Inkscape Community
Help Using Inkscape => Inkscape Beginners' Questions => Topic started by: dkalna on June 07, 2018, 01:48:25 AM
-
hi there
I have 4 simple overlaping paths (picture 1) and I need to colorize
them (picture 2). I have no idea how to do this. any ideas?
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
[ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
-
Welcome to the forum!
The quick way to do that is to use the Paint Bucket tool. But it isn't perfect. You will need to do some node editing, to make everything fit perfectly. You should be able to get pretty close, by adjusting the Grow/Shrink setting on the control bar. But you'll still probably need to edit some nodes.
There's another way which might be considered more proper (closer to perfect) (arguably), but would take a lot more work. And frankly, it would take a lot of text to try and explain for a newbie. If you're game to start learning on your own, try this:
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Paths-Combining.html
Also try Help menu > Tutorials > Advanced. Don't worry, it's really not advanced. It's really an introduction to manipulating paths in the way that's needed for your project (I mean the path operations, or booleans).
I can't think of any other tutorials specifically about this, but I know there are some out there. We keep a large listing of tutorials on the Home tab (https://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/index.php) so you can browse through those.
If you get stuck, please don't hesitate to post again and ask for help. :)
-
hi brynn
thank you for your response. I will give it a try with path operations and boolean operations.
-
Just some quick hints:
This will involve:
- Duplicating each object
- Doing Path > Division with Object 1 above Object 2, and with Duplicate of Object 1 below Duplicate of Object 2
- Alt+Click selects objects that are hidden below other objects
- If you use the node tool for selecting objects, it will be easier to determine which object you have selected
-
Depends on what you are after.
The most straightforward solution is that on image 2 you see two overlapping "rings".
Therefore select one rings inner and outer edge paths, combine them together, add a fill of choice to it.
Do the same with the other two paths.
If they won't produce the inner hole at the rendering, you'd need selecting a node on one of the subpaths -the "loop" you used for combining together, and reverse path direction (>fill rule part of the manual at the fill and stroke panel, Shift+Ctrl+D).
Then, a custom blending mode can composite the two in a somewhat similar manner.
"Screen" is the mostly used rendering mode for such a visual effect.
To pull that off of the hat, you need to add a new layer in the layer panel (Shift+Ctrl+L), create a new layer with the desired blending mode,
select one of the objects and move it to the new layer (Shift+PgUp/Down).
That solution is good for on screen rendering however not so good with printing -as saving as pdf can only preserve the look by creating a raster copy at a set resolution whereas those objects were scalable vectors beforehand.
So if you'd need full vectors -like, for vinyl cutting, would need to go the previously mentioned routes (which also have some downsides and small rendering artifacts you'll eventually run into, even if those details are dealt with by hardly anybody).