Moho Forum

Apologies if I missed something, but what does the freehand tool Merge Strokes option actually do in v13.5.2?

The manual says strokes become part of the same object but whatever I do all strokes remain individual objects. Is this a bug?

Only the strokes drawn while the option is checked will be merged.
Any previously drawn will remain as separate shapes.
To merge them you will have to kill all the shapes then select and create a new shape from those.

The advantages of using the merge strokes option is that it speeds up freehand, because Moho is not creating a new shape each time your pen strikes the screen, but just drops the vectors and displays the continuation of the initial shape.
Also you can change the strokes attributes like colour globally.

I always use merge strokes when drawing freehand to get a greatly more responsive freehand tool, that and turn off auto weld helps a huge amount. Weld ends can be turned on with a little caution but just when you need it. You can always use the weld script later.

Chucky's description of the Merge Strokes option is pretty spot on. Merge Strokes speeds things up by reducing the number of shapes Moho creates in the layer.

This requires you to understand that Curves and Shapes are separate items in Moho. For example, one Curve can be host to multiple shapes (for example, stacked on top of each other,) or one shape can be made from many independent curves. The Merge Strokes tool does the latter as you draw i the layer...it creates one shape from many separate strokes.

This feature is particularly helpful when animating in the FBF layer, which can overwhelm and slow down Moho if you allow it to create a shape for every new stroke. With Merge Strokes enabled, the lines in each frame will potentially use only a small fraction of the memory.

Here's a way to illustrate what the tool is doing when Merge Strokes is enabled...

1. Select Freehand tool and disable every option except Auto-stroke and Merge Strokes
2. Draw a bunch of strokes.
3. In the Style Window, disable Checker Selection. This will draw a red box around every shape. (IMO, this is easier on the eyes.)
4. Click the Select Shapes tool and then click Select All. Every shape should have a red box around it.

Now let's see what happens when you enable Merge Strokes.

5. Press Ctrl-A and then Del to clear the layer
6. Select Freehand tool and draw a bunch of strokes.
7. Select the Shape Selection tool and click the Select All Button. Now you should see only a single red box encompassing all of the strokes. This is because every stroke has been merged as a single shape.

Because curves and shapes are separate items, you can still edit each curve on its own but any Style changes you make will affect all the lines because they all belong to the same single shape.

Hope this helps.

Also check what Merge Strokes does for the Blob Brush. It's basically doing the same thing but the result is different. In Blob Brush with Merge Strokes, Moho will redraw the shape's contour and turn that into the new single shape. So when you draw overlapping blobs, they become one traced blob.

This is true even when you draw each blob in the layer as separate 'shapes' without overlapping them. With Merge Strokes enabled, draw a bunch of separate (non-overlapping) little blobs and then Select Shapes/Select All Shapes. You should see one big red box (i.e., a single shape) surrounding all of the blobs instead of a separate box around each blob.

While we are on this topic I would like to point out a problem I get with WELD points.
Go draw a few overlapping circles then weld points...then try and delete the intersecting portions you don't require and some of the intersecting segments will collapse or not maintain their curvature. Not sure if this is a bug or an oversight but I don't use this tool anymore because of this issue. Anyone else have that problem?

Cheers
D.K

DK wrote: ↑Wed Nov 24, 2021 11:57 pm While we are on this topic I would like to point out a problem I get with WELD points.
Go draw a few overlapping circles then weld points...then try and delete the intersecting portions you don't require and some of the intersecting segments will collapse or not maintain their curvature. Not sure if this is a bug or an oversight but I don't use this tool anymore because of this issue. Anyone else have that problem?

If you're not, you should be holding alt as you delete those unwanted segments.

Confirmed this works. Thanks Wes.
Cheers
D.K

I would suggest that this should be in the "Hover Over" tip in the Weld Crossings button at least rather than have to search the forum. There might be a few other "Tips" things that could be implemented there as well.

Cheers
D.K

DK wrote: ↑Thu Nov 25, 2021 12:34 am I would suggest that this should be in the "Hover Over" tip in the Weld Crossings button at least rather than have to search the forum. There might be a few other "Tips" things that could be implemented there as well.

Cheers
D.K

Agreed, I had never heard of the A:t trick either.

Thanks Wes.

Hey Chucky.
Have a read of this...I had no idea about this either as my timeline always covers it.

http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtop ... d6e#unread

cheers
D.K

Thanks all for the updates. I'm understanding it all better now.

Help is much appreciated.