i was struggled while drawing a fan-art that has so many outlines from different layers,
and it was totally confusing since i have to trace them back by outlines
so i decided to check some solutions of how to fill Outlines at tutorial sectionsā¦
and some most reliable solutions are the āExport value one-by-oneā and ālink one-by-oneā method which iām not really liking to do
then i tinkered Synfig around and end up with thisā¦
itās not the most convenient one since it was pretty confusing, but itās quicker and no exporting required.
plus, it works almost like the āExport Valueā ones so thatās much better for me
EDIT: Be aware though that this method will disable the spline pointās ability to be animated (see 2nd post below)!!!
Iāll just try to explain what i did here in case someone want to know
Draw both Advanced Outline and Region separately
Disconnect a spline point from both layers
Then select Vertex Points from both layer then right click and āLinkā
Now it should link in and follow the region or advanced outline vertex and its tangentās settings (split/merge)
Note that it uses Link Tier 5 Law, so nudge a point from layer that you want to move when linking them first
it also disables the ability to split/merge tangents
To do that you need to convert the outline (or region, itās up to you) back to composite so you can change them again, then disconnect it again and link them back
so it turns out thereās a new founding in this method, and itās totally not nice
the spline disconnecting actually disables the spline pointās ability to be animated. In fact, we canāt animate this point, unless it got converted back to any type of course.
Thatās as far as i could tell, still couldnāt figure out the solution yetā¦
Well, it surely is a pity that thereās no way to link path vertices directly, but thereās a workaround: link origin and tangents separately. Youāll still have to handle āsplit tangentsā manually, though.
Recommended workflow:
Create the whole shape
Create outline from region (you can skip this if you created outlines originally)
Disconnect outlineās vertices
Remove unneeded vertices from it (note that unlooping at this step will make it impossible to link ending tangents, so if you need that donāt unloop yet)
Select both outline and region layers
For each vertex origin and tangent that you need to link: draw rectangular selection around it (this selects them on both layers) and link
Unloop outline path if needed
Done. You can repeat from second step to make more outlines
Yeah, itās animateable. The reason your approach makes animating impossible is that you convert path vertices into type that isnāt recognizable to synfigās animated value node/waypoint system. Since i leave them in default ācompositeā value node type, you can still animate them just like any other linked values.
Note that to actually make this useful, youāll need some unlinked vertices in outline and to create them might (in case you linked all vertices already) need to temporarily set looping on, insert item, unloop and ārotate orderā if necessary. test-47-split-spline-no-export.sif (18.3 KB)
The one that i marked on got both splineās tangents split-up, but still act like a stiff tangents, keep themselves mergedā¦
the other one totally got inverted, probably lacking of āRotate orderāā¦
also,should i just draw the outlines from shape tool, to make sure the outlines linked properlyā¦?
also one unnecessary question, :
is there any differences when disconnecting outlineās vertices and regionāsā¦?
No idea why that happens. Try uploading that file if the issue will still be present.
Anyway, i just noticed that you have inner vertex in region layer in your first example as well. I suppose its advantage is that all vertices are linked, but on the flip side you have to deal with the shape being more complex than it needs to be (and i suppose it can get tricky if animated). Anyway, if you do that anyway, you can try even simpler approach (though it has its downsides too): instead of unlinking and manual partial linking use width points to cut unneeded pieces of outline.
Rotate order only rotates - it doesnāt really change order (e.g. 123->231->312, but youāll never get 321). Unfortunately there doesnāt seem to be a way to reverse order.
You can add more full outlines by right-clicking on region layer ā make outline/advanced outline. Then unlink and remove unneeded vertices. This should make it quick (you donāt have to trace existing shape by hand and they will be in perfect position to link later) and will ensure proper order.
The only difference i can think of is that youāll get different UIDs (if any at all) inside save file, which shouldnāt really concern you.
TestLineLink.sifz (4.97 KB)
but What if the scenario is differentā¦?
I almost finished my lineart of a drawing and i want to fill them, is this method still possibleā¦?
Yup, already know that
But probably not very practical because sometimes i moved the linearts around, and their width points got moved away a little bit so i need to readjust them again
Hmm, this is really weird. Even after disconnecting this vertex, region one was still acting as though its tangents are linked, ignoring split tangents setting. Only ādisconnectingā one of the tangents (and then converting it back to ācompositeā) helped. Might be some kind of bug.
If your lineart consists of many outlines, you wonāt be able to auto-convert them into one region (unless you donāt mind editing .sif in text editor - it should be pretty easy there). Manually linking should work though (as long as you pay attention to drawing order).
Yeah, thatās the main downside. Though as long as you place width points exactly on top of outline vertices, it shouldnāt move anywhere (make sure āhomogeneousā parameter is disabled). There is in fact a hacky way to ensure exactness: open width point in parameters dock, set its āupper boundā to amount of vertices in outline and set āpositionā to number of vertex it should be on top of (numeration starts from 0). MultiOutlines-Region-animated.sifz (2.52 KB)
yeah, thatās what i thought soā¦
Maybe because the linking settings got piled up somehowā¦
Well i donāt mind if thatās the only way, itās just pretty tedious. But as long as i remember the Linking Tier 5 law (and fiddle the region abit first), and not mess up the whole lineart thatās pretty fine
I do curious how the editing works like, but even looking codes from a simple mountain drawing is more than enough to make me dizzy, soā¦ i donāt know if thatās a good idea
but i am really, really curious so some explanations are needed
Wow, i didnāt know that is possible !!
This hack surely gonna be very useful, Thanks!
Since thereās not much of solutions (other than some that got listed above and the ones from the tutorial page), iāll put the [SOLVED] in for now
at least until thereās an awesome synfig update that will allow this glorious thingā¦
Once again i really thank you very much for the assistance!!
Well, first you need to make sure you use editor with decent XML support (with at least highlighting, element folding and auto-indentation features) and basic understanding of how XML works (pretty much as HTML so if you know it, thatās enough as well). For layer editing (which is the only thing youāll really need unless you use exported values or bones) you can imagine .sif as mostly reflecting layer hierarchy (though inverted - top layers are last in the file) and parameters hierarchy inside layer (parameters dock could be seen as a simple specialized XML editor :D).
For basic things like deleting layer you just search for its name (if itās unique - if itās not, youāll have to distinguish by its type or contents or position in layer treeā¦) and do something with it. In case of deleting - just select everything from ā<layer ā¦ desc=āLayerNameā>ā to the appropriate (in case of simple, non-group layers it will be nearest ) and delete it. To tweak some parameter, you just find it and edit.
As for dealing with curve paths (called splines in synfig interface, but blines in .sifs), if you understand how they work in Synfig, you should be able to translate that knowledge to .sif. In order to combine several splines into one by simply reusing all its knots, you just need to copy those knots. So, find first layer, then find its āblineā param (). There will be <bline ā¦> element inside and inside that are many s. Simply copy those entries and paste them into end (or beginning) of target bline.
In fact, i didnāt know about it either. But knowing bezier curves i figured it should work like that. Note that you can get away without setting āupper boundā - it is there only for convenience - you can set āpositionā to M/N value instead (where M is target vertex number and N is total number of them in given spline). Also note that youāll have to do this again if you change amount of knots in spline.
Hi, a bit of discovery to share here, itās quite good
so, the workaround that you gave here,
itās actually possible to add more lines and extend the region layer, and it end up just like that
after inspecting the workaround, along the circle tool that used there, i realize that to make the similar kind of link all i need to do is to set the regionās spline tangents radius to split (and keep their angles merged)
next, link them to outlineās vertex and tangents, then i can safely fiddle with outlineās tangents and itās still easy to fix if both doesnāt look right
just make sure that before linking, the tangentās setting is only āRadius Splitā, not āAngle Splitā or even both
to extend them safely simply dupe that outline, disconnect from vertices list and arrange it, add items in region layer, rinse and repeat
now, itās not 100% working all the time, in a small of occurrence a bit of repeating is needed
but it works to me for most of the time so i might as well use it
also if you split a regionās spline tangents then link them to outlineās vertex and tangentās,
and then do some split and merge tangents, that bug gets triggered (that Stuck-like-a-Knot bug)
