Workaround on Multiple Outlines in One Region

Hello everyone!! :smiley:
It has been a long time not making any thread in here
Although i do sometimes checking in here (thanks to the news feeder), i’m just too lazy to log in everytime :unamused:

By the way, i post this thread that refers another one of my own thread here
synfig.org/forums/viewtopic … 12&t=10469

UPDATE
And also this one apparently
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=10461
I forgot that i’ve made something like this beforehand :blush:
Although i’ll just keep this one here still, since that one uses a different approach by sewing all lines into one big region, which also got pointed out down here

In which discussing about problems with normal outline’s width point (and this topic as well)

A few days ago i discovered this method while drawing around some silly things
and it’s quite handy to solve this problems
Instead of making a big region out of those lines, it’s other way around

the trick is to merge all region pieces into one while keeping the outlines’ z-layer overlay ‘illusion’ intact
so OUTLINE N ALPHAS group act as them, which has outlines and it’s SECOND ‘REGION’ act as the alpha to ‘cover’ outlines below
and keeping their regions in a separate group, THEIR REGIONS

I did thought about this already quite a long time ago, but couldn’t find any faster method to make the second region,
other than creating another region and do some linking with the respective region

until i found that option called ‘CREATE REGION’, which can be found by right-clicking any ONE outline layer
Although it has to be done one by one because this option is not available if you select more than 1 of ANY layer
But still, This makes this method can be done faster
(but with a bunch of layers as the cost. Although since most of them will turn to alpha, it shouldn’t matter too much,
except for ‘pain-in-the-eye’ :open_mouth: )

So it can be done in few steps per region

  1. Create a spline consists of An outline layer and a region layer
  2. Right click the outline layer and select ‘Create Region’
    it will make a new region named ‘REGION’ and it’s color based on the region color setting at the left sidebar (under toolbox)
    that’s why we use this one as the alpha layer, instead of recoloring it again in case any mistakes occured
  3. Select the first region (NOT ‘REGION’) and create a group for it
    for this one i named it ‘THEIR REGIONS’
  4. Create another group for the other 2 layers, the outline and ‘REGION’
    i named this one ‘OUTLINES AND ALPHAS’
  5. Select the ‘REGION’ layer, in its Parameter change its blend method to ‘ALPHA OVER’
    which brings up the reason for separate group for them,
    to make sure that the alpha won’t interfere with other layers (Except Outlines of course)
  6. Arrange the groups so ‘OUTLINES AND ALPHAS’ is above ‘THEIR REGIONS’
    Done!! :wink:

or you can just create more than one splines, do ‘CREATE REGION’ per outline, and group them all at once, then do the rest normally,
that works too
and since you can change multiple layers’ parameters at once too that should works the same

for easier search you can name it like i did in the synfig file (it’s down below)
like putting in the layer numbers, or layer name in the group name, etc.

to use them, simply move the outline and its respective ‘REGION’ layer up or down, depend on which outline(s) that you want to cover down
this won’t effect ‘THEIR REGIONS’ at all, except if you want to level them as well for shading

Here’s the synfig file for more exploration

MultiOutlinein1Region-TemporaryFix.sifz (8 KB)

Yup, it’s that silly mountain again, just to demonstrate this out :mrgreen:
It also includes examples for using feathered regions as shades under 5 different cases with this method
‘ShaderExample1’ is normal shading with ONTO
‘ShaderExample2’ is to shade the ‘BIG’ region with ONTO
‘ShaderExample3’ is to shade a single region piece ONLY with ONTO

‘ShaderExample4’ (a and b) is to shade both region AND its outline with ONTO
which can be done by making two regions (a and b),
link the important parameters ( feather’s, color’s, origin’s and spline’s, with blend method as optional)
then put them together in respective outline and region AS A GROUP EACH to avoid interference with other layers
You can make templates out of them for later use by simply copy and paste them together

and ‘ShaderExample5’ which is just normal kind of shading with normal COMPOSITE :bulb: