Complex shapes -- is TRACED better than CMB (Combine Path) now?
OverCriticalHit
Traveler
Generally speaking, if you are making, say, a room with curved and straight sections (along the lines of what is described here Command of the Week - Complex Shapes [Part 1] (Week 11) — ProFantasy Community Forum), is it now better to use TRACED to get a more detailed curve rather than the segmented one that is left from using CMB? Or is it a case of "it depends"? Thanks in advance!
Best Answers
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Monsen
Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
It depends.
But TRACED can be an excellent option here. You're probably ending up with a polygon that is easier to edit if using the "old way", since traced will need to place more nodes to approximate that rounding, and because TRACED runs on an image rendered from the entity, there can be artifacts like pixel steps. But you also often end up with a result that looks nicer.
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Monsen
Administrator 🖼️ 81 images Cartographer
CMB makes things into a single polygon, which cannot contain both smooth and straight elements, it has to be either a straight poly or a smooth one (I don't remember if CMB can work with smooth lines or not at all, but you can in any case convert the poly to smooth after finishing combining it.)
And no, you can't change the number of segments LTP creates unfortunately.
Answers
It depends.
But TRACED can be an excellent option here. You're probably ending up with a polygon that is easier to edit if using the "old way", since traced will need to place more nodes to approximate that rounding, and because TRACED runs on an image rendered from the entity, there can be artifacts like pixel steps. But you also often end up with a result that looks nicer.
Thanks, Monsen. Yeah, I had noticed the pixelation, but it seems to be a choice between that or the more obvious segments that result from Line to Path, because am I right in thinking that when you run Straight to Smooth on a path made from an arc you end up with a spline that can't be used with straight paths via a CMB operation? (And is the amount of straight sections that result from LTP hardcoded, or is there some way to increase them?). Again, thanks in advance.
CMB makes things into a single polygon, which cannot contain both smooth and straight elements, it has to be either a straight poly or a smooth one (I don't remember if CMB can work with smooth lines or not at all, but you can in any case convert the poly to smooth after finishing combining it.)
And no, you can't change the number of segments LTP creates unfortunately.