Freehand too using WAY too many points... tried everything.

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NealF2
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Freehand too using WAY too many points... tried everything.

Post by NealF2 »

Hi.

Don't know why but now when I use the freehand tool it's creating a ton of points.
I tried point reduction in the Freehand options. From 2 to 90%. I also tried extreme high and low in the Smoothing setting.

Nothing.

I tried the point reduction tool. Still nothing changes.
I also tried the selection tool Simplify. Bupkas!

Any ideas?

ADDITIONAL INFO: That seems to be only happening on a specific layer. I just drew on a different character and it's working fine.
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Moho Pro 14
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Lukas
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Re: Freehand too using WAY too many points... tried everything.

Post by Lukas »

Try this tool by Alex Cousin: https://alexcousin.gumroad.com/l/zxmqkg he’s actively developing it and it does some very cool things.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Freehand too using WAY too many points... tried everything.

Post by Greenlaw »

FWIW, I had been mostly happy with the new FH in Moho 14.4, but definitely a +1 for the third-party tool above!

I've been using Alex's Freehand Pro for a few days, and it's been an excellent unofficial update for the native Freehand. I'm finding FHP is more accurate, and it solves or at least minimizes endpoint issues. FHP also does a better job at closing a curve (compare by drawing a rectangle with each tool). In addition to these improvements, the tool adds a Lazy Mouse mode to Moho, which is great for precision tracing.

Highly recommended! :D
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Greenlaw
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Re: Freehand too using WAY too many points... tried everything.

Post by Greenlaw »

Re: Point Reduction with the native Freehand tool, increasing the Point Reduction value in the box at the bottom of Freehand's options window really should reduce the points. The default of 15% does a decent job, 0% draws a zillion points, and 100% draws minimal points. Note that this is a completely separate control from Smoothing, and PR needs to be manually set by entering a new value. (But you can scrub the value.)

Examples:

Image

Image

It's curious that the feature isn't working correctly in a specific layer for you, though. Not sure why that would happen, but try copying and pasting the art into a new vector layer, and continue drawing there. Does that help? If so, I suspect the original layer somehow got corrupted.

BTW, Alex's Freehand Pro adds a new mode for Point Reduction. I haven't compared it directly to the native mode yet, but the result looks pretty good so far.

Image
Last edited by Greenlaw on Sat Mar 14, 2026 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Greenlaw
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Re: Freehand too using WAY too many points... tried everything.

Post by Greenlaw »

Oh, I meant to mention one more thing. There is a Wire option in FHP that allows me to see the points while drawing in the layer. This is pretty nice when I need to be extra aware of the point count.
Animations, Tutorials, and Cats (Oh, My!) Little Green Dog Channel on YouTube!

D.R. Greenlaw
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