Flatten

hi , the flatten tool doesn’t flatten lines any more . (it used to v1.5) in V2 IF i draw a series of lines with percentage opacity ( alpha) . then select them. then select "flatten’. it used to create one shape that i could then select with one alpha colour for that shape ie not having to worry about lifting the pen before finishing an alpha shadow line on a drawing .this was important for creating smooth shadow passes on a drawing . is this possible some other way now?

Hiya!I believe there is an option called flatten drawing or optimize drawing that does what you are describing. Essentially if you have 30 different stroke lines on one layer, it will merge all the strokes into one stroke on that same layer. I will double check tomorrow when I have SBP in front of me.Hope that helps.

The problem seems to be that the flatten tool does not work with strokes that have partial opacity. Is it possible to flatten transparent strokes without building up opacity?

Thanks for reply - it would be good to get this back . The file system for SBpro is inefficient anyway . Its a vector program that should have small files but they seem to be as big as bit map ones because it seems to create a file for each mark made ( correct me if i’m wrong here )I tend to not use the texture files at all because it slows the program down to the point where its unworkable and i’m on an 8 core 6 gig ram 3.0 processor mac . !!

hi i seem to have found the solution - it was right there in front of me all along . the auto flatten button in tool presets does what i need . and its a toggle button hooray . this is even better than before !!!

This is a change that was made, because it used to be that when you did a flatten it would create a texture file out of it, and this wasn’t efficient.

I’m trying to think if there’s another way to get the same effect, but it seems to me like the best way of doing this is to use your paint bucket to fill in regions with semi-transparent colours. I’ll dig deeper and see if there’s a better workflow. For me, when I’m using semi-transparent colours, it’s usually for my roughs, so I like the fact that it builds up. But I can see where you’re coming from.

~Lilly

Okay great - I’ll slot that info away in case it comes up again. :slight_smile:

~Lilly