Confused about transform
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It is that time of year again, where I start tinkering with pattern designs and see how VS holds up for my use case. I must mention that I had a bit of a rough year and did not do much graphics at all - and I am a tad rusty as I hardly used VS at all. So please provide pointers if there are better ways to achieve what I want to do.
I have a pattern design, with a tile being 1200px wide. I want to repeat the object (radial) in the corners (4 quarters). So it should be a simple offset of 600px center to center. But that is not what VS thinks.
- I try to recreate a design that I created as a raster before. I traced the pattern but because of tracing an already clipped design I have some minor issues causing visual lines.
- So I wanted to recreate the pattern as a whole, and for that I want to offset the center object such that it fills the corners. The artboard is setup with the dimensions of the original tile.
- I was not able to use math in the transform boxes. I assumed I could just type +600 but it replaced the dimensions completely (is this even possible? if so: how to input?)
- The settings in the transform panel baffle me ( I tried it with a manual copy, a clone, and a copy from both the transform > move and transform > transform panel). I know it should be 600px, but I need to input 206px to get it done.
Ultimately I just want the pattern tile to export (rectangle or square for a tiled repeat). In Inkscape I would setup one original tile, with 9 linked clones, do all my work and testing, and then export the original tile (which is a seamless repeat). I would like to setup something similar as a working template for VS.
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Also wondering if it is possible to use the center of an object (pivot / origin center) as a snapping point? in this case it would be super simple to have the radials center just snap to the artboard corners.
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Made a Video here, to show my steps
snapping to a center of an object is possible
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i made also a Tutorial about seamless pattern creating
in VectorStyler quite a while ago which may be helpfulhttps://www.vectorstyler.com/forum/topic/3045/creating-seamless-pattern-for-pattern-fills
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@Subpath yep I've seen that, that is largely what I do too. The issue is just the strange transforms. But it may have had to do that I came from Inkscape. It is just basic calculations, move over x, move over y (or align on artboard, one inside, one outside and then move horizontally/vertically). I've done it tons of times, but ran into a bit of issues recreating an existing pattern with all its awkward dimensions.
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@VectorStyler can certainly explain better what the
matter with values when transforming
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@syllie said in Confused about transform:
I was not able to use math in the transform boxes. I assumed I could just type +600 but it replaced the dimensions completely (is this even possible? if so: how to input?)
In the Move view the Horizontal (and Vertical) fields are relative movements, so no need for the +600, that would only modify the current value in the field.
Just type the relative movement amount in this field.The settings in the transform panel baffle me ( I tried it with a manual copy, a clone, and a copy from both the transform > move and transform > transform panel). I know it should be 600px, but I need to input 206px to get it done.
The circled field is the Width of the selected object. The fields in the first column (left and up arrow labels) are the actual (not relative) positions. Here you can type something like +600 to add to the current position for relative movement.
For a more automated workflow, you can also use repeaters.
Also wondering if it is possible to use the center of an object (pivot / origin center) as a snapping point?
Yes, but it will be the center of the object, not the pivot point (which can be different). Enable the Snap to Objects mode for this.
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@VectorStyler I'd love to know what settings to use, as I was not able to do this at all. I tried any and all snapping options. This should be like a 2 seconds job. In my sample I cloned the center shape 4 times and I want to move them to the corners to create a seamless pattern.
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@syllie From what I understand from the recording you want to snap the center of an object to a corner.
This is the Snap to Object in the snapping panel: https://share.cleanshot.com/s7y4qdGH
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As @VectorStyler shows in his video with a circle and
rectangle shape. The the same will work with Artboards,
if you set "Snap to Artboard"
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@VectorStyler I see. Thanks for the demo too! It works, but it is extremely fiddly as soon as there are other objects on the canvas. There is no feel for a clear 'snap' at all. The behaviour is the same when working in an isolated view, the snapping still looks and seems to give priority to other objects on the canvas. https://go.screenpal.com/watch/cTVYihnfQfv
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@syllie if there are other objects and they result in a smaller snapping movement, then that is what is used.
But you can restrict snapping to inside the view area by zooming in.It is also possible to set a specific object to snap to with the [+] button in the panel.
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@syllie I find myself trying to do snap to center quite a bit also and have trouble with getting it to trigger even on relatively basic files. As you say, it's a simple snapping decision but it's constantly fighting other snapping relationships to achieve it and sometimes it doesn't trigger at all. Something like a rolling list of snapping candidates like in Affinity would make this more straightforward if it's a matter of having too many objects to connect to.
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@debraspicher Send me some examples where this occurs.
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@VectorStyler I'll get some examples next time I start fiddling especially now that I know the zoom matters for snapping
