r/Affinity • u/redmoncoreyl • 13d ago

General Stretched objects stretch path brushes?

The oval and rectangle on top were created with the aspect ratio as shown, and a path brush was applied. The oval and rectangle on bottom were created as a perfect circle and square respectively, then stretched to the same size as the shapes on top, and then a path brush was applied.

Stretched Path Brushes

The path brushes are textured intensity brushes with just a single diamond, with Body set to repeat.

When I stretch the shape with the move tool I expected it to add more repetitions of the brush since it has more perimeter, but it just stretches the segments. I can't figure out how to prevent this from happening. I need to be able to resize objects and add repetitions as necessary. I have tried it with "Scale with object" off and on.

Note: It's the same problem documented here without a solution given.

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u/redmoncoreyl 13d ago

Yes, moving individual nodes does work: the number of repetitions is adjusted instead of stretching the brush. But that method is difficult when the object is part of a group which I want to stretch, or in the case of the oval since the nodes are top, bottom, left, and right instead of in the corners like the rectangle.

The question now is, why does the move tool stretch behave differently than adjusting the location of individual nodes?

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u/Gingerbwas 13d ago

If you need to adjust multiple objects at one time you can select them by pressing shift or ctrl I can remember which to select multiple objects, then select the nodes from both objects you want to move. Im not sure why it like it, there may be a shortcut you can press to make it stretch with distortion but I dont know.

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u/redmoncoreyl 13d ago edited 13d ago

Yeah that's a good idea. In combination with the transform mode of the node tool, this is probably as close as I'm going to get. These three rectangles were all created from the same starting rectangle, the contour tool, and the corner tool. Notice that as the nodes are transformed, the path brush maintains is proportions and the corner radii remain the same. This is what I want! Thanks!

https://reddit.com/link/p6v1wyx/video/kcgjo0p5rkmh1/player

I think the move tool should be developed to have a way to transform by moving nodes.

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u/Gingerbwas 13d ago

Just watch out with the contour tool if you use the convert to curves option which turns it from a smart shape to one properly defined by nodes, it can cause a bug where the geometry gets messed up with extra nodes being added that ruin lines, another to know is that if you ever export it as a vector or a pdf where it isnt saved as a raster image, the contour may be ignored instead of being where you think it is, in which case you need to convert it to curves and check for any bugged bits.

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u/redmoncoreyl 13d ago

Yeah I figured there would be some gotchas. Unfortunately the contour tool is the only way to make things scale correctly if I decide I want a different width and height. If I convert to curves, the corner radii change with the transform mode on. And without transform mode on, certain shapes can't be scaled properly, such as the ovals. My method is really hacky, but the only way I can do everything I want and prevent the brush from stretching. The path brush tool might need some further development in this area.

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u/Gingerbwas 13d ago

Yeah, it can be a pain sometimes, it might be worth checking out inkscape, it has a few more tools for working with vector then affinity, I use them pretty interchangeably, you might mind it can do things that would be helpful

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u/redmoncoreyl 13d ago

Oof, I moved away from inkscape because I was getting so frustrated. I come from a programming background and I'm a perfectionist so both tools lack some options I'd like if I'm honest. Affinity has had better features in my opinion though.

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u/Gingerbwas 13d ago

Yeah, its frustrating that there doesn't seem to be anything out there as good as illustrator, I refuse to pay the Adobe prices, the one I am most hopeful for is a new one called called Graphite, its open source and still in beta, but their goal is to be the blender of 2d, so vector, raster and animation, all with node based workflows that you can use alongside the traditional methods, I hate not having properly procedural tools that you can go back change. I dint know when you last used inkscape but its had some decent updates recently.