Moho Animation Forum

There's one thing I cant' seem to ever learn. It's the one thing I need to go a look at tutorials every time, and it's not by far the most complicated: it's... making shapes with holes! I just can't memorise the drill, there's something about the create shape procedure that eludes me and won't make an impression on my brain. This isn't really a 'how do I', I'm just wondering if I'm the only one out there with this particular learning block
EDIT: I can punch holes if I build the shape from scratch (with no fill or stroke), like the tutorials show, but not in any other way.
Fore example, I was trying to punch a gear shape (from the Draw scripts) into a circle to obtain a spiked cart wheel and I couldn't get it to work.

Just try to remember, you can't "make holes in shapes" (existing shapes), you can only make "shapes with holes" (from scratch).

That's it, that's my conceptual (and practical) mistake. I keep on trying to tell ASP to create shapes where they already exist. Once they are created, I gather, there is no more re-creating (say, punching a square hole in a circle using two existing shapes), so to speak.
I have to keep in mind that "create shape" only works when you have a raw path that's been built point by point.

you can build shapes with holes using the standard "make shape" tool - turn off "auto fill / auto stroke" - draw a (say) rectangle; now draw a circle inside that; now select all 8 points and then "create shape".

or, if you did have auto fill/stroke on - you can "delete shape" -- this DOES NOT delete the path - IOW it leaves the points and the path(s) connecting them!

hayasidist wrote:or, if you did have auto fill/stroke on - you can "delete shape" -- this DOES NOT delete the path - IOW it leaves the points and the path(s) connecting them!

The system of paths as potential shapes is quite peculiar to ASP, as far as I know. It works fine, actually, but I guess I just needed to punch the basic concept through my head. The great thing is that with the "delete shape" suggestion you just made I find I can achieve the cartwheel shape I mentioned in my opening comment. I created the circle, then created the gear, overlapped them, deleted them both with Delete Shape and re-created the combined shape as one piece with the spikes as a hole.
I think this excersise just made me understand it once and for all

glad to help!