing but didn't realize it. This is pretty rad.

[TheMinahBird]

Thanks so much for the replies! I guess if I want that specific style I'll try it the square within a square way. Or I'll import raster images or an SVG from Illustrator that does the same blob brush/ square within square effect.

Oh, and I just realized something ! So I was wondering does Moho have a outline stroke feature? Or can it convert strokes to shapes?

[synthsin75]

Someone could script that, but Moho doesn't do that natively.

[Greenlaw]

One native option: You can add an outline as a render effect. This works with either layers and groups. For example, if you open the layer settings for the top group, enable Outline and expand the width, you can get that early 'Cartoon Network' heavy-outline look.

I think what the feature actually does is it expands the edge of the layer's alpha and fills it with the selected color during rendering. So it's not really a 'stroke' effect but the visual result can look like it.

[TheMinahBird]

One native option: You can add an outline as a render effect. This works with either layers and groups. For example, if you open the layer settings for the top group, enable Outline and expand the width, you can get that early 'Cartoon Network' heavy-outline look.

I think what the feature actually does is it expands the edge of the layer's alpha and fills it with the selected color during rendering. So it's not really a 'stroke' effect but the visual result can look like it.

I mean along these lines: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com ... llustrator,

but thanks so much! Stylistically I Love thick outlines with little/thin ones for fine details, like that Billy and Mandy or PPG type style.

[Greenlaw]

Oh, I see. You can sort of do that in Moho Pro now. For example, let's use the 'plus sign' from that image.

1. Draw two rectangles and overlap them to make a plus sign.

2. With the Select tool selected, select all the points.

3. Click the Weld Crossings button.

4. Select the Delete Edge tool and 'erase' the inside lines.

I'll admit, the procedure is a bit cludgy but it's not horrible.

Maybe someday, we can get something like the Pathfinder panel from Illustrator in Moho? Now, that would be nice.