Combining smooth paths?
Ciel
Traveler
I feel like this shouldn't be THIS hard, but...either it is, or I'm missing something. Either way, I can't figure out how to do this. Have searched in the forums, but I didn't find anything I could duplicate to successfully do what I want (entirely possible I misunderstood something, which is why I decided to just ask for help).
So: For things like rivers or streets in overland mapping styles, they are actually smooth paths (not, I assume, in ALL overland mapping styles out there, but it seems to be quite a common way to do rivers and streets in CC3). There's no "edit" function since it's smooth and has no "nodes" to hook onto, so my question is in the title: say I have a river, and I realize later I want to extend it further. Is there any way to just draw the extension, then attach it to the original river, so they are from then on one single smooth path entity?
This would be a more complex procedure for roads, at least in the "Modern City" style from the 2007 annual, since in that style, streets are made up of a path with a second path (an outline) on top of it. Still - if there IS a way to combine smooth paths, I could just combine the main entity, then combine the outline, as separate operations. Main thing is, again, I just have no earthly clue how to successfully combine 2 smooth paths, if there is a way. Thanks in advance~!
So: For things like rivers or streets in overland mapping styles, they are actually smooth paths (not, I assume, in ALL overland mapping styles out there, but it seems to be quite a common way to do rivers and streets in CC3). There's no "edit" function since it's smooth and has no "nodes" to hook onto, so my question is in the title: say I have a river, and I realize later I want to extend it further. Is there any way to just draw the extension, then attach it to the original river, so they are from then on one single smooth path entity?
This would be a more complex procedure for roads, at least in the "Modern City" style from the 2007 annual, since in that style, streets are made up of a path with a second path (an outline) on top of it. Still - if there IS a way to combine smooth paths, I could just combine the main entity, then combine the outline, as separate operations. Main thing is, again, I just have no earthly clue how to successfully combine 2 smooth paths, if there is a way. Thanks in advance~!
Comments
- You can still use the node edit tools on smooth paths. For smaller changes, this is the best, just use node editing to move and add nodes.
- For adding larger sections, you can use combine paths. Unfortunately, this doesn't work out of the box on smooth paths, but you can use smooth to straight on the two paths to combine, then combine paths to join them, and finally straight to smooth on the resulting path to make it smooth again. All these three commands can be found by right clicking the explode button.
One related question actually, I've noticed that when I try to trace a smooth object (a smooth path such as a river, or similarly, the mountain contours in the "Modern Political" Annual style which are made up of smooth polygons), it doesn't trace the actual, viable edge of the object. The path traced is way off. Until I read the replies in this thread, I didn't realize that smooth paths still had nodes, they just work a bit differently. Is the inability to trace smooth objects properly because of this? The trace function hits the nodes, not the visual edge, and in a smooth object, said nodes don't actually line up with the visible edge?
Another example: the mountain and hill contours in the Modern Political annual style are filled, smooth polys. If I have a blob-shaped contour on the map, and I want to draw another object (any object, doesn't matter what kind) that exactly borders that contour blob, I cannot simply trace the edge of the contour when drawing the new object, because it again doesn't track. If I use trace in that situation, the edge of the new object being drawn ends up overlapping the edge of the contour blob, rather than being flush against it.
(you would have to turn Attach off as soon as you got to the end of the existing river)
Regardless, it's not something that presents a huge problem, was more just asking out of curiosity, haha. Thanks for the help!