Affinity for Beginners: Designing Logos and Icons

1. 00-01 Introduction: As Salam Maleku my name is wide Motakin. I am an entrepreneur in creative industry and also an academic lecturer in design and computer graphics. I teach graphic design, digital painting, architecture visualization, three animation, web design, motion graphics, game development, and many other topics related to computer graphics. Affinity is a free graphic design application that is now owned by Canava. Although it is free, affinity is a professional grade software comparable to Adobe applications. What is great about affinity is that it integrates all the graphic design features into a single app. If you can imagine Photoshop, Illustrator, and in Design all combined into a single software, well, that is basically what affinity is in its course. You will learn how to use affinities vector tools to design professional logos and icons. Even if you have never used affinity or any other graphic software before, there is no need to worry, as we'll start from level zero or very basics. The curriculum is carefully crafted for convenience and speed, allowing you to master affinity quickly through an easy, fun learning experience. Throughout the course, you will complete a series of hands on projects, starting with simple icons and gradually moving up to more challenging vector logos and complex drawings. There are a lot of things that you are going to learn in this course. It would be impossible to explain all of them in detail in this short video. But just for a quick preview, this online course consists of eight chapters, excluding the introduction chapter. In Chapter one, you will learn the essentials such as DUI, navigation, creating parametric vector objects, object transformations, how to work with layers, duplicating objects, and so on. In Chapter two, you will learn snapping and alignment. You learn how to use the grade rulers guides, alignment with key objects, distribute objects, and so on. In Chapter three, you will start drawing and editing vector graphics. You will learn different types of vector nodes, tweaking handles and segments using the node tool, learn how to use the pen tool, the corner tool, the contour tool, and so on. In Chapter four, you will learn different techniques to combine vector objects. You will learn the Mokovskmn Wolanoperations, compound objects, the Shape Builder tool, layer clipping, layer masking, and so on. In Chapter five, you will learn basic to advance techniques related to vector stroke. You will learn how to create these lines path brush, variable stroke width, and so on. Chapter six, you will learn all the coloring techniques available in affinity. You will learn how to pick colors using gradient and gradient mesh, how to use a flood fill tool, using swatches and so on. In Chapter seven, you will learn different techniques related to text and managing vector assets. You learn how to use the artistic text tool, placing a text on a path, warping vector shapes, using the assets panel, and so on. In Chapter eight, you will work on three final projects, including a candy logo, a laundry logo, and a game title. So join the chorus now and start creating beautiful logos and icons using affinity Wala Malcom. 2. 00-02 Exercise files and conventions: Come to the course. Before moving on, there are also important things I need to mention about the course. First, it's about the exercise files. You can load all the exercise files for this course in the resources section of this lesson. In case there is a problem as a backup, you can also download the files from the following link. Please pay attention to the capitalization of the letters, as this link is case sensitive. You can download the files one by one, but it will be easier if you just click this download button to download them all in one zip file. The text you see here depends on where you are or your language preference. It says, download Smoa because I am in Indonesia. You will see the text download all if you are in the US, UK, or other English speaking countries. As you can see, the files are named based on lesson with additional chapter code in front. Next, it's about the structure of the course. I have carefully crafted the curriculum so that everything is placed sequentially. Each lesson you take on one level will become the foundation of lessons in the next levels. Therefore, it is important that you take the course in order step by step, not jumping around. If you take the course by jumping around, most likely you'll get confused at some point. The second thing I need to mention is that you need to practice for each video. Please try out lesson yourself at least once. The course is not just baterias. Most of the lessons are practical skills. So again, you need to practice if you really want this online course to benefit you in this course, using a PC with a Windows stand operating system. So every shortcut I mentioned in the video will be for PCs and Windows OS. If you are using a mac computer, you will find some differences. I believe most Mac users already understand that the command key on a Mac is often used to replace the control key on a PC. And the option key on a Mac is often used to replace the out key on a PC. Essentially, if you are using a computer, you may need additional effort to check the menu or the online documentation for keyboard shortcut references. The second thing that I need to mention in terms of the computer hardware is the input device. Although you can use a trackpad when using laptop, I strongly recommend that you use a standard mouse with a scroll wheel when using affinity. Usually, if a mouse has a scroll wheel, you can press down the scroll wheel to activate the middle mouse button. We will use the scroll wheel and also the middle button a lot for canvas navigation. You want to avoid using minimalistic mouse products that do not have any scroll wheel or middle buttons. Alternatively, you can also use a drawing tablet if you own one. The third thing that I need to mention is the software. You should always download the Affinity app from its official website at affinity dot s. Do not download the app from other untrusted sources as it may contain computer viruses or malware. As for the version, throughout the course, I use the most recent version of affinity available when recording the video, which is version 3.1 to 3.2. If you notice any differences with the one you are using, such as NUI or shortcuts, you may be using a newer version of affinity. If so, you may want to check if I have published a newer version of this course. Okay. Throughout the course, I may display images and videos. Some of these content are not made by me. Please note that I am using them merely as references or for inspiration. I never claim that these images or videos are made by me. If I can find the owner's name, I will credit him or her by putting their name on top of the content. Otherwise, I will display the image or video with the URL link where I found it. As for stock images or videos, if I don't specifically state that they are made by me, then the copyrights belong to their respective owners. 3. 01-01 Starting out Affinity: In this lesson video, we will discuss the home screen, creating new blank documents, the difference between artboards and pages, and finally an introduction to studios. When you first open affinity, you will be greeted by a floating window called the Home Screen. If you close the home screen, you can open it again by clicking on this affinity logo. Here, you can see your accounts information in a top left area, and then on the right, you can find three big icons. The home icon activates the home view, which is basically what we are seeing now. While in the home view, you can access your reason files. You can download the official learning or example files. You can access your template files, and you can also access your favorite files. Currently, I don't have any template files or favorite files, which is why they are both empty. Next, this folder icon is used for opening a file manually. You've seen the operating system file explorer. So basically, this is the same as going to the file menu and then choosing the open command. Finally, this big plus button is used for starting a new blank document. This is the same as opening the file menu and then clicking on the New command. Okay? Affinity provides many different document presets that you can choose from. These are common sizes or industry standards divided into different categories, such as paper, photo, canvas, video, and web, and the vices. Notice that besides the thumbnail name and size, you can also see dotted colors. This indicates what color mode or color format the preset is using. For example, this preset is in A four of size, just like this one. But this one is in RGB mode, while this one is in Simik mode. You can easily switch the presets orientation here. This is portrait orientation, and this is landscape orientation. If you know the name of the preset or at least part of the name or perhaps just the width or the height of it, you can make use of the search field at the top left corner. Say, you want to find a legal paper of size or you want to find a four K video resolution. Or maybe you only know the height in pixels, such as 720 and so on. Now, if you cannot find the preset that you need, don't worry. You can always input your own custom parameters on the right side of this window. If you cannot see anything here, you may need to turn on the togo switch up here. Here, you can specify the measurement unit that you want to use. For example, you can use pixels or millimeters. You can set the DPI value. You can also set the width and height of document manually using these two fields. You can set the color mode or color format, and so on. If you use certain document settings quite often, you may want to save them as preset to do that, simply name the preset in this field. For example, I'll name this example and after that, click the Create preset button. If you do that, you will be able to see the preset that you just created in the preset list on left. I don't actually need this preset, so I want to delete it to delete a preset, simply right click on it, and then choose delete. Then choose yes. Okay. Two options that usually confuse a lot of beginners when using affinity are the artboards and multi page options. You see, affinity provides two ways of creating multi page documents, artboards and pages. They are not compatible with one another, so you need to pick one of these two options. There is why if you turn on the artboards option, the multi page option low is disabled automatically, vice versa, if you turn off the artboards option and turn on the multi page option, the artboards option becomes disabled. You cannot turn it on before you turn off the multi page option first. So now the question is, when should we use artboards and when should we use the pages? First of all, you don't actually need to use any of them if you only want to work with a single page design. In such a case, you can leave both options turned off. Don't worry. If you need them later, you can always activate them. Okay? You want to use the artboards if you need to design in different sizes, say one for a block feature image, another one for an Instagram post, another one for a YouTube thumbnail, another one for printing and so on. But if you are designing hundreds of pages that are identical in size, such as books, magazines, ebooks, et cetera, then you should use the pages instead. All right. For now, let's create a new document using a full HD resolution. You can scroll down manually to find the preset. Or you can search for it by typing FHD in a search field. Select the preset to check the details on the website. Currently, we don't need artboards or pages, so just make sure both options are turned off. Next, click on the create Document button below to create a new brand document. Or if you don't need to check the settings, you can simply double click on a preset thumbnail. And now we have a new brand document with 1920 pixels in width and 1080 pixels in height. There are many Y elements inside the affinity, but the most important ones that you need to be aware of are for buttons at the top. They are called studios. In other software, this feature is often referred to as oxpaces. Essentially, they are presets, dead hood or store your UI preferences. Studios are important because they define the whole UI. Changing the studio is like transforming affinity from one type of software to another type of software. By default, you will see four studios. If you activate vector studio, you can easily access all the tools and features related to vector graphics. So this is transforming affinity into a vector editing software such as Rubi Illustrator, inscape, oral draw, and the like. If you activate the Pixel studio, now you can easily access tools and features related to raster editing. This is like transforming affinity into an image editing software such as Ruby Photo shop, Gimp, Krita, and like. If you activate Layout studio, now you can easily access all the tools and features that you commonly find in Adobe in design, scribbles, and the like. Essentially, this studio transforms affinity into a desktop publishing software. The fourth studio is called KanvaI. With this studio, you can access different AI features provided by Canva. Please note that many of these features are pro or paid features. So you need a Canva subscription plan in order to use them. Now if you click on this doted icon, you will notice that affinity actually comes with more than just for studios. You can hide or show these studios as needed because I won't be using AI feature for now. I can hide the KVI studio by turning off its total switch. Now, we only have three studios shown in the list. If you look down here, you can find a button that says, create studio. So yes, you can create your own custom studio if you want to. 4. 01-02 UI fundamentals: In this video, we will cover the UI or the user interface of affinity. For now, let's activate the vector studio, so we have the same UI to work with in a top area, you can find the menus. This is perhaps the most commonly we element that you can find in all computer applications. Usually, it starts with the file menu and ends with the help menu. In each of the menus, you can find different sub menus and menu items for different commands or features. Below the menu, you can find a large horizontal bar. This is the tool bar. This is where you can find global options such as the studio options, as well as tools, features, and or information that you may need to access frequently. You can customize the two bar to fit your needs, but we will discuss that in a moment. Below the tool bar, you can find a smaller bar called the Context tool bar. It is called context because the parameters you see in this bar do not stay the same. They change dynamically depending on the tool you are currently using. Now, if you accidentally double click on an empty area of this bar, it may become floating. In its floating condition, you can move and snap it to six different locations. When you are moving it across the canvas, affinity displays highlights on all possible locations. Basically, there are three locations in the top area and three locations in the bottom area. Personally, I prefer to have the contact toolbar dock at the top, as default. For this, you can double click again on an empty area of the panel or on the header area to play safe. So again, double click to make it float and double click again to dock it. Okay. On left side, you can see a long vertical bar where you can access the tools. In infinity, this area is simply called the tools. Notice that some of the tools in the tools area have a small elbow or carat symbol at the bottom right corner of the icon. This indicates that the tool is not alone. It is grouped with other similar tools. To access all the tools in a tool group, you can either click on a small card symbol. You can also click and hold the mouse button. In this condition, you can hover over tool you want to use and then release the mouse, or you can just click to activate the main tool. The tool group should show up as a small floating panel, just like the context tool bar. You can also move the tool group to several possible locations. There are three areas on left, top center, bottom center, and three areas on right. Okay? The large area at the center where you can see the document is the canvas area. You can have multiple artboards or pages displayed in this area. Then on the right side, you can find the panels. These panels can be grouped together. If they are grouped together, you can access each of the panels like tabs. Unless but not least, you can find the status bar at the very bottom of the UI. One thing that I like about affinity is that UI is very customizable and to customize the UI is quite easy. You only need to open a window called customize. You can open this window in at least four different ways. The first method is by going to the View menu and then choosing customized tool bar. The second method is by clicking on a tool bar area and then choosing customized tool bar. The third method is by clicking on a carrot icon in the top right corner of a panel and then choosing panel. And finally, you can also open it by clicking on the three dotted icon in the tools area. All right. Inside the customized window, you can find three categories, tools, to bar, and panels. Let's first discuss how we can customize the tool bar. To add more tools to the tool bar, simply drag and drop the tool you want from the customized window to the tool bar area. If you want to remove a tool, you can click direct the tool and release it outside the tool bar area. If you want to reset the tool bar to its default, simply click on Reset bar button. Okay. Next, let's see how we can customize the tools area. The Show field context option up here is used to show or hide the active colors at the bottom of the tools area. If you turn it off and then close the window, you will not see the active colors. Don't worry. In this condition, you can still access the active colors feature from the color panel. Or the structures panel. Personally, I like having the active colors at the bottom of the tools area. This way, when my mouse is closer to the left area, I can quickly access the colors without having to move the mouse across the screen. Next, you can set the number of columns that the tools area has. If you set these two to, you can see it now, the tools are arranged into columns instead of one column. Let's turn this back to one column for now. Just like the tool bar, you can freely customize the list of tools available in a tools area. Notice that affinity comes with so many different tools that you can use. For example, currently, we are in a vector studio, but we want to access Raster paintbrush tool via the tools area. To do this, first, simply type paintbrush or just paint in a search field, and here is the tool that we need. We can direct this to any location that we want within the tools area. Besides in the main area. You can also drag and drop a tool as part of the tool group. For this, first, you need to select an existing tool. Then drag a tool from the customized window and rob it inside the floating tool group. Now, if you close the customized window, we have a paintbrush tool, and inside the tool group, you can find the mixer brush tool. To make future lessons, less confusing, for now, we want to stick with the default. So let's open the customized window again and then press the reset tools button. Okay. Finally, let's look at how we can customize the panels. As you can see, affinity provides a lot of panels. Can show or hide panels simply by turning these toggle switches on or off. For example, currently, we have the appearance panel shown up here. If you turn off the togo switch belonging to the appearance panel, the panel now disappears. If we turn the switch back on, the appearance panel shows up again. Now, if you turn on the panels that are not grouped together, such as the assets, badge, and books, for example, these panels will show up floating individually. You can easily group panels by dragging and dropping them close to one another. When they are grouped, you can move them around as if they are a single panel. If you change your mind, you can take out a panel from its group simply by dragging its name or header out of the group area. Please note that you can dog a panel or a panel group vertically to the right or the left of the canvas area. For example, I can dock this panel group to the left, next to the tools and dock this panel to the right, creating a new column next to the existing column. Besides closing the panels via the customized window, you can also close a panel by clicking on a card button at the top right and then chooses or closed panel group. Or if it is a single floating panel, you can simply click the X button in the top right corner to close it. 5. 01-03 Navigation: In this video, we will discuss navigation methods in affinity. Please note that the term navigation is different from transformation. Navigation means that we are changing how easy the canvas. The objects inside the canvas itself do not change. For example, zooming and panning are all terms related to navigation. On the other hand, the term transformation is basically everything that is related to changing objects, position, rotation, and scale. We will discuss transformation in later video. For now, we are focusing on navigation, right? There are at least seven methods that you can use in affinity to perform navigation. I list these methods in order of their usability or how likely you will be using them. So the top ones are the ones I recommend using, while the bottom ones are the ones I do not recommend using unless you have no other choice. The first method is using the mouse or the mouse well to be exact. This is the best method if you are on a desktop computer and you have access to standard mouse. What I mean by a standard mouse is a mouse that has at least a scroll wheel. If you press down and hold the scroll wheel, this will trigger the middle mouse button. In this condition, you can move the mouse around to pin the canvas. Then to zoom in and out of the canvas. You need to hold down the Control key, and while doing so, rotate the scroll wheel, rotate up to zoom in, and rotate down to zoom out. Alternatively, you can also just rotate the scroll wheel without holding any keys to pin the canvas up and down or rotate the scroll wheel while holding Shift key to pin the canvas sideways. All right. The second method is by using the spacebar key. To do this, you first need to press and hold the spacebar key on your keyboard. While in this Cintan, you can click and drag the mouse to pen the viewport. To perform Zooming, you need to hold the space bar first and then hold the Control key. While in this Cinti, click and drag with your mouse to the left or to the right. If you prefer clicking instead of dragging to perform Zoom, you can hold Spacebar and Control and then click to Zoom in. And you can hold Spacebar out and then click to Zoom Out. Okay. Now, you may be wondering, who in the world wants to use this method if using the mouse is easier and faster well, you may prefer this method if you are using a drawing tablet because when using a drawing tablet, your right hand is holding the pen, so you cannot use it to rotate the most well. Of course, if you are left handed, it is your left hand that holds the pen. Nonetheless, your main hand cannot rotate the scroll wheel, but your other hand can still access the keyboard, okay? The third method is using your finger touch. Of course, this is only applicable if you are using a touch based device such as a laptop with a track pad or a touch screen. Some drawing tablets also support touch input. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those devices when recording lesson, so I cannot demonstrate it. But as far as I know, you can perform painting by touching and moving your two fingers, and you can zoom in or out by performing a punching gesture. All right. The fourth method is using the Navigator panel by default. You can find the navigator panel in the lower right area of VY. The main usage of the Navigator panel is to give you a general overview of your document. It is like a minimap of your Canvas. You can make the view jump straight to a certain area simply by clicking on that location inside the Navigator panel. And if you click and then rag inside the navigator area, you are basically performing Canvas spanning. To zoom in and out, you can drag the slider to the left or to the right. The slider will snap to a certain common Zoom values such as 100%, one 50%, and so on. You can also click on the plus and minus icons. And you can also type in a percentage value in this field if you want to. The fifth method is using keyboard shortcuts, that is the keyboard keys, other than the space bar. You can zoom in by holding down the Control key and then pressing the plus key. To zoom out, you can hold down the Control key and then press the minus key. To quickly fit the entire document, you can hold Control and then press zero. And to see the document at 100%, you can hold Control and then press one. If you ever forget these shortcuts, just go to the view menu and then just zoom here. You can see all the available shortcuts for zooming. The sixth method of navigation is using the navigation tools. At the bottom part of the tools area. You can see two tools. The view tool or the one with the hand icon is useful for penning the canvas. The Zoom tool or the one with the magnifier icon is useful for zooming. While this tool is active, you can click drag to the right to zoom in and click drag to the left to zoom out. You can also perform zooming by clicking if you want to simply click to zoom in and hold out and click to Zoom out. Lest method of navigation is using scroll bars. You can drag the vertical scroll bar to pen the canvas up or down. And you can also drag the horizontal scroll bar to pin the canvas left or right. Okay, guys, so those are the navigation techniques that you can use in affinity. Again, to recap, you may want to avoid the bottomless methods if you can, because they are not that convenient to use. If you have a standard mouse, I suggest that you use the first method. If you are using a drawing tablet, I suggest you use the spacebar method. And if you are using a touch sensitive device, you may want to use the finger touch method. 6. 01-04 Parametric vector objects: In this last video, we will discuss the basics of vector objects in affinity. Because we are now focusing on vector objects, make sure you set your affinity UI in a vector studio mode. And for your information, currently, I am using the full HD document preset as discussed in the previous video, okay? There are many types of vector objects that you can create inside affinity, but of them can be grouped into two main categories, parametric and editable. Parametric means that you can edit the objects appearance quickly and easily by tweaking their parameters. You can create parametric objects by activating the rectangle tool. Here, you can see shapes like rectangle, ellipse, triangle, and so on. These are all parametric vector objects. On the other hand, the term eritable means that you can fully control its shapes by editing their nodes. In affinity, editable vector objects are often called curves or sometimes polylines. You can create itable vector objects using the pen tool, the pencil tool, or by converting parametric objects into editable objects. In this video, we will only focus on the first category or the parametric vector objects. As I mentioned before, you can activate rectangle tool to open the tool group in which you can access all the parametric vector objects. Now, it would be too time consuming and too boring if we discuss each of these tools one by one to save time. We will only discuss the general ways of accessing the parameters and some of the common shapes. I believe that if you understand the basics, you won't have any problem exploring dress yourself. Let's create rectangle shape. Make sure the tool is currently active. For now, turn off the snap feature so it does not get in the way. We will discuss snapping in lady lesson to create a rectangle simply Android inside the canvas area. By default, affinity uses light gray color as the fill color. You may want to change this color so you can see the shape better on the screen. In affinity, there are many ways to control the colors. For now, just click on this box and change the color to any color that you like. Just pick one that makes the shape more prominent. Okay. Sometimes we need to create a square or a rectangle with the same width and height values. For this, you can use the rectangle tool, but you need to hold the Shift key when performing click dragging. As you can see, by holding the Shift key, the width and the height are always uniform. Another modifier key that you can use in this process is the control key. If you hold Control, the first point you click with the mouse will be the center of the object. This is without holding the Control key and this is with holding down the Control key. You may also combine both the Shift key and the Control key if you need to. For example, you want to create a perfect square whose center is at this location. You can click Drag from that point, but then hold the shift key and also the Control key together and then release the mouse once you are happy with the size. You need to remember these basic techniques as they apply to all other parametric shapes. For example, if you use the Ellipse tool, clicking and dragging freely will create an oval shape, but if you hold the Shift key, you will get a perfect circle. While in knian you can also make use of the Control key. That is, if you want to first p nucliq to be the center of the object, let's try these techniques on a triangle tool. This is without holding the Shift key, and this is holding on the Shift key, and use it together with the Control key. You can do this with the diamond tool. The star tool, and so on, all right? You can edit the parameters of a certain vector object by for selecting it. To select an object, you can use this tool called the Move tool. The shortcut for this tool is V. If you select a parametric object, its parameters will be shown in a context to r now in infinity, this is not the only way we can tweak parametric objects. We can also make use of the parametric nodes. But in order to see these parametric nodes, you need to have the node tool active or any of the parametric object tools active. You won't be able to see them if you are in the move toll. Just to prove this, if you select the star object using the node tool, you can see these orange nodes on a star shape. Notice that if you activate the move tool, the orange nodes disappear. If you activate one of the parametric tools, the orange nodes appear again. Although not as complete as the contact tool bar, you can make use of these nodes to tweak the shape. Notice that if I break this node, the inner circle value up here changes. If I break this node, the in radius value up here changes, and if I drag this node, the outer circle value up here changes. But notice that there is no node that can control how many legs the star has. For this, you need to rely on a point parameter in a context to bar. So to recap, you can edit parametric vector objects into ways via the context toolbar or by adjusting the parametric nodes. Use the Context toolbar if you need complete and precise control over the parameters and use the parametric nodes for quick visual adjustments on the object. Just remember to use the node tool or any of the parametric tools in order to see the nodes, all right. Now, let's take a closer look at the rectangle parameters. These parameters on left and these commands on right are common to all vector objects, and we'll discuss them in a later lesson. What is unique to rectangle objects are these primeters at the center, which basically control how the corners behave. For example, we can click here and change the corner to round the type this is the straight type, concave type and cutout type. For now, I prefer the rounded type. You can control how deep or wide the corners are using this field or slider. Again, you can also use the orange nodes to tweak some of the parameters if you want to. Okay. The single radius checkbox controls whether the corners are uniform or each can have different setting. This is for the top left corner. This is for the top right corner. This is the bottom left corner. And this is the bottom right corner. If you have this turned on, then we only have one setting that applies to all four corners. Next, this absolute size checkbox controls whether we want to use percentage values or fixed values to define the corner radius. If this is off, the corner radius value is set in percentage, and if this is on the corner radius is set in pixels. Whether we use pixels or millimeters, et cetera, is defined by the document unit setting, okay? Now, if you use certain rectangular primeters quite often, you may want to save them as preset. To do that, you can click on this icon. Then click on the Sandwich icon and then click on the Create preset button. You can name this preset to any name you want. I don't actually want to save this preset, so I hit Cancel. As you can see, affinity is already loaded with several rectangle presets that you can use. All right. So objects such as the ellipse, do not have any parameters that we can tweak. As you can see, it only has two buttons. This button will convert the ellipse into a doughnut object, while this one will convert it into a Pi object. If you convert it into a doughnut shape, now you can tweak the whole radius. You start angle and so on. You can also save or load parameters as presets, like the rectangle object. Okay guys. So those are the methods that you can use to edit parametric vector objects in infinity. By now, you should be able to explore the rest of the parametric objects yourself. 7. 01-05 Object transformation basics: In this lesson video, we will discuss basic object transformation in affinity. As I mentioned before, the term navigation is different from the term transformation. What we are discussing now is transformation, meaning that we will be dealing with object movement, rotation, and scaling. First, we need some objects on a canvas so we can practice the techniques. For this, we can create a rectangle object and give it a reddish color. Next, create an ellipse object and give this one a green color. Finally, let's create a triangle object and give it a blue color. All right. To perform transformation, we can use the move tool. As a reminder, the shortcut for this tool is V. With this tool active, you can click on an object to select it, and when an object is selected, you will see the transformation box around that object. To move the object, simply click drag inside the boning box area without touching any of these white nodes. You can also perform click drag or non selected objects to quickly select and move them in one go. Okay? Now, a lot of time. We want to move objects straight horizontally or vertically. For that, we can make use of the Shift key. Notice that by holding the Shift key, I can move the object vertically, horizontally, and also diagonally. One thing that you need to be aware of is not to confuse shift with control. Why? Because if you move from an object but accidentally press the Control key, you are moving the object while at the same time performing object duplication. We will discuss object duplication in later lesson. For now, we will only focus on transformation. You can delete the selected object by pressing the delete key or the backspace key on the keyboard, right? To perform rotation, you can click and drag this node that is pointing out of the bonding box. You can also perform rotation by first moving your mouse cursor close enough, but not touching the corner nodes. When you see the cursor change into a round or turning symbol, you can click and drag to perform rotation. Okay? Now, when rotating an object, you can also make use of the Shifkey. If you press the Shifkey, the rotation will snap to every 15 degree increment. This way, you can easily rotate at 45 degrees or 90 degrees or 180 degrees and so on. To perform scaling, you need to click and drag one of the eight nodes around the bonding box. By default, you can scale the object freely in any direction. This can cause the object to stretch or squash. If this is what you want, then it is totally fine. But if you want to maintain the object size ratio, you need to press and hold the shift key while scaling the object. This way, scaling happens uniformly in vertical and horizontal directions. So no stretching or squashing occurs. Now, notice that when you drag a scale node on one end, the other end or the opposite end will be used as the base point or the pivot point of the scaling process. If you want to use the center of the object as the pivot point instead, you can hold the control key while scaling the object. In conclusion, the way the shift and control keys work when performing scaling is similar to when we create parametric vector objects. All right? One hidden operation related to transformation that you can do with the move tool is skewing, also known as sharing. To perform skewing, you can move your mouth close enough, but not touching the center nodes. What I mean by center nodes. Other nodes, other than the corner nodes. Notice how the cursor changes into two way arrow. While in this condition, you can click drag to perform skewing. 8. 01-06 Object transformation advanced: In this video, we will discuss advanced transformation techniques, including the move duplicate window, the distant angle technique, and finally, the point transform tool. The first technique is using a special window called move duplicate. To access this window, first, you need to have at least one object selected. If you don't have any selection, then this one work. Let's say that I select this Oval or Ellipse object. Next, you need to use either the move tool, the node tool, or any of the parametric object tools. I'll use the move tool for now. After that, press the enter key on the keyboard. You will see the duplicate window open. Here, you can precisely input the horizontal value or the vertical value in pixels to move the object. As a reminder, whether you are using pixels, millimeters or other measurement units depends on the document setting. Let's say you want to move the object exactly 200 pixels to the right. For this, you can type 200 in a horizontal field and then press Enter. As you can see, the object moves to the right by 200 pixels. If you revise the value to -200 pixels instead, now it is moving to the left. The same concept applies to the vertical movement, but in reverse to the standard cartesian coordinate, meaning that if you input a positive value, the object will go down. Vice versa, if you input a negative value, the object will move up, all right. Now, besides tapping in the value, you can also increase or decrease the value gradually. To do this, you need to hover the mouse over the field you want to adjust and then scroll the most well. Scroll up to increase the value and scroll down to decrease the value. If you think the value is changing too slowly, you can hold the shift key while scrolling the mouse. This way, the value is changing at a faster rate or per ten pixels to be exact. On the other hand, if you think the value is changing too fast, you can hold the Control key while scrolling. This way, the value is changing on a smaller scale or per 0.1 pixels to be exact. Please note that this scrolling technique with the chef and control keys applies to all fields inside affinity. So this is not unique to just remove duplicate window. Within this window, you can also perform rotation in scale. You can type in the exact value if you want to or use the most scrolling techniques that we just discussed. Notice that for rotation, Improving negative values, we rotate the object in a clockwise direction, while improving positive values, we rotate the object in a counter clockwise direction. As for scaling, 100% means that the object is at its original or initial size. Scale values larger than 100% mean that the object becomes bigger, while values smaller than 100% mean that the object size is shrinking. For now, let's reset all the values by pressing this reset button, right? One alternative method of moving an object in affinity is using the distance and angle values. Essentially, instead of defining horizontal and vertical values, this method defines the movement using an angle value and distance value. You can set the two values here. So again, these two values work hand in hand. If you have the distance set to zero, any angle value you set here does not matter, just to show you how it works. Let's say we want to move this awful shape as far as 300 pixels in its diagonal direction. Please note that in affinity, the zero line is this way to the right. So this is 45 degrees. This is 90 degrees and so on. In our case, a perfect digon line to the top left direction should be at 1:35 degrees. So type 135 in the angle field, and then press Enter. After that, type 300 in the distance field and hit Enter. And this is the result after the transformation, and its bounding box is its original location. You may already notice that you can also create duplicates using this window, but we will discuss duplication in another lesson. For now, if you are happy with the result and want to confirm the changes, you can click on the Okay button. Otherwise, if you've changed your mind, just hit the cancel button. Another method of transforming objects is by using a tool called point transform. Essentially, this tool allows you to pick any point as the pivot point when performing a transformation. By default, the tool is available in a tool group together with the node tool. While the tool is sective and you have an object like that, you will see these nodes on the object. In this condition, all the vector nodes belonging to the object become grabbing nodes. In addition to that, you will also see a pivot point node. The node looks different as it resembles a sniper scope symbol. You can click and wreck the pivot point node to any location that you want. If you move it close enough to one of the grabbing nodes, it will snap to that node. After you specify the pivot bon location, you can then start rotating or scaling the object by dragging one of the grabbing nodes. Notice that affinity will use the pivot in node as the center of the transformation. Notice also that racking the grabbing nodes not only triggers rotation but also scaling. If you only need to perform scaling and don't want to rotate the object, you can hold the Shiv key. As you can see, by holding shift, the object's rotation stays the same. On the other hand, if you only need to perform rotation and don't want to scale the object, you can hold down the Control key. Now the object only rotates while the size stays the same. Finally, if you need to perform rotation while at the same time snap the rotation to a 15 degree increment, you can hold both the shift key and the Control key. Okay, guys, so that's how you use the point transform tool. 9. 01-07 Layer basics: In this lesson video, we will discuss layer features inside Affinity. Just like with any other todo graphic software, Affinity also supports layer. By default, you can access the layer features using layer panel located on the right side. Long story short layers are like transparent slides where you can draw on them or place images on them. Layers are essential to the computer graphics, as they allow us to stack graphical elements on top of each other to create complex compositions. Now, if you are accustomed to layers in other vector software, you may find layers in Affinity a bit different. In other graphic software, a single layer can contain multiple vector objects. However, in affinity, every vector object will be represented as a single layer. So again, one vector object equals one vector layer. That is why in our case, because we have three vector objects in Canvas, we also have three layers in layer spanel. Let's discuss some of the fundamental features of layer spanel. One useful feature of layer spanel is for object selection. Since each layer in layer spinel represents one object in a canvas, you can use layer spanel to select objects. As you can see, selecting an object in Canvas has the same effect as selecting the layers. You can use the standard modifier keys found in five browsers to select multiple layers. That is, you can hold Control to select additional layers in random order. Or you can use the Shift key to select multiple layers from one end to another. Okay? Using the R panel, you can hide or show objects. For this, you need to click on these icons. You can quickly hide several objects in one go by clicking and ragging with your mouse on the icons like SO. And you can also quickly show them using the same technique like SO. Sometimes when working on complex artworks or designs, you need to lock certain layers to protect them from any accidental changes. For this, you can use the log layer feature to lock layer, you can select layer. Then click on a padlock icon at the top. Or another way to do this is by clicking on this empty spot just to the left of the eye icons. Notice that if the layer is locked, you cannot select the corresponding object in a canvas. You can still select it via the layer panel. But even though it is selected, you cannot perform any transformation on it. To unlock layer, simply click again on a visible padlock icon on the right or the padlock icon at the top. Through the layers panel, you can also control objects transparencies to do that. First, select layer you want to adjust. And then at the top area of the panel, you can see the opacity field. Essentially, the term opacity is the inverse of transparency. 100% opacity means the object is fully solid or opaque, while zero opacity means the object is fully transparent. Now, besides using the slider and typing in the value in the field, you can also control the opacity value using keyboard shortcuts. To set the opacity value to 10%, you can press the number one key on the keyboard. To set the opacity to 30%, you can press three on a keyboard. To set the opacity to 50%, you can press five and so on. If you want to set it to a fall opaque or 100%, you can press the number zero key on the keyboard, okay? Now, you may be wondering, what if we want to set the opacity to digit value, say, 25 or 75, for example, well, for this, you need to press the number of keys quickly in correct order. So to set the opacity value to 25, you need to press two and then five quickly. To set the opacity to 75, you need to press seven, then five quickly. All right. The last thing that I want to discuss is naming the layers or objects. By default, Affinity automatically names objects or layers using generic names based on the object types. What is unique about these names is that they are dynamic, meaning that Affinity will rename them automatically if you change their type. To show you what I mean, if you select deletes object and then change its type to a doughnut shape, Look what happened to the name of the layer. Now, it is not ellipse anymore, but rather do not. Again, this is the default behavior of layer names in Affinity. However, once we change the name to a custom name, the layers name will no longer be dynamic. For example, let me undo the less object convulsion. So now we have the ellipse object again. Notice that currently the layer name also refers to ellipse. To change a layer's name, simply the BullclikOnm area. Then type in the new name. Let's say we name this layer egg. Feel free to give it any custom name that you want. Press Enter when you are done. Now, if I change the object type from an ellipse to a doughnut shape, the name does not change to doughnut, although the object type is now a doughnut, it stays as egg or any name that you put in before. 10. 01-08 Object arrangement: In this lesson video, we will discuss how we can arrange objects in affinity or in other words, manage their stacking order. If you use the move tool, and then drag these vector objects, so they are close to one another. Sold rectangle is at the bottom. The ellipse is above it, while the triangle is at the top. So as you can see, the objects stacking order is basically the same as sold layer stack up in layer panel. At the top, we have the triangle. In the middle, we have the ellipse, and at the bottom, we have the rectangle. Please note that by default, affinity will place newly created objects just above the active layer or active object. For example, if we select rectangle layer, then we create a new vector object, say star shape. Let's give it an orange color so we can see it clearly against the other shapes. Notice that the new star shape layer is placed above the rectangle layer, not above the triangle layer. Okay. Now, what if we want to move the star object to the top or move it to the bottom of the stack? How can we do that? Well, in infinity, you can control object arrangement using at least five different methods using layer panel, using keyboard shortcuts, via right click menu through the layer menu and finally, using the buttons into bar. Let's say that we want to move the star object so that it is on top of all other objects. If you want to use the layers panel, you can simply click drag the star layer up until you see the horizontal highlight just above the triangle layer and then release it. Now the star is blocking the other object because it is in front of or on top of all other objects. If you prefer keyboard shortcuts, you can hold the Control key and then press the opening bracket key to move the selected object or layer down one level at a time. If you hold Control and then press the closing bracket key, layer will move up one level at a time. To move layer directly to the top, you can hold Shift and control at the same time and then press the closing breakup key. To move an object directly to the bottom, you can hold Shift and control, and then press the opening breakup key. The third method of arranging objects is by right clicking and then choosing range, as you can see, these are all the shortcuts we just discussed. This will bring the object directly to the top. This will bring the object up one level. This will move the object down one level, and finally, this will move the object directly to the bottom. Next, you can access all the range commands via the menu. That is by opening the layer menu range, and then choosing move. Again, these are all the commands we just saw in right click menu. Finally, you can access the same commands by clicking on this button into bar. Somehow the or of the commands is inverted in this list. This will bring the object up to the top and this will move it down to the bottom. I don't know why the commands are inverted in this list, but that is just how it is in a version of affinity I am currently using. All right. Before we move on to the next lesson, there is one important thing that I need to mention in terms of ragging layers in layers panel. If what you want to do is ornge layers, you need to make sure you rag and release the layer in between other layers. You should see a thin horizontal highlight like this. You do not want to release the layer exactly on top of another layer like this, as this will create a clipping mask, and if you release it on top of a group layer or a container layer, the layer drag will go inside that group or container. We will discuss the clipping mask group and container features in future lessons. For now, just try to avoid dropping a layer exactly on top of another layer. But if that happens unintentionally, you can press Control Z to perform or you can also expand the mask or group layer, and then click and drag the layer out. Again, make sure it is spaced in between other layers, okay? 11. 01-09 Group and container layer: This lesson video, we will discuss the group and container layers. When our design becomes complex, we often have dozens or even hundreds of objects that we need to work with. In such conditions, we may want to group some objects together or use container layers so we can manage the objects more easily. Now, to group objects together, first, we need to select them because of this, let's briefly discuss how we can select multiple objects in affinity. As a reminder, we have discussed selecting multiple objects via the layers panel. Now, I want to focus on selecting objects inside the canvas using the move tool. You can start by clicking on one object to select it, and then to add more objects into the selection, you can hold the Shift key and then keep clicking on the other objects you want to select. Be careful not to click on an already selected object as that will deselect it instead. Deselect everything, you can simply click on an empty space in Canvas. Another way to select multiple objects is by clicking and rigging in an empty area to create a selection bonding box. All objects that are touched or inside the bonding box will get selected. You can combine this bonding box technique with safety technique. So if you hold the Shift key and then click drag to create a selection bounding box, all objects inside the bounding box or touched by its border will get selected. But if the object is already selected before, doing that we'll make it disected instead. Okay? If you prefer keyboard shortcuts, you can select all objects by pressing Control A, and you can dissect all objects by pressing Control D. If you ever proget the shortcuts, you can always open the edit menu. Here, you can find the slack O and the select commands along with their shortcuts, right? Now that we understand how to select multiple objects. Let's discuss the grouping feature in affinity. Let's say that we want to group rectangle object and is object together. For this, you can select both objects, then to group them together, there are at least four methods that you can use. First, you can right click inside the selection area, and then choose group. As you can see here, the shortcut for the group command is Control G. So this is the second method. Let me undo it for now. The third method is by going to the layer menu and then choosing group. And for the fourth method, you can go to the layers panel and press this fold richn at the bottom. If you do any of these four methods correctly, you will get a new layered group in this condition. If you select one of the objects, the whole group gets selected. You can move, rotate, or scale these objects as if they were a single object. You can also show or hide the group layer, and all the objects inside it will be affected. As with any other layer, you can give a group layer a custom name if you want to. Okay. When you group objects together, you can still access them. You can do this via the canvas or via the layers panel. For example, we want to rotate only the rectangle object and leave the ellipse alone. For this, we need to go inside the group and then select only rectangle object. You can do this easily by double clicking in the group area. Now, we can select and edit the rectangle and ellipse objects independently. If you are done, you can simply click on empty area to exit the group. Now you can select the group object as a whole again. So there is how you can edit the objects inside the group directly in the Canvas. If you prefer to use the layers panel, you can easily access the members or the children of the group layer by clicking on the scarred icon on the left, this will basically expand or collapse the layer. When it is expanded, you can click on any of the child layers to select it. As you can see, it is the same as double clicking on a canvas and then selecting the member objects what is so cool about the group feature in affinity is that you can create nested groups, meaning that you can create a group inside the group, which is inside the group and so on. Just to give you an example, you can select this group object called Shaft, then select this star object, and also this triangle object, or you can also just press Control A to select. In this condition, if we press Control G, all of these objects are now a single group object. We can move or perform any transformation as if they were a single object. But notice that if we double click to enter the group object, we are now inside the first level of the group hierarchy. While at this level, we can select and move the triangle and star shapes individually. But if we try to select the ellipse, the group object of these two objects gets selected instead. We can clearly see the condition in the layers panel. Basically, we are inside this group now. But inside it, we have another group that contains dictangle and ellipse objects. You can double click again in Canvas to select dictangle or the ellipse. Or you can also do that via the layers panel by first expanding the second or the inner group layer. In affinity, you can easily move objects in and out of a group layer simply by dragging them in layers panel. Let's say that we want to move the star object so that it is inside the inner group object. We can do so by dragging the layer and then releasing it exactly on top of the group layer or in between the member layers. Now, the star layer is inside the inner group layer. To move layer out of the group layer, we can drag it out of the group hierarchy and place it in any location that we want. Okay? If you don't need the group anymore, but still need the objects inside the group, you can break up the group using the ungroup command. Let's say that we want to ungroup the main group that contains all of the objects. To do this, you can click on a group object and then choose group. As you can see here, the shortcut for this command is Shift Control G. If you do that correctly, now you can select the star object and the triangle object directly. But notice that rectangle and ellipse are still inside a group. This is because ungroup command only breaks the group layer one level at a time. In this condition, you can repeat an group process. That is by rod clicking and then choosing ungroup again. Another way to do this, let me undo it. So we have the main group as before. If you have complex NSA groups like this and you want to break all of them in one go, you can use the ungroup OL command. The method is basically the same as the group command. You can right click. But then instead of clicking on the ungroup option, you want to click the ungroup option. And here's the result. All objects are back to their individual state, all right. Another feature in affinity that is almost like the group feature is the container layer. Essentially, a container layer is like an empty layer that can hold other layers inside it, just like the group layer. You can also create nested container layers. To create a container layer, you can click on this icon just to the left of the group icon. As you can see, a new layer called layer one has been created. If you want to place objects inside this container layer, you can do so by dragging the layers and dropping them exactly on top of the container layer. However, if it already has member layers and is expanded, you can place the new layer on top of or between the member layers. Okay. Now, what makes container layers different from group layers is that the objects inside the container layer are still independent. So you can select and move the objects individually without having to perform double clicking as you would in group layers. But if you do want to select all objects inside the container layer, you can do so quickly simply by selecting the container layer in layers panel. If you want to delete the container layer, but maintain the objects inside it, you need to first move the objects out of the layer. Only then can you safely delete the container layer by clicking on this trash icon at the bottom right corner or simply by pressing the delete key or the big space key on the keyboard? 12. 01-10 Artboards: In this lesson video, we will discuss the artboards. As I mentioned, in earlier lessons, affinity provides two different methods of creating multi page designs, artboards and pages. They are not compatible with one another, so you need to choose one of them. Ideally, you should choose artboards if you need to design in different sizes. But if you are designing something that has similar sizes, such as a book, then you should use pages instead. For now, we will focus on the artboard feature. Use the Yardboard feature, you need to activate YarboardTol. While this tool is active, you can create new artboards, delete them, and also edit them. Now, if you only have one canvas like this, affinity does not consider it artboard. If you have at least two of them, only then does affinity activate YardboardFeature. To create a new artboard, there are three ways to go about it. The first and easiest method is to duplicate the existing one. For this, you can simply click Hoplus nodes that show up around the existing artboard. For example, if I click R plus node, affinity will create a new artboard just to the right of it. It will use the same size as its original. Now for example, if I click on this bottom plus node, affinity will create a new identical sized artboard just below it. The second method to create an artboard is by clicking and ragging in an area outside the existing artboard. This method will create custom sizes depending on how you drag the mouse. Remember, you do not want to drag the mouse inside an existing artboard, as that will move the artboard instead. Less method of creating new artboard is wide the context tool bar. With this method, you can precisely define the width and height of the new artboard and also the gap from the existing artboard. Let's say that we want to create a 500 pixels by 500 pixel artboard. You can type here 500, then past type twice. Then type 500 again. After that, you need to click on Insert Artboard button. As you can see, with this method, affinity creates a new artboard at the right side of less artboard. A size of this artboard is precisely 500 by 500 pixels. Now, you may notice that there is also a drop down list up here where you can select presets for the size. Unfortunately, there is a bug in the current version of affinity that I am using. That is selecting the preset does not automatically change the width and height values in these fields. But don't worry. Although these values do not change, when you press the Insert artboard button, affinity will add a new artboard with the correct size based on the preset. It's a minor bug. Nonetheless, I hope this gets fixed by the time you watch the video. Okay, guys, so those are the three methods that you can use to create new artboards. All right. To delete the ntboard first, you need to select the artboard using the artboard tool. Then you can pass the delete key or the backspace key on the keyboard. Or if you notice, the artboard will show up as a special layer in Layers panel. And so you can also delete the artboard via layers panel by selecting it and then passing the trash icon at the bottom right. Now let's discuss how we can edit the artboards. To edit an artboard, the technique is similar to how we turn some vector objects. That is, you can click on Artboard to select it. You can move it by dragging inside the boning box area. Can resize Snortbard by dragging the small nodes that exist around the bonding box. You can make use of the shift key to maintain its proportion, and you can also use the control key to make the center of dboard the pivot point when resizing, all right. Now, if you need more precision, you can access the parameters inside the transform panel. You cannot just do location by changing the X N Y coordinate values. You can change the weight of dboard here and you can change the height of yboard here. Remember that in affinity, when scrolling the mouse to change the values inside the field, you can hold the Shifkey to make it go faster or go by tenth values. What is unique about adjusting the upwards via the Transform panel is that you can also change the rotation and share values in this panel. Although I doubt anyone would want to use these features as all paper and media sizes are basically straight. So you may want to keep both of these values to zero, okay? Now, the way artboards work in terms of layers panel is that they are almost similar to container layers. So you can move objects from one artboard to another by wagging and dropping layers. Yes, you can do this, but I don't recommend doing this, as the object may become invisible. What I recommend doing when you need to move objects between artboards is to do that directly on a canvas. For this, you need to use the move tool, not YardboardTol. For example, I want to move this star object to Aboard two. I can just dig the object and rope it inside the area of artboard two. As you can see, in layers panel, the star object automatically becomes the child of Aboard to layer. A example, I can direct this triangle object to the third artboard. Again, it will automatically become the child layer of the third outboard layer. If you want to rename not board, you can just double click its name in Lawyers panel. Or you can also do that by double clicking on its name directly in Canvas view, type in a new name and then click the OK button, right. There is one last feature that I want to explain in terms of editing objects inside an artboard. If you are editing objects inside this artboard, for example, you can self select and edit other objects that exist inside other artboards. If you want to constrain your selection and editing only to this artboard, you can activate this small icon at the bottom left corner of Layers panel. It may not that obvious, but the icon will have a darker background color when it is active. With this icon active, you can only select objects inside the current artboard. You cannot select or edit objects on other artboards. If you want to switch the active artboard, you can simply select the artboard that you want to edit in Layers panel. Now, you can only edit the content of this artboard and not the other artboard. If you prefer to be able to selack everything and not be constrained by the artboards, just turn this icon off again. Now, you can selack objects across Adwords just like before. 13. 01-11 Duplicating objects: In this lesson video, we will discuss how to duplicate objects in affinity. There are at least five methods that you can use to duplicate objects in affinity. First, is by using the Control key or the key. Second, is by pressing Enter or using the move duplicate window. Third, is by using the conventional Capen paste method. Four is by using the duplicate select man. And finally, using the arrow keys when creating new vector objects. Let's discuss each of these methods one by one. The first method is quite easy. Essentially, you need to hold the Control key when moving an object. You can hold the Control key first, and while holding the Control key, you move the object. Or you can also move the object first. And while not releasing the most button, you hold the Control key. Any of these techniques works fine. Now, you can also duplicate objects by holding down the alkey, but you need to hold the alke first and then move the object. If you move the object first and then hold the alkey, you are not duplicating the object. Instead, you are just turning off the snapping feature tempor rally. We will discuss snapping in later lessons. For now, you just need to know that I don't recommend using the alkey to perform duplication in a canvas area. However, if you want to duplicate objects using the layer spanel, you can use the l key method. Notice that, if I hold out and then drag a layer, affinity will create a duplicate of that layer. In conclusion, you can use the Control key to duplicate objects in Canvas, and you can use the alkey to duplicate layers in layer spenel but you do not want to use the key in canvas as they can conflict with the snapping feature. The next method is by using the duplicate window. You should already know that you can open this window by pressing the enter key on the keyboard. We have discussed most of the parameters in this window except the duplicate features. Let's say that we want to duplicate this triangle object three times to the left for 200 pixels first. You can activate the duplicate checkbox and then type in three in a number of copies field, and then type -200 in the horizontal field. This basically gets the job done. We have three duplicates and a distance between one to the next is 200 pixels. Of course, movement is not the only thing that can be duplicated. Feel free to play around and experiment with the distance angle. Rotation and scale values, as you can see, you can quickly create interesting layouts with this technique. Last thing that I want to explain is these two buttons. Basically, if this is active, the duplicate layers will be placed above the original object layer. But if this is active, the duplicate layers will be placed below the original object layer. All right. The next one is using the conventional copy and paste method. I believe that all of you already know the shortcuts. You can press Control C to copy and press Control V to paste. If you are on acomputer, you can replace the Control key with the Command key. In infinity, if you have objects like that, then you press Control C, then Control V. The duplicate object will be pressed exactly on top of the original object. So at a glance, nothing has changed. But when you see the layers panel or when you try to move the object, you realize that you now have two identical objects stacking on top of each other. Next method is duplicating an object using the Control J shortcut. If you ever forget the shortcut, you can open the edit menu, then duplicate and then selection. As you can see, the shortcut is Control J. So if you select an object and then press Control J, you can see that affinity creates a new duplicate and places it exactly on top of the original object. Until it point, you may be wondering. So what is the difference between using the duplicate method versus using the cap in past method? They both duplicate objects exactly at the same location. Well, you may not see any difference if you only have one at board, but if you have multiple artboards, you can make use of the copy and paste method to duplicate objects across artboards. You cannot use the Control J method as it can only create duplicates in the same Atbard now, the way affinity handles duplicate objects via the coping piece method is that it will try to use the original objects coordinate. In other words, the distance from the top left corner of the artboard to show you what I mean if you select this rectangle object and then open the transform panel, hold sheath and scroll the mouse. So the coordinate value is at 300 pixels. And why value is at 200 pixels? In this condition, we can press Control C. Now, let's activate the right artboard. If you are using the move tool besides violet spanel, you can quickly activate artboards by clicking on their names. While this artboard is active, if we press Control V, the new rectangle object will have the same coordinate values as the original, but if the artboard size is different, let's say that this one is smaller in width and longer in height. If you select this triangle, for example, and then press Control C. Now, let's go back to this artboard and then press Control V. Notice that affinity, we try to place the duplicate using the original coordinate as much as it can. It uses the same Y value because it is possible. But because the X value is impossible to use, it places the duplicate at the center of the artboard instead, okay? The last technique that I want to discuss is not actually a duplication technique, but rather a vector object creation technique. I discuss this technique together with the duplication techniques because it generates multiple objects. You can use this technique with parametric vector tools. Essentially, while creating a parametric object, you can press the arrow keys. Just for example, we want to create a grid of diamond shapes. So activate the diamond tool and then create a diamond shape by clicking and dragging in Canvas. Now, without releasing the most button in this condition, if you press and release the right arrow key on the keyboard, you are adding more diamonds along the horizontal grid. Pressing left arrow key will reduce the number. If you press and release the down arrow key, you are adding more diamond shapes vertically, and if you press the up arrow key, you are reducing the number of diamonds in a vertical direction. Because you are still holding the most button, you can still make use of the shift key to create square diamond shapes or use the Control key to center the pivot point. If you're happy with the result, release the most button to confirm the creation. As you can see, as a result, we get multiple diamond shapes across multiple layers. One last step when using the arrow keys method is adding gaps between the objects. You can add gaps by pressing and holding the arrow keys. So when you click and drag to create a shape, without releasing the most button, pressing and releasing the right end down arrow keys will add more duplicates. But if you press and hold the right arrow key, the objects start to move away from each other. If you press and hold left arrow keys, the gap will get smaller and smaller, and eventually you are flipping the grid direction. You can also do the same with the down arrow key, and the up arrow key. If you hold the keys, you can control the gaps. If you are done, you can just release the mouse to confirm. 14. 01-12 Pixel layer vs Image layer: In this test and video, we will discuss two types of raster layers in Affinity, the pixel layer, and in each layer. You need to know the difference between these two, as they tend to confuse a lot of beginners, especially users from other graphics software. Now, because we will need to use the pixel based tools, make sure you have the pixel studio active and at the vector studio. Okay? Let's first discuss the pixel layer. In Affinity, the default rusterayer type is the pixel layer. In general, it is the same layer type that you can find in other RusorGraphics applications such as Photoshop, Gimp, Krita, and so on. To create a pixel layer, you can do one of the five following methods. First, you can click on this icon. It looks like a checker pattern in Layers panel. As you can see, that creates a new empty pixel layer. The second method is to open a pixel menu and then choose new layer. Notice that the shortcut for this command is Control ShefN, which is the third technique list to create pixel layers. The fourth technique is to let Affinity create the pixel layer automatically. This can happen if we have a vector layer selected, and then we try to use the paintbrush tool on top of it. For example, we can select a rectangle layer, which we know is a vector layer. If we activate the paintbrush tool and then try to paint on it, Affinity will not pin directly on rectangle layer. Instead, it creates a new pixel layer on top of it and then applies the brush strokes on the layer. The fifth technique is to convert other layer types into a pixel layer using the rasterize command. For example, we can select this Ellipse vector layer. If you right click on layer, then just rest trice. Now, this layer is no longer a vector layer, but a pixel layer. We can try using the paintbrush tool on it. As you can see, Affinity allows us to paint on it without creating any new pixel layer on top of it. The second type of frost layer is the image layer. An image layer is basically a representation of an image file inside the Affinity. This image file can be embedded or linked. We will discuss the difference between embed and link in another lesson. For now, you just need to know that you need to bring in an image file into Affinity to create an image layer. There are two ways that you can go about it. First, you can use the Place Command, or second, you can simply drag and drop the image from an external file browser. To use the Place Command. You can open a file menu, then choose Place. Select an image. Then click on the Open button. Next, you need to click on a Canvas to define the image location. As you can see, Affinity just created a new image layer for the image you just imported. Now, let's see how we can use the drag and drop method. You can open the file explorer. Find an image and then drag and drop the image on top of the Affinity app inside the Canvas area. Just as before, Affinity created a new image layer for us to contain the image file we dropped in. Again, the ones with the checker icons are the pix layers, and the ones with the rectangular image icons are the image layers. Up to this point, you may be wondering. So what is the difference between the two types other than just the icons? Well, what makes an image layer different is so Affinity protects or preserves the data inside it. The advantage of this is that you can always reset an image layer to its original state. But the downside of this protection is that you cannot perform all of roster editing features on it. That is, if the editing features are considered to be destructive. To give you some examples, if you select an image layer, and then you scale it down quite small or scale it up very large, you can always revert the image to its original size by going to the Context to bar and then clicking on the original size button. Again, you can do this because Affinity remembers the original state of the image file. Notice that if you select an ordinary pixel layer, you won't see any button to reset its size. Now, if you are on a pixel layer, you have total freedom to edit it. For example, you can select any part of it and then move the pixels inside the selection or perform other transformations. You can also use the pin Brush tool to add any color that you want. If you don't like the image in a pixel layer, you can remove it using the eraser tool and so on. Again, these are all considered to be destructive editing as the original pixel information changes. If you try to do any of these edits on an image layer, Affinity will prevent them. You can create a selection like so. But when you try to move it, the whole layer moves instead, not just the pixels inside the selection. If you try to paint on an image layer using the paintbrush tool, Affinity will create a new pixel layer on top of it instead. And if you try to erase part of an image layer, Affinity will add a mask layer instead. We will discuss the mask layer in later lesson. Long story short. The original image in the image layer is not affected. You can show or hide this mask layer. And even deleted without affecting the image layer, right? So what if we want to perform destructive editing on an image layer then? Well, you need to convert it first into an ordinary pixel layer. To do that, you can use the austerize command that we used before to convert a vector layer into a pixel layer. So you can right click on an image layer and then choose Rusize. Now that it is an ordinary pixel layer, you can perform all kinds of editing features on it, including ones that are considered to be destructive. 15. 01-13 View modes: In this video, we will discuss the view modes. Essentially, view modes are methods of how affinity display graphical objects inside the canvas area. In this file, I have several vector layers, a pixel layer, and an image layer. You can use the file I provided to follow along, or you may also set your own file like this one if you want to. The two most important view modes that you need to know are the pixel view mode and the vector view mode. You can access or switch between these modes using these two buttons at the top to a bar. This is the vector view mode, and this is the pixel view mode. In vector mode, affinity will try to display graphical data as if without mapping it to the pixel grid belonging to the document. Because of this, all vector objects will look sharp, even if you zoom in very close. As you can see, the curve at the Ellipse border still looks sharp even when we are disclosed. Other vector shapes also still look sharp and not only the vector layers, the effect is also true for image layers. That is, if you scale down an image layer to a very smooth size, we can still see the picture inside it clearly when we zoom in. Again, this is because affinity still remembers or stores the image layers original state. Now, notice if we change the view mode to pixel, if we are far away or zoomed out, we may not see the difference, but once we zoom in very close, we start to see pixelation on vector objects. And the picture inside an image layer is very noticeable. This happens because in a pixel view mode, all graphical data is mapped to the pixel grid of a document. Currently, the document is in a full HD resolution, meaning that all the vector layers and image layers are all mapped to 1920 pixels in width and 1080 pixels in height. The only layer that is not affected by the pixel view mode is the pixel layer. Why? Well, pixel layers already hold graphical data based on a document pixel grade. So even if we switch to the vector view mode, we will still see pixelation on pixel layers when zooming in. Again, this is because that is exactly how affinity stores their data. Now, you may be wondering. So why do we even want to use the pixel mode if you get uglier vector and image layers? Well, if you are in the process of editing vector objects, you'll gain more control and precision if you stay in vector view mode. But from time to time, you may want to switch to pixel mode to preview your work because if you publish your work as PNG or GPA files using the document resolution, your work will be transformed into pixels. Okay? If you prefer to use keyboard shortcuts, instead of going back and forth to the toolbar, you can press Control out Y to switch between the two modes. But there is a small bug when you use the shortcut, you see if you press Control out Y to switch to the Pixel view mode, the pixel icon will be darkened indicating that it is active. However, if you press Control O Y again to switch to the vector view mode, the vector icon does not look active, even though we are currently in vector mode. I hope this bug gets fixed in the future, or by the time you watch the video, Okay? Now, if you right click on a view mode buttons and then oe Advanced, affinity will display two additional modes. This is the retina pixel mode, and this is the X ray mode. You can Right click and use Advanced again to turn off the Advanced mode if you want to. Basically, the Xray mode displays all vector objects and image layers as semi transparent colors or pictures with back borders. This can be useful when you have a complex design with multiple objects stacking on top of each other and you want to set a certain object that is being blocked by other objects. For example, if this star object is behind the image layer, you cannot see it or may not realize that it exists. That is, if we are in a vector or pixels view modes. But if we use the X ray mode, we can easily spot the star object behind the image layer because you may need to use this mode often. Affinity provides a shortcut for this, which is Control Y. This shortcut works as a total. So pressing Control Y once activates the X ray mode. Pressing Control Y again, activates the vector mode, all right? The retina pixel is a mode that you can use if you need to simulate how your image will look on Apple retina display devices or other high DPI display devices. Basically, affinity will double the amount of pixels used to display the document. As you can see, when retina pixel will be more effective, affinity uses smaller but more pixels than documents default resolution. Again, this only affects the vector or image layers and not the pixel layers. So up to this point, we have already discussed four different view modes, which can be accessed through the toolbar. You need to know that affinity actually provides more than just these four modes. You can access the other modes by going to the view menu and then choosing modes. We have discussed pixel, retina, and vector modes. We have also discussed the X ray mode. Now, the offline and headline modes are basically the same. I honestly don't know why affinity makes these two separate modes. If you read the documentation, it says that the headline mode works just like how at software renders lines. For me, though, the only visible difference that I can tell is that the headline mode is slightly thicker than the outline mode, and that's it. Perhaps in the future, one of these modes will get more distinctive features over the other. Who knows we will see. Besides the modes, affinity also provides several viewing features that we can use. First is the graceful option. Essentially, this option will desaturate all the colors in our document. We may not see any difference if we are still in the headline or outline mode. But if you activate the other modes such as vector or pixel modes, we can see how all the colors turn into a gray scale spectrum. To bring back all the colors, we can simply click again on a gray scale menu item to turn the feature off. Next is the height effect option. As the name suggests, this will hide all the effects from the canvas. I know we haven't discussed the effects yet, but just to give you an insight into how this option works, if you select the rectangle layer and then click on the effects, we can activate the Gaussian blur effect, for example, not rectangle becomes very basically the rectangle object now has an effect attached to it. Now, if you activate the height effects option, the rectangle is back to its original state without the effect being applied. Just like the gray scale option, you can turn the height effects option on or off simply by clicking the menu item again. One of the cool features in affinity is the ability to split screen. You can do that by clicking on the split view menu item or simply by pressing the ma key on the keyboard. This is using the split view, and this is just using a single view. So how can we make use of this feature then? Well, you can click on these small tags or rectangles to activate left or right view. Let's say that we want left view to be in the X ray mode. Make sure you click left tag. Then click on the Xray view mode. As you can see, the Xray view mode is only activated on left view and not on the right view. As for the right view, say that we want to use the vector mode. But we want it to be in gray scale. Next, you can drag this bar to the left or to the right to compare the two modes. Feel free to play around with other modes and settings if you want to. After you are done, you can simply press the Kama key again to deactivate the split view feature. 16. 02-01 Snapping basics: In this video in the next, we will discuss the snapping feature. To turn on snapping, simply click on a magnet icon in the top tool bar. This is a Togol button, so you can click to turn it on and click again to turn it off. Notice that with the snapping turned on, I can easily align one object with another object. If you need to tweak the settings, you can click on a carrot button just to the right of the snapping button. As you can see, affinity provides a lot of options and parameters related to snapping. To make it easier to manage all these parameters, you can make use of the presets. Notice that as I switch between these presets, the parameters below are changing accordingly. For now, let's first use the page layouts with objects reset, so we have the same snapping settings to start with. The first important parameter that you need to be aware of is the screen tolerance. Basically, it defines the minimum distance between objects before affinity starts applying snapping to them. The value is based on pixels displayed on screen. If you set it to a very low number, the snapping will be less aggressive as the objects need to be very close to trigger snapping. Vice versa, if you set the screen tolerance very high, the snapping will become very aggressive as it can be triggered even if the objects are far away. For now, let's set this to ten pixels. The next thing that I want to discuss is the snapping colors. Affinity displays different colors on the screen based on the type of snapping that occurs. If your object snaps to another object horizontally, you'll see red colored lines. If it snaps to another object vertically, you'll see green colored lines. You'll also see other colors such as yellow and purple, but we will discuss this later. Now, even with the snap feature reactive, sometimes you just need to move objects in control without any snapping. You do not want to turn off the snapping icon, as you still need the feature for other objects. In such a case, you can make use of the al key or reaction key if you are on the MC. For example, if I move ster Object around, we can see the snapping lines here and there. But if I hold down the key, affinity temporarily turns off the snapping feature. If I release the alkey snapping feature is reactive again. Please note that you need to hold the alkey after you move the object, not before it. Why? Because if you hold the alkey before moving the object, affinity will duplicate the object instead. We have covered this issue before when discussing object duplication, okay? Next, let's discuss the snapping candidates. Basically, the term candidates in affinity are objects that will be taken into account when affinity calculates snapping. If you set this to candidate list and you set the maximum value to six, this means that affinity will only care about less six selected objects. Other objects will be ignored. If you set this all the way to one, now, only less selected object is taken into account. For example, if you select the rectangle object and then try to move the star object, it will only snap to the rectangle object and ignore the ellipse and the triangle objects. Another example, if we change the maximum value to two, then we select the triangle object, and then the star object, if we now try to move the ellipse object around, it will only snap to the triangle and star object ignoring the rectangle object, so again, the larger the maximum number is, the more objects are taken into account when snapping. I usually just set this to five as I really need to snap more than five objects at a time. The second snapping mode that I want to cover is the option called all layers. As the name suggests, this will basically take into account all objects or all layers in a file without any restriction. The last two modes that we need to discuss are the immediate layers and immediate layers in children. Please note that these two modes are special because they are actually designed to work with vector nodes instead of objects. I know we haven't discussed vector editing yet. The purpose of this lesson is to give you insight into how the snapping mode behaves and not about how to edit vector shapes. We will discuss vector editing in greater detail in later lessons. Long story short, the immediate layers mode detects candidates that are on the same level of the chron object and are on a direct paren layer, while the immediate layers and children detects candidates on the same level on its direct paren and also on the subordinate layers. So to truly see how these two modes work, we need to create objects or layers with parent child hierarchies. For this, I again put rectangle inside the ellipse. Let me move rectangle so we can see it. And then I put the star inside the rectangle. Don't worry. We will discuss clipping mask in lady lesson. Now, ellipse is the parent to the rectangle object. The rectangle is the child of llipse and also the parent of the star object. Well, the star object is the child of rectangle object. Now, because having objects in hierarchy like this will clip them or constrain their visibility. I need to change the view mode to the X ray or the outline mode. This way, we can still see the lines clear next, I can turn off all of these options and only turn on the object geometry option, lastly, I can select the rectangle object and then convert it into a curve. This way, I can select and move the nodes freely. Okay. Now, if I set the snapping mode to immediate layers and then try to move this node in the rectangle object, I can snap it to other nodes belonging to the same object or the rectangle object. I can also snap it to the paran object, which is the ellipse, but I cannot snap it to the star object, which is the child of the urn object. Now, if I change the snapping mode to immediate layers and children, not only can I snap the node to the nodes of the same object and of the paren object, I cannot snap the node to the nodes or lines belonging to the star object. So there is the difference between the two modes. Before I end the video, you may notice that affinity now uses yellow as the snapping color. Please note that this yellow color indicates geometric snapping. Again, this is because I turned on the geometry option before. 17. 02-02 Pixel and grid snapping: Let s continue our discussion on snapping features. In this video, we will discuss the pixel snapping and glt snapping. For now, make sure you set the view mode to vector. First, let's discuss the pixel snapping feature. This feature is important. If you want to create designs that snap perfectly to the pixel grade. For example, when you want to create pixel artworks for to the games, to clearly see how this works, let's turn off the page, any object snapping options, and also let's turn off this option for now. To see the pixel grade, you need to zoom in very close. You need to go above 1,000% like 2000 or 3,000 present depending on your monetary resolution. You may not see the grid clearly in a video, but you should see subti grid lines on your monitor. Again, this is the pixel grid or the grid lines that indicate the pixel position. Now, if you zoom in this clause, but still cannot see the pixel grade, this may be due to the pixel grid option being turned off. To toggle the pixel grid, you can use the shortcut control out single code. So this is on and it is off. If you ever forget the shortcut, simply open the view menu. Then show and then ooePixelGrad, okay? Now, let's see how the pixel snapping works. While the first pixel alignment option is turned off, when you move objects or nodes, affinity, will not try to snap them to the pixel grade if you turn the upper option on, but the bottom option off, and then try to scale is rectangle. For example, the node will precisely snap to the pixel grade, all right? The bottom option is used when you only want to move objects or nodes, per tixel but not necessarily snap to the grade. I don't understand why we ever need to do this, but the option is here if you ever need it. To see the feature, clearly, if I move a scale node and then hold out to turn off snapping temporarily, I can move this halfway or off the grade. Then if I try to move the scale node again without the alkey, the movement will snap by one pixel distance, but it does not snap to the grid lines. Again, most of the time when dealing with pixel artworks, you do want to have the first option turned on, but the second option turned off, you make sure the objects we create or move are aligned with the documents pixel grid, all right? Next, let's discuss a snapping feature that is inside the page snapping category called snap to grid. For now, let's turn off the pixel snapping and also keep the object snapping off. Basically, all snapping is off except the snap two grid option. If the Snap two grid checkbox is on the object or the node that we drag in Canvas will snap to the grid, please note that what we are discussing now is the standard grade, not the pixel grade. By default, the grid itself is invisible. You can toggle its visibility by pressing single code on a keyboard. Or if you forget the shortcut, you can open a view menu, then open the show sub menu, and then grade. As you can see, shortcut is control single code. Notice that, if I try to direct these scale nodes belonging to the ellipse object, the nodes will snap to the nearest grid lines. Okay. Now, you may be wondering, so what are these grid lines based on, and how can we control them? Well, you can control the grid lines by going to the view menu and then choosing the grid axis menu item. By default, affinity uses your aromatic grid system. Basically, this will create grid lines per tenth of a pixel dynamically. What I mean by dynamic is that if you zoom in or out, it will recreate the grid by dividing or multiplying the grid size by ten. So with the automatic method, you always have a grid shown in the canvas. Second type of grid is the basic grade. As you can see here, you can set your own measurement for the grid size. If I've set this to 40 pixels and set this to four, for example, we now have a grid with a size of 40 pixels in width and height, and it is divided into four lines horizontally and vertically. What differentiates the basic grid from the aromatic grade is that if you zoom in or out, affinity will not recreate the grid lines. If you still see a smaller grade like this, this is actually not the standard grade that we are discussing. This is the pixel grade. So let's turn it off for now, so it does not get in the way. All right. Besides the square grade, affinity also supports tilted or isometric grades. We can access these grade types using the advanced mode and the cube mode. In your advanced mode, you can choose the isometric grade, which is very useful for creating orographic artworks, such as for interactive maps or two D over the top games. There is also due two by one ratio isometric grade and one called diametric and so on. There are just so many options that you can tweak on each of these grid types. It will be too long and too boring if we have to discuss all of them in this video. So I urge you to explore them yourself. Less grid mode is the cube. This is basically an isometric grid type built on steroids. Essentially, with this grid type, you have greater control over how the grid behaves through the use of TD cube simulation. You can rotate the cube horizontally by clicking and ragging in this area and also rotate the cube vertically using the slider. You can control the size of the grid and so on. Again, I won't go into too much detail as that will take too much time. Feel free to play around with the settings if you like. For now, let's activate the default automatic mode and then click close because the video is already quite long, we will continue discussing other snapping features in next lesson videos. 18. 02-03 Baseline grid: In this lesson video, we will discuss the next grade feature called the baseline grade. If you open a view menu and show, you can see that affinity supports three types of grade, the standard grade or just grade, the baseline grade, and a pixel grade. We have discussed the grade and pixel grade. Now we are discussing the last type of grade called the baseline grade. So what exactly is a baseline grade in the real world? If you look at a blank notebook, you can see subtle horizontal lines usually they are colored in light gray or light blue. Well, these lines are basically a baseline grid. Long story short, we use baseline grids for aligning texts. That is why they are very common in the stop publishing software or where we need to work with books, magazines, and the like. In affinity, we can also use the baseline grid for snapping objects so they can be aligned easily against text content. By default, the baseline grid is hidden. To show and to tweak its settings, you can open a view menu. And then use baseline grade, then you need to activate these two checkboxes. As you can see, the baseline grade only has horizontal lines and no vertical lines, just like the lines we see in physical notebooks. Now, if you open the snapping panel, you will also see the snap to baseline grid option. So what is the difference between this option and this option then? Well, this use baseline grid option is for aligning text content, while this snapping to baseline grid is for snapping objects. So their functions are quite different. One thing that you need to keep in mind is that the snapping feature depends on the use baseline grid option, meaning that if this is off, the snapping feature will not have any effect, right? Let's discuss how objects snap to the baseline grid. To see the snapping effect clearly, make sure all other snapping options are turned off except the snap to baseline grid option. In this condition, if we drag the scale nodes of the triangle, for example, it will snap to the nearest baseline grade. This only applies to the top and bottom scale nodes. When we try to drag left or right scale nodes, nothing happens because there are no vertical lines in the baseline grade. Please note that even if you hide the baseline grade, the snapping effect still exists. But if you turn this option off, then it does not matter whether you have the snapping option on or off the object or node that we drag will not snap to the Baseline grid. Again, this is something that you need to remember. Next, let's discuss how text content snaps to the Baseline grid. For now, we can turn off the snapping icon, so we can focus only on the text content and ignore object snapping. Now, I know we haven't discussed text editing yet, but to understand how this works, we need to create a frame text object. To access it, we can click on the Artistic text tool and then choose the frame text tool in a two group. We need to use the frame text object as the baseline grade does not work with the artistic text object. Okay. Next, change the font size to 20 points so that later, we can see the text better. Then click Reg in a Canvas like so. For practice purposes, you can type some random letters in this text frame, but affinity provides a more elegant solution for creating dummy text. To do that, you can go to the text menu, then insert and then choose Inset filler text or simply by Rod clicking on text area and then choosing Inside filler text. Now we have some texts to practice with. Notice that this is not an ordinary text that you can select and edit. If you try to delete letter inside it, affinity will delete the whole text instead. Okay. Now, see if we try to move the frame text object, the text content inside it will always snap to the nearest baseline grid. If you turn this option off, now the text will just follow the object without any snapping. Let's turn this back on. If you try to move one of the scale nodes up or down, you can see that these nodes do not snap to the baseline grade. Why is that? Well, this is because the nodes are considered to be objects, not text. So you need to turn on the snapping icon for it to snap to the baseline grade. All right, let's turn off the snapping icon again for now. Next, let's discuss these parameters in detail. The stop position value determines the position of the first grade line. Increasing this value will create a larger gap in the top area. The relative to option defines what page feature we want to use as the base for the start position. We will discuss margin in the next lesson. As for spread and page, you should already know what a page is. This white rectangular shape is a page. If you only have one page like this, the terms spread and page are basically the same. But if you have a book layout with left and we facing pages, a spread is a combination of two pages that are facing each other. We will discuss this in greater detail, perhaps in another course that focuses on affinity layout studio in Shallot. Next, the grid snapping parameter is probably very obvious. This is for adjusting the gap size between grid lines. Then you can change the grid color here, and you can change the grid transparency using the slider. All right. Next, the show baseline grid checkbox here will hide or show the grade. Switching this checkbox is basically the same as going to the view show, and then clicking on the baseline grid menu item. The display threshold value here determines at what zoom level the grade will be displayed. If you set this to 70%, it means that Zoom levels lower than 70% will hide the grade. Just to prove this, if you use the navigator panel or if you activate the Zoom two and then wreck this zoom slider to the left. Once it passes lower than 70%, the baseline grade disappears. If the zoom value is larger than 70%, the baseline grade shows up again. Okay, guys, so that is how you use the baseline grade in affinity. 19. 02-04 Spread and Rulers: In this lesson video, we will discuss the spread snapping feature and rulers feature. First, let's discuss the spread snapping features. As we discussed in the previous lesson, the term spread is commonly used to define two connected pages or pages that are facing each other. We see this type of layout in book and magazine designs. If you only have one page like this, then the terms spread and page are basically the same. To clearly see the spread snapping feature, make sure you turn off all other snapping options except for the Snap to spread and spread points options. In this condition, if we move an object or a node, it will snap to the left border of the page. The top border, right, and bottom, you can also snap objects or nodes to the center of the page horizontally and vertically. All right. Next, let's discuss the rulers feature in affinity. By default, the rulers are hidden. To toggle the rulers feasibility, you can press Control R on the keyboard. So these vertical and horizontal bars with numbers are called the rulers. Basically, just like the ruler we found in the real world. If you ever forget the shortcut, you can always open view menu, then show and then choose rulers one alternative method that you can use to show or hide the rulers is by clicking on the outer empty area and then choosing Show Rulers. I forgot to mention this technique in the previous lessons. That is, you can also use this technique to show or hide the grade, pixel grade, baseline grade, and other stuff. Okay. Please note that the numbers you see in the rers are based on a document setting because I set the document unit to pixels. The rulers are not based on pixels. If you open a document menu, then set up and then use document setup. As you can see, currently, the document unit is set to pixels. If I change these 2 millimeters, for example, and then click Okay, now the numbers displayed in rulers are in millimeters, not pixels. We can press Control Z to change the rulers back to pixels. If you need to switch back and forth between different measurement units instead of going to the menu, you can right click this corner area and then chooe whatever unit you want to use. Just remember that changing the unit here will also change the unit setting in a document setup window. By default, the 00 value or the origin point of the rulers is at the top left corner of the spread. If you want to move the origin point to another location, you can do that by clicking and wagging from this corner area to any location in Canvas. Notice that now, 0.0 coordinate or the origin point is here, not here. To reset the origin back to its default location, you can simply double click in its corner area. As you can see, now the origin point is back to the top left corner of the spread. Up to this point, you may be wondering, what if we want to move the origin point to a certain location or distance precisely? Let's say that we want to move the origin point, 200 pixels to the right and 100 pixels to the bottom. How can we do that? Well, we can do that by going to the view menu and then opening the guides window. Here, you can see the spread origin parameters. You can set this X value to 200 pixels, for example, then turn off this chain icon. So you can set the Y value independently, say 100 pixels, press Enter. You can see right away how the origin changes. It is now at 200 pixels by 100 pixels. To reset the origin, you can type in 00 in its fields. But again, you can quickly do that by double clicking on its corner. 20. 02-05 Guides, Columns, and Margins: In this video, we will discuss more features related to snapping. They are guides, columns, and margins. First, is the guide feature. To clearly see the guide snapping effect, make sure all other snapping is off except the snap two guides option. Okay? So what is a guide? Guides are basically horizontal or vertical lines that can be used as snapping targets. Guides are custom made. Meaning that we need to create guides manually. There are two methods to create guides in infinity, either use the rulers or use the guides window. If you have the rulers shown or visible, you can click and drag from the ruler area into the canvas area to create a guide. If you drag from the horizontal ruler, affinity will create a horizontal guide, and if you drag from the vertical ruler, it will create a vertical guide. Feel free to create as many guides as needed. Because we have the guides snapping up Shenton Don, you can snap objects or nodes to the guides. Okay, you can toggle guides visibility by pressing Control semi colon or by going to the view menu, show and then guides. Or you can also do that quickly by clicking on the Outer or Empty area, and then choosing show guides. Please note that even if you have the guides hidden, the guide snapping effect, you'll still be active. That is, if you have the snapping icon turn on, essentially, hiding guides does not actually remove guides. Once you have created a guide, you can hover over it and then click Androg to move now, when you try to move an object, you may accidentally move a guide instead. This can happen often if you have a lot of guides in your design. To avoid these accidents, you can use the guide looking feature. For this, you can open a view menu again and then use lock guides. In this condition, whatever we do in Canvas, the guides will not be moved. Let's turn off the lock guides option, so we can move them again. If you want to remove a guide, you can simply drag the guide so it is outside of the Canvas area, or you can hover over it and then click and then choose clear Selected Guide. If you want to remove all guides in a Canvas, you can click on a guide just like before, and then choose clear all guides. Okay. The second method of creating and managing guides is through the guides window. We used this window before when we adjust despite origin point. Basically, to open a guide's window, you can go to the View menu and then choose guides. Another way to open a guide's window is by clicking on one of guides and then choosing guides. Or an even faster way to do this is by doblo clicking on one of guides, provided that you do not lock the guides. Managing guides using the guides window is very easy. This box lists all existing horizontal guides. While this box lists all existing vertical guides. The numbers shown here are the location based on current rulers. If, for example, I want to make this guide exactly at 200 pixels, I can simply the block click on the number in type 200 then enter. You can also do this with horizontal guides if you want to. To create a new guide, you can click on this icon. Notice that by default, affinity will create a new guide exactly at the center horizontally or vertically to the little guide, make sure you select the one you want to remove and then click on the trash icon below. Another method of controlling guides positions is using percentage values instead of pixel or millimeter values. To do that, you need to turn this option on. Notice that now these values are in percentages. This can be helpful in certain scenarios, such as when you want to divide the page into several sections without calculating the pixel values. While you are in the guides window, you can also control the columns and margins of your spread or page. If you increase the columns value to three, for example, you will see three column guides indicated by three subtle gray boxes. If you also increase the rows value to three, you will see the previous gray boxes divided into three sections horizontally. If you don't like how these guides look, you can change their visual appearance. Using these two primeters. You can change the color here. You can also change the mode to outline if you don't like the default field mode. Again, these options only affect their visuals, not their behavior. Next, is the margin guide. Essentially, margins are white spaces or gaps around the border of the page. You can create margins, using these primeters. This is draft margin. This is the top margin, white and bottom. Currently, changing one value will change all values because we have this lock icon ton down. If this is off, you can change each of the values independently. And you can change the margin color here if you want to. Okay. Please note that these column and margin guides do not automatically create column or white spaces for text objects. So this is very different from common word processing app such as Microsoft board or LibreOffice Writer, for example, we will discuss text objects in ano lesson or course. For now, you just need to know that in affinity, these column and margin guides are simply used for snapping targets. To use these guides, make sure you have the snapping on turned on and then make sure you set this snap to margin option turned on. Optionally, you can also have this option active if you also want to target the midpoints of the guides. Again, although these options say margin, they also affect the column guides. We can test the snapping effect by moving objects close to the margin or the column guides. As you can see, the objects snaps to these guides as expected. 21. 02-06 Object snapping: In this lesson video, we will discuss various snapping options in the object category. To see the snapping effects more clearly, make sure you set the page snapping category off and return on the objects netting category by now because you already know most of the snapping features in affinity, I will discuss the objects netting features briefly or not as in depth as the previous lessons. Okay? First option in the list is probably very obvious. If you turn it on, affinity only cares about the visible objects when snapping. All objects that are hidden will be ignored. Next, these three options are for bonding box snapping. Bonding boxes are imaginary rectangles that wrap around objects. Notice, if I have the first option turned on and move this triangle object to the left, the bonding box of the circle and the bonding box of the triangle will snap. If you turn on the second option, this will let you snap to the mid points or center lines of the bonding boxes. Okay. Now, the third option is unique. If you turn it on, affinity will detect gaps between bonding boxes and then use the distance as additional reference for snapping to show you what I mean, let me hide the star object for now. If I place the circle here and in the triangle here, currently, affinity already detects the gap between these two objects, bonding boxes. Now, if I move the rectangle to this area and move it left or right, at some point, it will snap to the same existing gap between circle and triangle. So you can use this teacher to easily distribute or spread objects within uniform distances, all right. The next snapping target that we can use is the shapkey point. Essentially, shapkey points are points defined by affinity developers to make creating diagrams easier. Most of the time, the shapekey point is located at the center of a vector object. I know we haven't discussed the pen tool yet, but to see the shapekey let's activate the pen tool and then try to create a polygonal shape using it. Notice that as I hover over this ellipse object, finity display yellow node at the center of the shape. Well, this is the shape point of illibs object, and this is the shape of the triangle object, and this is the shape of the rectangle object. Okay. Please note that only primitives or parametric vector objects have shapekey points. Once you convert them into ordinary curve objects, they will lose their shapkey points. Just to prove this, if I click on this rectangle and then choose convert to curves. This object is now an ordinary curve that we can edit using the node tool. In this condition, if I try to use the pen tool again, it will not show the node as before. Again, this is because this object is no longer a parametric vector object, so it does not have a shape key point, right? The next option is snap to object geometry. I believe this is also quite obvious. Basically, this option will let you snap to points and curves of vector objects. Notice, if I have this option active and then I use the Pentl again. Whenever I hover over the points or curves of a vector object, I'll get these yellow highlights, indicating that the point I'll be creating using the Pentl will snap to the geometry of the target object. Will use this feature a lot when you are editing vector shapes, especially when you need to perform precise operations, okay? Finally, the bottom option is for snapping to pixel selections. To see this feature in action, you may also want to activate the boning box option, so you can snap between objects, boning boxes and pixel selections. Now, to create a pixel selection, you may need to activate the pixel studio first and then use one of the pixel selection tools such as the rectangular Markey tool. Just click Androg to create a pixel selection. In this condition, if you use the move to move one of the vector objects near the selection area, you'll see that the object snaps to the selection border. To clear the pixel selections, you can press Control D on keyboard. Okay, guys, so that is how you can use the object snapping features in affinity. 22. 02-07 Alignment and Key Object: In this lesson video, we will discuss how to line objects, and after that, discuss the key object concept in affinity. We can access the line features by clicking on this icon in the toolbar area. Please note that if you don't have any objects selected, the line icon will be disabled. So again, you need to select at least one object to access the line features. Besides via toolbar, you can also access the features via layer menu. Orange and then line. But as you can see, using the menu is not as convenient as clicking the line icon. Now, before we discuss the features inside this panel, notice that the line icon only exists in a vector and layout studios. It does not appear in a pixel studio. You might be thinking that the line features only work on vector layers and not on pixel layers. Well, it is not the case at all. The alignment features affinity work on both vector and pixel layers. Personally, I prefer to have the line features easily accessible also in Pixel studio. For this, you can customize the tool bar. We have discussed how to customize the UI before. Basically, you can right click on a too bar and then choose customize you can use this large icon block, which has all the six basic lineman features, or you can also use one of these individual icons if you want to. If you prefer to have the same line panel as the vector or ayo studios, then what you want to use is this one called lineman. Notice that now, you can also access the line tunnel from the Pixel studio. Again, personally, this is how I want the tool bar in the Pixel Studio. But if you don't like it, you can always right click and then open a customized to bar window again and just drag the alignment icon out from the tool bar area to remove it. For now, we can focus on a vector studio to access the alignment panel, right? To line objects, you first need to select the objects that you want to line. Let's say that we want to align these four objects. After that, you can open the line panel by clicking on the icon. On that we can line objects horizontally or vertically. Both methods are basically the same. The only difference is the direction. This is right. This is center, left, top, middle, and bottom. Now, if you click on left Line button, for example, what you are seeing now in the Canvas is actually just a preview of what will happen if you click Dply button below. If you click again on left button, affinity will turn off the preview and bring back your original state of the objects. This basic concept applies to all other line buttons. Click to preview it and click again to bring back the original state. If you decide that you like how it looks, you can click the Apply button to confirm. Otherwise, you can press the cancel button. Okay. By default, when you select multiple objects, affinity will use the bonding box of all selected objects as the basis of the alignment. So if you click the line center button, for example, the center of the bonding box is used to center all of these objects. Can control this behavior using the line two option. As you can see, it is currently set to selection bonds. If I change this option to spread, now the alignment is based on the whole page instead. We learn how to set margins before. If you have some margins on your design, you can also use those margins as the alignment basis by choosing the margin option. Then you can also use the first selected object or less selected object as the alignment basis. See an example, let's say that we want to align all of these objects to this one object. We can select that one object first and then hold Shift and click Select the other objects, or you may also hold Shift and then click drag to select rest of the objects. Now, if we try to center align all these objects using the first selected option, notice how these objects are centered on the center line of the first selected object, right? Affinity, there is also a concept called the key object. It works almost the same as the first selected object concept that we just discussed. The advantage of using the key object is that it gives you more flexibility and visual clarity of which object is being used as the basis of the operation. Let's say that we select this object first, and then while holding Shift, we can click on this object, then it's object, and so on until all of them are selected. Currently, this object is the first selected object, but we change our minds. We want this object to be the first selected object instead of this object. Well, we don't need to redo the whole selection process. We just need to hold the Al key and then click on the center object. Notice how affinity makes the object selection highlight thicker than the rest. This is because this object is now considered the key object. In this condition, if you perform any of the alignments using the first selected option, affinity will not use the first selected object. It will use the key object instead. So again, this is something very important to understand and remember. The first selected option is unique because it uses the first selected object, but only when there is no key object defined. If a key object exists, it will use that key object as the basis of the alignment instead. 23. 02-08 Space Distribute and Make Same: In this last video, we will discuss the distribution features in affinity. They are space, distribute, and make shame. First, is the space feature. Essentially, the space feature will distribute objects horizontally or vertically using uniform distances between their bonding boxes to access the space feature. First, you need to have at least two objects selected. You cannot use this feature if nothing is selected, or if you only have one object selected, let's just select office objects, and then you can open the line panel from the two bar. This is the space horizontal feature, and this is the space vertical feature. You can also access these features by going to layer menu range, and line. Again, this is the space horizontal feature, and this is the space vertical feature. The downsides of using the menu, besides it takes longer to access, is that you cannot use a specific number for distance. It always uses an automatic value. Now, if you open the line panel and then click on the space horizontally button, for example, besides using the automatic value, you can specify custom value for the gap distance using a spacing field. For this to work, you need to turn off the Auto distribute checkbox and then type in a value here or use the mocroel to increase or decrease the value. As a reminder, you can hold the chivey while doing this to make the value snap to portend values. Again, this value defines the gap between objects bonding boxes. I think we can see this better if we turn on the middle alignment. If we set this to 100 pixels, it means that the distance from here to here is 100 pixels. From here to here is 100 pixels also. And from here to here is 100 pixels also. Just to proof l, you can click the Apply button for now and then click on the Ellipse Object. If you hold the Control key and then hover cursor over the rectangle object, you can see how affinity display the gap value in the Canvas. We can also measure the distance to the triangle object and so on. All right, up to this point, you may be wondering, what if you want to measure the distance between objects based on the central points, not based on the gaps between them? Can we do that in affinity? Yes, we can. To do that, we need to use the distribute commands. Essentially, the distributed commands are almost similar to the space features. But instead of measuring the gap distance, it only cares about the central positions of the objects. To access the distributed commands, you can open layer menu, range, and then line. This is the distribute horizontal command, and this is the distribute vertically command. Let's try to distribute horizontal command for now. The changes are almost unusable because our objects have almost the same width. Let's just widen the triangle object a bit so we can really see the difference. Let's move things to the right a bit. Now, you can try using the distribute horizontally again. As you can see, it is possible for the objects to have varying gaps when using a distribute command as it only curs about the center lines. The last feature we want to discuss is the maxim feature. This feature is actually not an aligned or distribute command. But because it exists in a line panel, it still makes sense that we discuss this feature now. Basically, this feature allows us to make objects look more uniform in terms of their sizes and rotations. To use this feature, of course, you need to have at least two objects selected. And then this is important. You need to make sure that the object you want to reference is selected first or at least you need to make it a key object. Let's say that we want these three objects to follow the star object to make the changes more obvious. Let's first scale down the star object, and then also rotate it a bit. Okay? Now, that's like all of these objects, but then hold out and then click on star object to make it the key object. After that, open the line panel. And down here, you can find the maxing feature. This will make the width of the objects follow the key objects width. This will make them the same height. And this will rotate the objects, so they have the same orientation as the key object. Now, if you are working with logos or people's photos, you don't want graphics to be distorted when scaling them. In such a case, you should turn on the maintain aspect ratio checkbox. If this is on. You can make the objects width or height uniform, but they will always maintain their proportions. Again, this is important if you are working with sensitive graphics such as company logos or people's photos. 24. 02-09 Transform origin and circular distribution: In this lesson video, we will discuss the Tsome origin feature and how to create a circular distribution inside the affinity. First, let's create a tear shape object using the tear tool. Like so, change the field color to another color such as green so we can see the shape better, okay? Let's say that we want to duplicate this three object, so we have a total of six objects, but in circular motion, currently, if we try to rotate the object, affinitive uses the center of the object as the default rotational axis. This is where we need the transform origin feature. Essentially, with this feature, we can specify a custom center point for transform missions. To activate the feature, make sure you have moved to active, then you can click on Garcon on the contextual to bar. And then turn on this option that says, enable transform origin. If this is on, you should be able to see a small circle with a dot at the center of the object. Well, this is the transom origin point. You can move this point to any location that you want. For now, we need to move this up straight vertically. For this, while we drag it up, you need to hold the shift key. Moving to about here. Now, if we try to rotate the object again, notice that instead of using the center of the object, it now uses the transform origin point as the rotational axis. So there is basically how we can use the transform origin feature. If you don't need the feature anymore, you can turn it off the same way you turn it on. That is by going up here and then clicking on the transform origin option. We need it for now, so do not turn off the option yet. Next, we need to tackle the duplication. For this, there are two methods that you can use. First, the duplicate selection command or the Control J shortcut, and second, using the move duplicate window. My favorite method is less, but let's for C the Control J method. Make sure the object is selected, and we have the move to active. Press Control J ones to duplicate the object. Currently we have two objects at the same location, but only the new one is selected. Rotate the new object. You can hold shift while doing this, so the rotation easily snaps to a 60 degree angle. After you release the mouse, do not do anything else right away, press Control J again to create another duplicate. What makes Control J unique is that it remembers the last transformation and then uses the transformation for the next duplicate, press Control J again. So we have five duplicates or a total of six the shapes. Okay, guys, so there is the first method. Let me delete all these objects for now. The second method, which is my favorite is using the move duplicate window. After we have the transform origin point at the correct location, simply press the enter key on the keyboard. We have discussed this window before, so I'm sure you are already familiar with the primeersT create duplicates, you need to turn on the duplicate option. And because we want a total of six tier shapes, we need five duplicates. Next, we need to define the rotation value. Remember, it is the rotation value, not the angle value. The angle value works with distance value to move the object in a certain direction. It is not for rotating the object. Now, we already know that we need to input 60 degrees to distribute six shapes in a circular motion. But let's say that you need to create a certain number of duplicates, not just five. If you are in a hurry, you can actually use the rotation field to perform a calculation. You can type in 360 then the fourth slash symbol, then the number of objects. In our case, it is six or five duplicates plus one the original. Then press enter. As expected, we get 60 degrees as a result. With the same method, if you want to have ten objects in total, for example, you need to type nine in the number of copies filled, and then in the rotation field, type in 36010 then enter. So use whatever number you have in this field at one and use that as the division. I am sure you get the idea. If you are happy with the preview, you can click on the Okay button, and here is the result. So as you can see, you have more controls and more forgiving workflow when using the move, duplicate window compared to the control J method. One technique that is often used together with the circular distribution is the mixing rotation alignment. Basically, you can use this command to set the orientation of multiple objects at once. This can be a time cipher. For example, when you need to create a watch dial or o' clock dial. Let's say that, you need to create the numbers in o'clock dial 1-12. First, you can create a text using the artistic text tool set the phone to bolt and set the alignment to center and rack on canvas like SO. And then just type zero for the text. We will fix the text later, activate the move tool, as we discussed earlier, to duplicate the text in circular motion, we need to turn on the enable transom origin option and then rack the transform origin point down while holding ****. After that, let's enter on a keyboard. The total number in a clock is 12, so we need 11 duplicates. For the rotation, we can type 360/12. Again, you need to use the total number here or 11 plus one, press Enter, and then click the O button. Now here is the problem that we need to solve most of the time for vector shapes, we do want to have them rotated or oriented to the center like this. But for numbers on a clock dial, it will be hard for people to read the numbers if they are rotated to fix this kind of problem. First, you need to select all of the objects, and then you need to pick one as the key object because the only crack object in terms of orientation is the stop one. You can hold the key and then click on the object. Notice, it has a thicker bonding box compared to the other objects. Next, go to the line panel. And then down here in the same category, you need to click on this icon that says rotation. I know the UI is a bit confusing as it looks like the icon is disabled, but it will actually work if you click on it. Hit Apply and here is the result. You can now move on to fixing the text. For this, you can use the text tool, and in double click on the text, you want to edit, this should be 12. This is one. This is two. This is prey, and so on until all the numbers are correct. Okay, guys, you can use the make same rotation command to quickly fix orientation of multiple objects. 25. 03-01 Basic Vector properties: In this lesson video, we will discuss the basic properties of vector objects which are struck with the stroke color and the field color. For now, let's focus on the star object. Make sure you set the view mode to vector so you can see sharp lines or curves on a canvas, even though you zoom in very close. Next, make sure the move tool is active and the star object is flected notice that up here in Context two bar, you can see a zero value. Well, this is the stroke width value. Essentially, this controls the width of lines of the current vector object. Of course, there are other stro properties besides width, but we will discuss them in later lessons. For now, you can hover over the field and then scroll the most up. I think five points are enough for our purpose. Okay? All vector objects have two basic elements, stroke and fill. A stroke is a line or curve that defines the shape of a vector object, while a field is the area formed or wrapped by the stroke. In this example, the black lines surrounding the star object are the stroke. While the range area in the center is the fill. If you select a vector object in infinity, you can control the color of the stroke and the fill in at least four different ways. You can use the Context to bar, DTs area, the color panel, and the appearance panel. Let's discuss each of them one by one. First method is to the context to bar. This is for changing the fail color, and this is for changing the stroke color. Please note that because the context to bar depends on the active tool. You may not always see these color icons. For example, if you have artboard tool active or the contorTol active, the fill and stroke color icons do not appear in the context to bar. But if you have move through active or the note too active, you will see these icons in the context to bar. So again, this is something that you need to keep in mind. The second method of controlling colors is vital to spanel. As you can see down here, there is a ring icon and a circle icon stacking on top of each other. Well, drawing icon represents the stro color, and a circle icon represents the feel color to change the stro color. You can double click on drawing icon. This will open up a color Picker window. Let's change the color to red and then click the Close button. As you can see, the star vector object now has red colored stroke lines. To change the field color, you can the blue click on the circle icon. Let's say that we want to change the color to blue. Now, the field color is blue. Okay? The third method of changing the stroke and the field colors is through the color panel just as before. Here, you can also see a ring and a circle icon. The ring is for controlling trough color. And the circle is for controlling the field color. The last method of controlling the colors is the appearance panel. In this panel, you can see the stroke property and the field property. You can double click on the card ring to control the stroke color, and you can double click on Card circle to control the field color. Now, you may be wondering why does affinity use inconsistent UI for the color picker? That is a box version like when you double click on car icons in tools area. There is a triangle version like the one in the color panel, and there is also the RGB sliders version like the one we found in the appearance panel in a Context tool bar. Isn't this confusing for users? Well, you actually don't need to use all types of color pickers. When using affinity, if you prefer a certain color picker, you can use da type throughout the whole affinity. Why? For example, if you open a color picker from the tool panel, notice that this color picker is set to hue, meaning that the single bar here is hue while the large box controls the saturation in all sort brightness, you can set it to saturation or lightness if you want to. Now, if you set this to RGB sliders, notice how the color picker looks like the one we saw in the context tool bar. And if you set this to color wheel, now the color picker looks like the one in the color panel. The same concept also applies to other car pickers in affinity. Suppose you click on the color icons here. You can change this car picker to the circle or triangle version if you wish, or change it to the box version with the hue as the main bar. Now, to change the color picker type in color panel is a bit different, but the result is basically similar here. You need to click on this card button. This is the RGB sliders version. And this is the box version. While you have the box version active, you can change the active bar to something other than the e value, such as saturation or whiteness. 26. 03-02 Vector node types: In this lesson video, we will discuss different types of vector nodes in affinity and how to convert from one to the other. You can categorize the vector nodes and affinity into five different types because in affinity, the three most common types start with letter S. I then name S with letters also, so they are all easier to memorize. The first type is sharp. In other graphics software, this type is also known as the Condra type. Essentially, this vector node does not have any control handles. This is the reason why it looks sharp. Second type is a single type, also known as the hybrid node. The reason I named this single is that it only has one control handle. Because of this, one curve attached to this node can be smooth, while the other is always sharp. The third type is the smooth type. This node has two control handles that are symmetrical. If you move one handle, the other handle will follow to compensate for orientation. The fourth type is split. I call it split because each of the control handles can have a split direction or operate independently of one another. So changing one handle orientation does not automatically change the other handles orientation. The type is called the smut type. In other graphics software, this type is also known as the automatic type or the auto smooth type. Essentially, it is similar to the smooth type as it has two handles. But the orientation and the length of the control handles are calculated by affinity automatically. Next, let's see some examples of the node types while also learning how to change the node from one type to another. There are at least five methods that you can use in affinity to change the node types. First, is using the Alki method. Second, is using the Dub click method. Then using the icons in context to bar, using the click pop up menu, and finally, by dragging the segments between the nodes. For now, let's focus on the triangle object. Make sure you set the canvas view mode to vector so we can see sharp lines or curves on the screen, then increase the stroke width two, three points. So we can see the stroke clearly. And then we want to make the field color invisible. For this, we can click on the field Color icon. And then click on this small icon that has a red diagonal line. Again, this removes the field color or makes the field area transparent. The best step to prepare the object is to convert it into a curve. Remember that in infinity, you cannot edit the nodes of a vector object freely if the object is still in a parametric mode. For this, you can white click on the object and then choose convert to curves. Now, if you use the node tool or just press A for a keyboard shortcut, you should be able to select a node and then move it freely. Okay, the first technique of converting the node types is by holding the key and then clicking on a node. On top of that, currently, all of these nodes are in a corner or sharp mode. While in this condition, if you hold out and then click on a node, that node will be converted into a smooth node. Again, a smooth node has two control handles. Each control node defines the curvature of the segment attached to that node. If you hold out and then click on a smooth node, that node will become a sharp node again. So it is like a total button. When the node is in a smooth node, you can hold out and drag one of the handles. By doing this, the handle will become independent of the other handle. In other words, the node becomes a split type. So again, clicking on a node will toggle the node between sharp and smooth and holding out and ragging one of the handles will convert the node into a split type. Now, what if you want to change the node type to a hybrid or a single type? Well, you can hold out and then click on a control handle that you want to remove. Remember, you do not click on the node but on a control handle. As you can see, now this node has only one handle. One of the segments is a curve as it has a control handle, while the other segment is just a line as it does not have any control handle. In this condition, if you click again on left handle, that handle will be gone, making the node a sharp type. All right. Next, let's see how we can use the double click method. Essentially, almost all that we can do using the OT method can also be done using the double click method. That is, if you double click on a node, the node will change from the sharp type to the smooth type or vice versa. If you double click on a handle, that handle will be removed. The only thing that we cannot do you see the Doble Click method is change the smooth type to a split type. For this, we still need to use the d key method. The third method is by using the icons in Context to bar. If you strike a node, you can change each type using these icons in context to bar. This will make it a sharp type. This will make it a smooth type, and this will make it a smart type. We have seen the sharp and smooth type before, but we haven't seen the smart type. If you set a node to smart type, you can see a small dot at the center of the node. So visually, we can tell a smart type node from the small center dot. Now notice assign of neighboring nodes. The smart nodes control handles react automatically. Affinity, we always try to make the smart nodes look smooth by changing the orientation and also the length of the control handles. Please note that you may move a smart node around. It will always be a smart node. But once you edit one of the control handles, the node will be converted into an ordinary node. So now it won't reorient or react to the neighboring nodes, okay? The fourth method of changing the node types is by clicking on a node and then choosing either sharp, smooth, or smart. So basically, these options are the same as the icons that you can find in Context tool bar. The last method is by dragging the segments, connecting the nodes in afility and in many other vector software nodas besides using the control nodes, you can also control the curfature of a vector object by dragging the segments directly. If you use this method, affility will move or click to surrounding control handles automatically. Using this technique, the nodes can be converted from a sharp type to a single or a split type automatically. For example, you can set this node to sharp and then this node also. And this node also, again, because these nodes are sharp type, they do not have any control handles. Now, if I drag this segment to make it curve out a bit, notice that now this node is a single type, and if we drag this segment, the node is no split type as it has two handles, but they are not symmetrical. 27. 03-03 The Move and Node tools: In this lesson video, we will discuss the move tool and the node tool in more depth. Up to this point, I'm sure you already know that this is the move tool, and this is the note tool. Besides accessing them via tools area, you can also make use of the keyboard shortcuts. The shortcut for the move tool is V, and the shortcut for the node tool is A. I strongly recommend you memorize these shortcuts because you will use these two tools a lot throughout the course. As you may already know, the move tool can be used for selecting objects and also for transforming them, meaning that you can use it to move scale in roted objects. As for the node tool, we can use it for editing the vector nodes such as selecting them, moving them, and converting their types. What I want to focus on now is the behavior of these two tools against each other and how they behave against the other tools. You see, the V and A shortcuts are unique because they can be used to toggle less active tool. For example, if I use the pen tool, now the pent is less active tool. In this condition, if I press V on the keyboard, the move tool becomes active. Now, if I press V again, affinity will activate the ten tool again. Pressing V will activate the move tool again and so on. This total behavior also applies to the shortcut or the note tool. Let's say that we have rectangle tool active. In this condition, Rectangle tool is considered to be the less active tool. If you press A, the node tool becomes active. If you press A again, rectangle tool will be active again and so on. All right. Now, let's focus on the node tool. Besides the tool icon and shortcut methods, there are two more methods that you can use to access it. If you are using the Move tool and secting a vector object, you can quickly access the node tool simply by double clicking on the object. One that now the node tool is active, so you can perform vector editing on the object. The second method of accessing the note tool is to use it temporarily while using the Pen tool. Reason for this behavior is that the pent is the main tool for creating custom vector shapes. We will discuss this tool in more depth in future lessons. For now, you just need to know that if you have the Pentool active and then you hold the Control key, the note tool will be activated temporarily. Although the tool area does not show you that the cursor changes the small arrow symbol, just like when we are using the node tool, it indicates that you are indeed in a note tool mode. You can move the nodes or the control handles. Please note that in this condition, you cannot use the Double click method to convert node types. However, you can still use the alky method and the other methods. Just to prove this, without releasing the Control key, hold the alkey. Notice that when I click on a node, the node toggles ten sharp type and smooth type, dragging a control handle will convert the node into split type, and clicking on a Control handle will remove it and then while holding just the Control key, you can right click on a node to open the pop up menu. Again, you can use these commands to switch the node types. Last but not least, you can always access the penthos Contact to bar to convert the selected nodes to shop smooth or smart types. 28. 03-04 The node visuals and curve direction: In this lesson video, we will discuss how the nodes are represented visually in infinity and also their directions. When editing vector nodes in affinity, you may have noticed that the node colors and their shapes may not look uniform. Let's first discuss the shape. If the node is circular, it means that the node is currently a smooth type. Again, the smooth type has two handles the asymmetrical in terms of their orientation. If we hold the key and move one of the handles, the node changes its shapes to a square. The same thing happens when we hold out and click on a node to convert it into a sharp type. The shape of the node also becomes a square. Basically, this tells us that the square shaped nodes are either sharp or split types. And finally, we already learned that if you set a node to a smart type, it will have a small.in the center of the node. Okay. So those are the shapes of the nodes. Next is the node color. You may also notice that most of the nodes are colored in blue, but there is always one that is red. Why is that? Well, the red color node is the end node. Unfortunately, you cannot differentiate the start node and the end node if rk off is a closed or loop curve. You can really tell the difference if rucof is not a closed curve. To show you what I mean, if you use the penol and then do a series of clicks and releases. Notice how the starting node is blue, just like the rest of the nodes. Only the last node is red. This simple coloring tells us that vector lines or curves have direction. This curve is going from this node all the way to the end node, which is direct one. This concept is important to understand, especially when we need to use the reverse curve and speed curve operations. The reverse curve operation will basically flip the counting order or the direction of the vector curve. If you click on the icon, notice that now this node is blue, while this one is red. Essentially, the direction is now moving from here to here. If you click on the icon again, the direction flips again. So it is now back to where we started. This is now the starting node, and this is the ending node, right? Another operation that relies on the curve direction is the speed curve command. Ally for this to work. First, you need to strike one or more nodes, and then you can click on this icon. As you can see, this operation adds a node after the selected node exactly at the middle position of the next segment. If you click the icon again, it will create another node in the middle of the newly created segment and so on. Due to this behavior, if you set the N node and then click on the speed curve icon, affinity does nothing. This makes sense because there is no next segment after dress node. Okay? Now, knowing where to start and the nodes on an open curve like this is quite easy. But if you have a closed curve such as this ellipse object, so the start and the nodes are joined together as a single node. It can be challenging to know which direction the curve is heading. Is it going clockwise? Is it going contro clockwise? To test it, you can select the red node and then click on the split curve icon. A affinity creates a new node here. Remember that the node cannot be used for a split curve command. Only the start node can Because of this, we know that the direction of this curve is clockwise. 29. 03-05 Adding and deleting nodes: In this lesson video, we will discuss how to add nodes, delete nodes, and how to optimize curves by adding or deleting nodes automatically using the smooth curves command. First, let's discuss how we can add and remove nodes. Previously, we learned how to use the split curve command. As a reminder, this command will add a new node at the next segment exactly at the middle of it. This is great if we do want to place the new node at the center of the segment. But what if we want to add the new node freely along any given curve? Well, this is actually easy to do in Affinity while using the node tool, click once on any segment to create a new node at that location. So again, to recap, if you need to place a new node freely, you can use the click method. But if you want to position the new node precisely at the middle of a segment, then you need to use the split curve method provided that you already know the direction of the curve. Okay? To delete nodes, first, you need to select the nodes that you want to delete and then pass the delete key or the backspace key on the keyboard. Alternatively, you can right click on the node and then choose Delete node. Notice that when you delete a node, Affinity does not break the curve. It will always try to reconnect the curve. We will discuss how to break curves in a moment. Now, when you right, click on the node, besides the delete node command, you can also see another delete command called fit to curve delete node. This command is the more advanced version of the delete node command, as the name suggests, it is better at preserving the original curfature after deleting the node. To better see the difference, let's select all these three nodes and then convert them all to a sharp type. Next, we can drag this segment to the right to make it curve. Click once on the segment to create a new node, activate the move tool, and then hold Control and Shift, then drag it to the right to create a duplicate. Now, press A to activate the node tool again. For this curve, we can Right click on this node and then choose delete node. As for this curve, we can right click on this node and use fit two curve delete node. Notice the difference. Although the delete node command reconnects the curve, it tends to flatten out the curfature. This is very different compared to the curve at the right, which uses the fit two curve let node command. On the right, Affinity maintains the curfature a lot better. All right. Besides adding or deleting nodes exclusively, there is also a command in Affinity that can add or delete nodes automatically in one go to optimize the curve. This is what the smooth curve command is all about to clearly see what it does. Let's activate the pen tool hold Control and then click on an empty area, so nothing is selected. Next, perform several clicks and releases to create a random zigzagging curve like this. Now, while holding Control, click on some of the segments to add more nodes randomly. In this example, we basically want to create a curve object with many unnecessary nodes. In other words, nodes that don't actually contribute to the form of the curve. Notice that, if you activate the node tool and then press the smooth curve command, Affinity removes all the unnecessary nodes. Okay. Now, let's do the opposite. We want to create a curve that bends in opposite directions extremely. Basically, we want to create a curve that requires more nodes to become optimal. For this, we will be using the pen tool again, call Control, and then click on an empty space to make sure nothing is selected. Click and rack like so, and then click and rack again and so on. If you are done, hold Control and then click on an empty space to finish up, activate the node tool, and let's track this segment to even create more extreme curvature. You can also move the handles if you like. Again, currently, we have a complex vector shape with extreme bending, but with too few nodes. If you click on a smooth curve icon, you can see how Affinity added several nodes along the curve to optimize the vector shape. In conclusion, the smooth curve command can both add and delete nodes to optimize the curve. 30. 03-06 Breaking and joining curves: In this lesson video, we will discuss how to break joining curves. As a reminder, we are still focusing on the node tool. So make sure the tool is active and you have uneditable vector objects like that, okay? To break a curve at a certain point or node, you need to select the node, and then you can click on the Break curve icon app here or you can click on it and then choose Break curve. With this command, Affinity creates two nodes at the same location. They are not connected, so you can move any of them away independently from the other. And if you activate the move tool, notice that these are separated the vector objects. This happens because the curve was an open curve. If we perform the break curve command on a closed curve, the curve will still be a single object. So this is one way to break a curve. Sometimes you just want to break a curve by deleting a segment. If this is what you want, then you can hold the Control key and then click on a segment that you want to delete, but you need to be aware that this method does not separate the curves into different objects, even if the curve is an open curve. So it is different from the break curve command we just discussed. This can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your needs. If you want to separate all curves as independent objects, then you can open a vector menu and then choose separate curves, or you can also do this by clicking on the curve and then opening the geometric sub menu and choosing separate curves. As you can see, Affinity automatically separates loose curves as independent objects or ers, all right. To join separated curves like this, first, you need to select them. For this, you can use the move tool use any of the selection methods to select both objects. Next, you need to activate the node tool and then click on the join Curves icon, as you can see, now both curves are connected and become one object. Now, you need to know that by default, Affinity will look for the start and the end nodes that are the closest to each other between the two curves. So if I move the curve like SO and select both objects again, go to the node tool and then perform the join curve command as before. Now it is these two nodes that get joined together, all right. Besides automatic joining, you can specify which nodes you want to connect but for selecting the nodes. For example, we can click on this node called Chef and then click on this node. Now that both nodes are selected, you can click on the join Curves icon again. Alternatively, you can also right click on one of the selected nodes and then choose join Curves. As you can see, instead of choosing the nodes automatically, Affinity uses the selected nodes to connect to curve. Up to this point, you may notice that the joint course command creates a new segment connecting the two selected nodes or two nearest nodes. If you want the nodes to merge together instead of creating a new segment, you can do so by first moving the nodes, so they are both at the same location. For these two correctly, make sure that both objects are selected. Let's say that we want to move this node, so it snaps to this node. Next, select both nodes using a drag selection method. Then click on them and choose join curves. As you can see, the nodes merge together without Affinity having to create a new segment. Okay? When you have multiple curves like this, sometimes you want to join them all as a single object or layer to make it easier to edit them using the node two. In such a case, you need to use the Merge Curves command to use the command first, make sure all the curves you want to merge together are selected, and then you can right click on one of the curves, geometry, then Merge Curves. If you prefer to use the menu, you can go to the vector menu. The merge curves. As you can see, all of these curves are now a single object. Please be aware that because it is a single object, the curves will share the same vector properties such as stroke width, stroke color, and field color. So if this is not what you want, then you should not use the Merge Curves command. 31. 03-07 Node selection and transformation: In this lesson video, we will discuss advanced node slashing techniques and how to turn some nodes using a bonding box, like how we use the move tool. At this point, you may already be familiar with selecting multiple nodes by holding on the Shift key and then clicking on the nodes one by one. While holding on the Shift key, you can also perform a click and drag to select multiple nodes. What we want to focus on in this video are two more node selection techniques, which are Lasso selection technique and the polygonal selection technique. Let's discuss Lasso technique first, and then after that, the polygonal selection technique. To perform a lasso selection technique, first, you need to make sure that you have the node too active and also you have a vector object selected. Next, you need to press and hold the key. In this condition, you can perform a click Androg with your mouse to draw a selection shape. Once you release the mouse button, all the nodes that are inside the selection shape will be selected. Okay. Now, after creating the first selection, sometimes you need to add more nodes to the selection or remove nodes from the selection. For this, you can make use of the shift and control keys to add more nodes to the selection, you need to hold out and shift together. Click and Drag again just as before to do the selection shape. When you release the most button, you will see that all of the nodes inside the selection shape get added into the selection. If you want to remove or reselect the nodes, you can do so by holding out and control together and then clicking and ragging to create the selection shape. When you release the most button, all nodes that are inside the selection shape will be removed from the selection. Okay? Besides performing loss of selection, you can also perform polygonal selection using the At key to do this. Instead of clicking and wagging, you need to click and release the most immediately, and then just keep clicking to add more points to form the selection shape. After you draw the selection shape, to finish up, you can click again on a starting point, or you can also press Enter on a keyboard if you want to. Notice how the nodes that are inside the selection shape become selected. With the polygonal selection method, you can also use the Control and Shift keys to subtract or add selection. Let's say that, I also want to include these nodes in the selection. For this, you can hold out and shift together. Click release here, and then keep clicking again to form the selection region. Once you click on the first point, the nodes are now included within the selection. To subtract or reduce the selection, you can hold out and control together and do a series of clicks and releases to create a polygonal selection region. After you finish up, all the nodes inside the selection region are removed from the selection, right? When we use the move tool and set a graphic object, we can control the transformation of that object using the bounding box. By now, you should already know this. The question now is, what if we want to use a bounding box also to control the nodes while using the node tool? Can we do that in affinity? Yes, we can. For this, first, you need to select the nodes that you want to control. Then in the Context tool bar, you should see an icon called the transform mode. If you turn this on, affinity will display a bonding box just like when you use the move pull. With this, we can move distracted nodes. We can scale the nodes, and we can also rotate the nodes. Again, it is like using the move tool but on the selected nodes. Now, when the transom mode is active, more options become available up here. Let's discuss each of them one by one. The first icon is the enable transom origin mode. If this is off, the transom mode will always use the central location of the bonding box for scaling and rotation. But if you turn it on, you can access this control point and position it to any location that you want. When you scale or rotate the nodes instead of the bonding box center, affinity uses this point as the pivot point or center of the transformation. The next togal icon is the hide section while dragging feature, as the name suggests, if you turn it on, when you drag the nodes to move them, the bonding box becomes temporarily hidden. When you release the mouse, it will be shown again. If this icon is off, then the bonding box will always be visible even when we drag the nodes. Okay. The next one is to show alignment handle feature. If Felton is on, you will see a small dark arrows around the bonding box. Basically, you can use these small arrows to collapse or flatten the noop's locations. You can collapse them in the center vertically in the center horizontally or at each side of the bonding box border. Alright, this icon called selection box from curves is used to toggle whether the bounding box area includes the curves or just the nodes. To see the difference, clearly, let's first create a diamond shape. Let's convert it to a curve so we can edit it. Then using the node tool, we can rack the segments so they curve out. Like so. Now we can select the four nodes and then activate the transform mode. If we have this icon turned off, the bonding box area only cares about the nodes. The curves or the segments are ignored. But if I turn this icon on. Notice how the bonding box becomes larger as it is now taking into account the curves of. Again, this is off, and this is on. 32. 03-08 The Corner tool: In this lesson video, we will discuss how to use the Conner tool. Most people use the Conner tool to convert shop nodes to round corners, but the Conner tool can actually do more. We will discuss the tool in depth in this video. Let's start with a blank document with a full HD resolution. Make sure we are in a vector studio and set the view mode to vector also so everything will sharp. Create a trapezoid shape. Set the stroke with 23 points, and set the color to no fill. Now, to convert it into an ordinary curve object besides the right clicking method, you can also use the keyboard shortcut, which is Control Enter. Okay? This is the corner tool. Essentially, we can use the Connor tool to control the appearance of corner nodes. We've learned different types of nodes before. Well, the corner tool can only work on corner nodes. In other words, non smooth types which are sharp, single, and speed. The corner tool will not work on smooth and smart types. To use the tool, you need to hover over a corner node. And then drag it inward. The farther you drag, larger the radius of the corner. After you create a round corner like this, the node becomes a parametric corner node, meaning that you can always go back and change the radius again by dragging the red control node. If you need to input a precise value for the radius, you can do so using this field in a context tool bar. If you want to find a radius value as a whole number, you can hover the mouse over the field and rotate the most scroll wheel. Also, when doing this, you can hold the shift key to get numbers in increments of ten. Again, the Denick is the same as any other input field in affinity. While still focusing on Context tool bar area, notice that affinity actually supports other types of corner shapes. The round one is just one of them. You can set this to straight if you want to, then we can set it to concave and finally cut out. Okay? Now, what if we want to turn off the Car effect or turn the node back to its original appearance? Well, there are five ways that you can do this. First, you can input zero in this field. You can click on this non type icon. You can drag did Control point to the original location. You can double click on your original node. Or you can click drag slightly on your original node. Personally, I prefer method as it is faster to perform. All right. Sometimes you need to use the Conner tool on multiple nodes at once to do this. First, you need to select the nodes that you want to control. You can hold the Shift key and then keep clicking on the nodes you want to enclode in selection. You can also hold Shift and perform click drag to create a rectangular selection region. Once you have the nodes selected, you can then click drag on one of the nodes to make them round. These node selection techniques are great for simple vector shapes. But what if the vector shape that we have is quite complex. To select multiple nodes on intricate shapes, you can make use of Glasso and polygonal node selection techniques. We have discussed these techniques in the previous video, so I won't go into too much detail in this video. Essentially, you can press out and then click drag to create lasso selection region or press out and then perform multiple clicks to create a polygonal selection. You can also add and subtract the selection just as we discussed in the previous lesson. Again, once you have the nodes selected, you can perform corner rounding on all of them in one go. Now, when you are using the Connor tool, you may need to move nodes or control handles. You can activate the Node tool and go back to the Control tool after you are done. But there is a faster method, and that is by holding down the Control key, just like when we are using the pen tool, if you hold control, you activate the node tool tempo roundly. In this condition, you can select and move nodes around. You can drag a segment to control the curfature. You can access the control handles. You can also hold out and convert nodes to smooth or to sharp and so on. Basically, you can do almost everything that the node tool can do. Okay? Last command related to the Connor tool is the big appearance command. This command will convert all the parametric connor nodes to ordinary nodes. Generally, you want to avoid using this command because you will lose all the flexibility of handling the corner radius using the control nodes or using the radius filled up here. If you click the BAC appearance button. Notice that now all the previous parametric corner nodes are replaced by ordinary nodes. You may need to use the BAC appearance command when you want to further edit the nodes, such as moving the node or moving the control handle and so on. 33. 03-09 The Contour tool: In this lesson video, we will discuss the Condor tool to save time. I have already prepared these vector objects of record. I believe by now, you already know how to create these vector shapes yourself. You can use the file I provided, or you can also create different shapes if you want to. Just make sure you press Control Enter or convert the shapes into ordinary course, okay? You can find the contour to just below the corner tool. Basically, we use the contour tool to expand off string vector shapes. To use the tool, first, you need to select the target object. If no object is selected, you can click on the object directly while using the tool to select it, and then you can click Androg on the screen to apply the contour effect. Note that you can perform a click androc anywhere on the screen. It does not have to be on the curve. If you drag to the right, the shape gets expanded. And you will see the radius value gets larger. If you drag it to the left, the shape will shrink. You will see the radius value gets smaller and eventually becomes negative. Once you use the tool, the contour effect will stay on the object and become parametric, meaning that you can always go back to the contour tool and revise the radius value. While in a parametric state, you can fly edit the node using the node tool. For example, all changes will be propagated automatically. You just need to be aware that the actual stroke is this thin line, not this thick line. What is so cool about this concept is that you can actually combine the effect with other parametric effects such as the corner tool. So if you round the corner node, for example, now both the corner and contour parametric effects are active at the same time on the object. They are both editable and non destructive to the original curve. Let's remove the connor effect for now. If you want to remove the contour effect from an object while you have the contour to active, simply input zero in radius field, then press Enter. To help us understand all these settings in the Context toolbar, let's select all of these shapes open a vector menu, and then just merge curves. These three shapes are now a single object. Now, let's activate the control tool again and then put 20 in radius field. Okay? These three icons determine the shape of the corners. By default. It is set to round. That is why we see round corners on all of the corner nodes. If you said this to Bevel, now, all corner roots are displayed as fred lines. It is like someone came and used an ax or knife and chopped all the corners. The last one is the meter option. Essentially, this makes all the corners sharp or spiky. Now, you may be wondering, why are some of the corners even though we set the corner mode to meter? Well, this is due to this value. So this value is only taken into account if you have the corner mode set to meter. What this value does is it limits the meter effect, so it does not create sharp corners that are too long. Just, for example, if I increase the value to ten, now this corner becomes sharp as affinity allows longer meter effet. If I increase the value again to 20, now this corner also becomes sharp. Notice how long this sharp corner effect is. Sometimes you want to avoid spiky corners like this in your design. Again, this is the reason why we have this value. Let's bring this back to the fault, which is four. All right. Next, these three icons control whether affinity fills out the center area or not. The center icon or the force open option will force all shapes to be treated like an open curve. That is why we see a hole in the center of the star shape. While the right option is the opposite. I will force all curves to be treated like a closed curve. Left icon or the default option is the auto closed option. Basically, this is the closed option, but not as aggressive, meaning that open curves like this shape, and this shape can still have their N nodes show up. Again, this is the first closed option. You vary CDN nodes, and this is the auto closed option. You can still see the N nodes. For now, let's activate the force open mode so we can see the next three options more clearly. Basically, these reactions control the appearance of the N nodes. So closed shapes like the star shape do not apply as they do not have any N nodes. This is the default mode in which affinity does not expand the area at the N nodes. This mode expands the area a bit in the form of around curve. And this mode expands the area also, but in the form of rectangular shape. Okay. Last but not least, is the big appearance button. Just like the big button in the corner tool, this button will convert all parametric shapes into ordinary irritable curves. Please note that besides clicking on this button, you can also perform big appearance using the Convert to curves command. So you can use the shortcut Control Enter if you want to. The result is the same with the big man. It will delete the original curve in a parametric shape and replace them with a new shape that is directly editable. 34. 03 10 Creating custom shapes with the Pen tool: In this video, we will discuss how to create custom shapes using the Pen tool. We have used the Pen tool before here and there. So you should already be familiar with the basics. To access the pen tool, you can click on a Tollin in the tool area, or you can also press the platter key on the keyboard to activate it. Before we move on, make sure you set the stroke width to three points, and then you set the field color to no fill. Okay. When you have the pen tool active, you can perform clicks and releases to create shop type nodes. If you want to create the line perfectly horizontal or vertical, you can make use of the Shift key. If you hold the shift key, the next segment you create will snap to a vertical, horizontal or 45 degree diagonal. Now, if you perform click Android, the node type that you create will be the smooth type. The location where first press the most button will be the location of the node, and the location where you release the most button will be the location of the control handle. If you want to finish up creating a curve, you can hold the Control key, which makes the node temporarily active and then click on empty area. Okay. Now, you might be wondering, what if we want to create single type nodes and split type nodes? Can we do that using the Pen tool? The answer is yes, to create a single type node after you perform quick and wreck, just like when you create a smooth type, you need to hold the Al key and then click on Control handle. Remember, not the node but the Control handle. Notice that by doing this, the handle disappears, making the node a single type. Next, to create a split type. First, you also need to perform a click and rag, just like when you create a smooth type, and then without releasing the mouse button, hold the out key. Notice, you are not free to move the second handle in any direction that you like. Release mouse button, and then you can continue with other node creation. Again, if you want to finish up, hold the Control key and then click on an empty area. All right. Besides the default pen mode, you can also use the pen tool in three other modes. Personally, I rarely use these other modes as I can easily mimic their behavior using the default pen mode, but you may find these three modes useful. This is the smart mode. Essentially, if you use this mode, the pen will only create smart type nodes. It does not matter if you perform click and release or click and drag. The nodes you create will always be the smart type. Only difference is that when you click and drag, affinity gives you a preview of how the curve will be created. When you release the mouse button, the node will be created in a current location. The third mode is the polygon mode. This behaves like the smart mode, but it creates shop type nodes instead of the smart type. The rest mode is the line mode. While in this mode, instead of clicking and releasing, you can create a straight line by performing a click and wag. Again, I always prefer to stay with the default ten mode for all uske scenarios. 35. 03-11 Pen tool exercise: Unlike previous videos, this video is not a lesson video, but whether an exercise that you need to practice here, you need to trace three long curves using only the Pen tool. You are not allowed to use other tools in this exercise. The goal of this exercise is to familiarize yourself with how the pen tool works. Hopefully after this exercise, you will be more prepared for the upcoming project videos. As you can see, I prepared a guide or reference that you can follow in the form of a pixel layer. The layer is locked to make sure it stays in place. I reduce the layer's opacity to 50% so you can see the real curve that you create on top of it much better. All right? The first exercise is creating a polygonal pattern. Make sure the pen tool is active. For now, you can set the thickness to prepoins, set the stroke color to black or any color other than red, and then set the fill color to no fill. You can start by clicking here at the starting node. Then to make the line perfectly horizontal, you need to hold the Shift key. Click here, then here, here, and so on. Just try to follow the reference. Now, if you zoom in too much and happen to be at the edge of the canvas, you can hold the middlemost button and then right to move the Canvas. Don't worry. This will not deactivate the Pen tool. Once you have moved the canvas, you can safely continue using the Pen tool, okay? Now, sometimes you accidentally hold the Control key and click on an empty space. This finalizes the curve creation process. But you don't actually mean to do that to fix this. Simply press Control Z. As you can see, you can get back to creating the node from the S Audien node. This can be done if you are still working with the curve in a single session. But what if we have already saved enclosed the file? If you just open the file, there is no history that affinity can use to perform and in such a case, while you are using a pen tool, you can hold Control and then click on a Cove you want to edit. And then without releasing the Control key, click the node that you want to start with, release the Control key and start creating nodes just as before. Again, you can use this technique to create a new segment from any open curve object. Please continue doing this until the end of the reference. All right. In the next exercise, you will need to create smooth node types. But first, you may want to hold Control and then click on empty space, so the curve does not continue from last curve object. Now you can click and release on the starting node, hold Shift, and then click and release again on this node. For the upper node, you need to perform a click to create a perfect horizontal handle in this condition, you can also hold the Shift key. So again, you can use the Shift key for strengthening segments and also handles, click and drag at this point and hold Shift also to straighten the handles. Next, click and release here. Click and release here, and so on. Sometimes we click and release on the wrong location. If this ever happens to you, you can just undo the last step by pressing Control Z, and then just do it again correctly. Another method is to hold Control and then move the node to the correct position. To convert the node to a smooth type, make sure you are not pressing the Control key. Just click and drag on the node. Press the safe key, so the handle is straight. You need to keep going until the end of reference. All right. Less exercise is a bit trickier. Here, you need to create both the single type and the split type in one go. As always, you can hold Control and click to make sure that nothing is selected. We can start by clicking on this, hold **** and then click here. Now here comes the tricky part. Move your most here, click and drag until you see the first handle at its correct location. If so, hold the key and then move the mouse cursor to the location of the second handle. Release the mouse. Next, click and drag again at the next node location. Until you see the first handle at the correct location, then release the mouse. To remove the second handle, you need to hold out and then click on the handle. From here, you can hold Chief again and then click release on its location. You spa the process until you draw the complete curve uses the reference. 36. 03-12 Vector drawing methods: In this video, we are going to explore three different approaches or methods to creating custom shapes using the Pen tool. Please note that there is no right or wrong about these techniques. Some artists prefer one over the others, which is totally fine. After learning these approaches, you can pick one you like best. The three methods are creating split type nodes directly using only shop nodes on corners and smooth nodes on curves. And finally, creating only the shop nodes first and then tweaking the segment. For practice, we're going to create this Batman logo or symbol. As before, I created the reference as a pixel layer. I lock the layer to play it safe and also reduce the opacity to 20%. Make sure you have the pen tool active, set the stroke width two points, set the stroke color to red, and set the color to no fill. Now, because you want to draw a symmetrical object, we need a center line. One way to do this is to snap to the midpoint of the page or spread. So activate the snap mode, turn off everything except the spread and spread met points. With this snap setting, notice that now we can snap to the center of the page using the pen tool, okay? Now, let's see how the first method works. The first method is directly creating split types in one go. This approach is actually the hardest as we need some experience and a good understanding of how the vector handle works. We can start by clicking on the center line. Clicking here and again. Now, for the next node, we can start by clicking and dragging just slightly. Then hold the key and drag the handle to this location. Click Androg on this node like O hold out androg to this location, release the mouse, and then click Andrag on this node. Don't worry if Dokov does not precisely match the reference, we will fix it later. Essentially, we need to perform clicking and rigging and then holding out to make the node a spread type. Finally, try to snap again to the center line of the spread and rag so that the curve matches the reference as close as possible. After that, if you still need to tweak the shape, you can activate the node tool and move the handles around as needed, okay? So this is the result. We will discuss how to create the left side in a moment. For now, let's discuss the second method, which is basically using only sharp nodes on corners and using smooth nodes in the middle of curves. Undoubtedly, this approach will create more nodes compared to the previous approach. But many artists perform this approach as it is easier to perform compared to the first method. We can start by creating several sharp nodes just as before until it spin. Now, this is what makes it different. We need to perform, click and drag on the middle of each segment that forms a curve. If you see a corner, you can just click to create a sharp node. Next, we have a curve, so we need to click and drag. Click and release here. Click and Drag here. Click and release again here. Click and Drag here, and then click here at the center line of the spread. Again, you says before, you can activate the node to and tweak the node or handles if needed. So this is the final result, as you can see, you can create identical results even if the methods are different. Less approach is probably the easiest for beginners. Basically, there are two phases in this approach in first phase, you only need to create corner nodes, and then in the second phase, you tweak the segments, so they form curves and create the shape that you need. So first, you can find the center point. Click here, then here and so on. Again, you only need to create shop type in this phase. File the center point and click to create then node. The first phase is done. For the second phase, you need to use the node to drag this segment, so it follows the reference for a larger or more extreme curve, you may need to drag the segment twice. First, drag one near the first node and then drag one near the second node. Another example, drag the segment near the first node and another one near the second node. You may keep tweaking the segment if you want to Repeat the process until this shape is completed. This is the final result. Again, all these shapes are very similar, even though we use different approaches on each of them. The final technique that we want to discuss is making the left part of the symbol. This technique is important to master if you want to create symmetrical shapes. First, we need to duplicate the shape. We can hold Control and drag it to the left. In this process, you need to hold the shape free so the shape moves to the left in straight horizontal line. Now, to flip this object, you can do it in three different ways. First, if you want to use the menu, you can access the layer menu, then Avenge and then choose flip horizontal. If you prefer the right click menu, you can choose transform and then flip horizontal. The third method, which is my favorite method is to use the top proof bar. That is, you need to click on this icon and then choose flip horizontal. Next, direct left object while holding shift to the right until it snaps to the center line. To join the two curves, you can select them and then activate the node tool. And then you can click on the Joint curves icon what I don't like about the joint curves command is that it only joins one N. Ons that this is joined, but the bottom s did not join together. For the bottom part, we need to be more specific. That is, we need to select both nodes first, and then click on the Joint curds icon now we have a fully closed curve. Okay? If at this point, you still need to tweak the nodes, say, you want to make the head thinner, you need to select all the nodes and then activate the transform mode. If you want to scale the right and left nodes uniformly, you need to hold the Control key while scaling them. I don't actually need to do this, so I just undo it. Finally, we want to change the color of the shape. We don't want any stroke color. We only need the field color. For this, we can swap the colors between stroke and fail by clicking on the small round arrow icon. Now, the stroke has no color, and the field color is red. If you want to change the field color, you need to click here first, and then choose any color that you want, say a dark blue color. And here is the final result. 37. 03-13 Eagle logo project: In this practice video, we will create an eagle head logo using the Pen tool. Previously, we learned three different methods exclusively one by one to draw a Batman symbol. Here, we are going to intentionally combine the three methods in a single logo or drawing. Just as before, I have already created the reference as a pixel layer, and I also locked the layer so that you don't accidentally move it Make sure the pentl is active. I use two points for stroke width, red for the stroke color, and no fel color. Okay. Please note that although I use certain methods in certain areas, that does not mean you have to do the same. Feel free to mix the methods yourself as you see fit. For now, I am going to start with the first method, which is creating split type nodes directly. Click here. Then click here. Click Andre here, out, and move the handle here. Click here, click Andre here, hold out, and move the handle here. Next, I want to combine this with the third method. I can create sharp nodes on all corners. I just keep doing this until I am back to the first node. Next, I need to tweak the segments. As a reminder, besides using the node tool, you can continue using the pen tool. Just press the Control key to make the pen tool behave like the node tool. You can wreck this segment to curve it. And then the segment and so on. Just repeat the process until all is done. Feel free to also move the handles if needed. Okay. Next, I want to start with the first method. That is, I can click here. Click and out of the handle here. Click, click again. Click O, click here. Now, I want to switch to the second method. I can click and dreg at the middle of the segment. Click and out of the handle here. Click and Drag here. Click and click again. Click and drag here. Click click and drag. Click here, click and drag here and click and drag again here. Click and Drag, then out, and move it here. Then finally, I can connect to the first node by clicking and dragging. Next, we can refine the curves. Hold Control to temporarily, activate the node to select this node so we can access the handles and move the handle so the cur firster follows the reference. We can also move the node if needed. Just keep twiaking until you like how it looks. I am sure you can still tweak the shape here and there to make it perfect. But because there is no new technique we need to discuss, I'll just stop here. To combine the two curves, you can use the Move tool and then select both objects, use the merged curves command, swap the colors and change the field color to another color. I think I'll go with orange or perhaps a beige color. And here is the final result. 38. 03-14 Water bottle icon project: In this video, we will draw water bottle lichen similar to this image. Unlike before, where we trace the drawing on top of reference, we are going to start with a blank canvas. So to guide the drawing process, we first need to create some references. For this, we can use rectangle to make sure the stroke with is only one point, S stroke color to red and the fail color to no fail. This will be the neck of the bottle and this will be the main body. We also need a center line as to battle is symmetrical. We can use the pen tool, click Hold Shift and click here, press V, select all of them, and then use the line Center command, so they are all centered. Press Control G to group them or make them contain in group layer. And then we can lock the layer. Okay. Now that we have guides, we can start creating the actual drawing using the pen tool to make it easy for us to differentiate the drawing from reference. Let's use two points for the stroke width and set the stroke color to black. Now, to be able to snap to the reference, we need to turn on the snapping icon, and in the snap setting s panel, turn off all the page snapping features. As for the object snapping, turn on only the first three options and also the object geometry option. We have discussed these options in depth before, so you may want to review the videos again if you ever forget about them. All right. Now we can snap this intersection point at the center. Click here, hold Shift and click here. Without releasing the Shift Key, click here, and then click here at the center. Now, we want to duplicate the shape, press V for the move to hold Control and drag this up while holding Shift, so it moves straight vertically. For the shape, we want to scale it down vertically. Next, duplicate again by pressing Control and Shift and make it snap to the top border of the original. Now to create yet another duplicate, besides moving it like before, you can press Control J to repeat glass action. As for the shape, you need to scale it up until it reaches the top reference. Okay? Next, press A for the node to drag this note down. And then wreck this node to the right until it is at the intersection. Now, to continue roving the segment, we can activate the pen tool because the node is already active, we can click here, hold shave and click here, and so on until it reaches the center line, and then we can continue from here, click here, hold shave and then click here again at the center. We have basically created all the nodes that we need for the bottle. From here, we won't be needing the reference, so we can hide the group layer. A right to make editing much easier. It's better that we combine all these shapes into an object, use the move tool and select all of them. And then besides using the menu, you can merge curves by clicking and then choose geometry, then merge curves. Next, if you still think the battle shape is not proportional, filth, to tweak the nodes. You can select the nodes and then move them. Just make sure you don't move them to the left past the center line. Okay. The next step is to round all the sharp corners. Using the corner tool. You can first select the nodes and then click and react to round them. For this node, we can drag it quite far away as we need large radius for the curvature. Then for the legs of the bottle, we need to select these two nodes and then drag to round them. And then finally for the bottle cap, we can wreck this corner. The right side is basically done. To create left side, you can hold Control and Shift and move the shape to the left. Then perform a flip horizontal command to mirror the object and then move it to the right while holding Shift until it snaps to the right part. Last drawing element we want to create is to water surface. For this, we can use the pen tool, click here, hold Shift, and click here at the center. Then click here. Press A for the node two. To convert this node to a smooth type, simply double click on it, and then while holding Shift, wreck left handle down. Now to make the length of the right handle the same as the left handle, you can wreck the handle while holding Shift, move the handle slowly as it will snap when the length is uniform with the left handle. All the curves are done. Now, at this point, you may be wondering, we still have double nodes and segments throughout the drawing. Aren't we going to fix this? The answer is no. We will leave them as is. Currently, we are creating line style icon, and so there is no fill area that we need to create if you want to create a different style of icon or logo, then you may want to clean up the double nodes or segments. For now, we consider the shape done. What we need to do now is to thicken the strokes. For this, you can access the node tool. But if you have the move to active, you can also open stroke panel and then wreck the slider. I think this is enough to tidy the drawing. You can select them and then press Control G to group them. You can rename the group layer to something more representative, such as water bottle, for example, 39. 04-01 Creating holes with Merge Curves: Starting from this lesson video, we will begin discussing various ways to combine vector shapes inside Affinity. There are at least six methods that we can use. The first method is using the Merge Curves command. The second method is using the Boolean operations. The third method is using the compound technique then using the shape builder feature, using layer clipping method, and finally, using the layer masking method. In this video, we'll focus on first method which is using the Merge Curves command. We've used this method before, but we haven't discussed it thoroughly. What you need to know about Merge Curves command is that if you put a closed curve inside another closed curve, it will create a fill hole. If you create yet another closed curve inside it, it will create a solid area again and so on. To see this feature in action, let's activate the rectangle tool, seduce stroke width to zero and set the fill color to black, create large rectangle here. Then create a trapezoid smaller than the rectangle. Next, create a circle that is smaller than the trapezoid, and then finally, create an even smaller star shape. Okay. Now, select all of these objects and then to merge these curves, you can either open the vector menu, then merge curves, or you can right click then geometry, then merge curve. Currently, all of the shapes look solid. But let's see what happens when we put them in one, please, press A for the node tool. And then select all the nodes belonging to the trapezoid shape. If we move this to the center of rectangle, you can see how the trapezoid shape forms a hole. You may need to turn on the tunsom mode and scale the nodes to make sure they fit inside rectangle shape. Again, this is not white shape on top of black rectangle, but an actual hole. To prove this, let's create a new rectangle. Set the field color to cyan or any color other than black, and then move layer down. As you can see, the center nodes from the trapezoid indeed forms a hole. Okay. Now, let's double click on the top object to activate the node tool. We need to move this circle so it is inside the trapezoid shape. Besides selecting like this, you can also select all nodes belonging to a closed curve by selecting one of them and then pressing Control A. Please note that the Control A command is hierarchical, meaning that if in this condition, you press Control A again, Affinity will select all the nodes in the object. So again, if you only want to select the nodes on its closed curve, after selecting one node, press Control A once. Okay? Let's move the circle shape inside the trapezoid shape. Here, the intersection area creates a hole. But as we move this further until it is fully inside the trapezoid, it creates another solid fill. Let's do the same with the star shape, select one of the node and then press Control A, and then move this so it is at the center of the circle. Just as we expected, the star shape becomes a hole. After seeing this example, I am sure you understand how this works. Essentially, you can create holes by combining multiple closed curves using the Merge Curves command. The next thing that you need to know or remember about the Merge Curves command is that the whole effect can only be seen if the object has a fail color. If the object has only a stroke color, we won't see any holes or solid fields on it. At this point, you may be wondering, what if we merge an open curve into the object? Will it create holes or solid fields like the closed curves? The answer is yes. Why? Because Affinity will create closed curves automatically from the open curves if the object has a field color. To prove this, let's activate the node tool and then select this node, break the curve. And move the nodes away. Basically, we just turned the trapezoid shape into an open curve. Now, notice as I swap the color. If the object has a fail color, Affinity automatically closes all curves. It will create an imaginary segment that spans from start to the end nodes, and due to that, the curve still contributes to the whole or solid fields creation. 40. 04-02 Boolean operations: In this lesson video, we will continue discussing the methods for combining vector objects infinity. Previously, we discussed the Merge Curves command. Now, we will focus on Boolean operations. Boolean operations let you treat vector shapes as mathematical operants. Long story short. You can perform addition, subtraction, intersection, et cetera, on vector objects. You can easily find the icons for Bollan impressions up here into bar. You can also find the commands in the menu that is by going to the vector menu and then geometry. These are all the Boolean operation commands. I personally don't recommend using this method as it is faster to just use the icons in the toolbar. Before we can use Boolean operations, we need to select at least two vector objects. So let's create a polygon shape. Set the color to green. Next, let's create a second object, say a circle Set the color to orange or any color besides green, so you can see the shapes better. Now, when performing Bolan, you need to know that the one in the bottom will be considered as the base or the A Opran while the one on the top will be considered as the second or the B Opren. To perform a Boolean operation, you need to select both objects, then you can click on this icon to perform addition, meaning that DA Opren plus Opren as you can see, the shapes merge together, and the color of the new shape follows the A Oprane or the one that was on the bottom. That's anus by pressing Control Z. Next, this icon will perform subtraction. Remember that the opran always starts with A or the one at the bottom, A minus B equals the shape. Now, if you actually want it the other way around, meaning that you want the circle to be subtracted by the polygon, then you need to first put the circle below the polygon. This way, DA Open is the circle and B Open is the polygon. Now, if you perform a subtraction boolean operation, you get this result. You can see that the color now also follows the circle, not the polygon. For now, let's bring the circle back to the phone. Besides using the layer panel, you can also press Control Shift closing record to bring the object to the phone. Okay. Next is the intersection operation with this operation. All areas from both ships will be removed, except the intersected part. Okay. Next is the sour or the exclusive or operation. Basically, this is the reverse of the intersection operation. It retains all of the areas except intersected zones. Finally, the divide operation, essentially, this operation will detect all the intersecting curves and then create independent objects from the zones. In our case, we have three separate objects as a result, all right. Before we move on to the next topic, you need to know that you can perform volanoperations with three or more vector objects. To see how this works, let's create another shape, say, a cloud object. We can use purple for the shape. But let's reduce the bubble's value to only seven or six. Select the three objects, and then let's try DA Boolean operation. The result is, as we expected, all of the shapes are merged together. Now, if you use the subtract Boolean operation, only DA opran is positive, while the other oprans are negative. So this is something you need to keep in mind. This is the result of the intersect operation. This is the result of sor operation and this is the result of wide operation. As we expected, we get a lot of independent vector objects when we use three or more of ns. 41. 04-03 Compound objects: We will continue discussing the methods for combining vector objects in affinity. We have discussed the merge curves and wollen methods. Now in this video, we'll focus on a third method, which is the compound object technique. We will be using the file from the previous lesson. That is, we already have a polygon shape at the bottom, then a circle on top of the polygon shape, and finally, we have a cloud shape on top of the circle. We need to discuss the compound object after Boolean because compound objects are actually based on Boolean. What makes it different is that unlike Boolean, which creates edit of objects, compound objects let you perform boolean operations non destructively, meaning that all the oprans are still accessible and can be edited dynamically. To create a compound object, first, you need to select two or more objects, and then you can open the vector menu then geometry and then compound. As you can see, almost all of the Boolean operations can be used to create compound objects except the divide operation. For now, let's use the subtract command. At a glance, it looks like the result is the same as the normal woolen operation. But notice in layer panel, the layer has a small carrot button. You can click on it to expand layer and reveal the child layers. As you can see, we can still access the cloud shape, the circle shape, and the polygon shape individually. We can even move each of them independently. The resulting shape or shape of the compound layer gets updated in real time automatically. Now, if you select these layers and then drag them out of the compound layer, affinity will restore them just before we perform the compound command. We can proceed to delete the compound layer if we don't need it anymore. So this is the manual method of removing a compound object. Let me undo this for now. Another method of removing compound object and retaining all of the child layers is by using the release compound command. This can be very useful in a scenario where you have a lot of child layers inside the compound. To access the command, you can go to the vector menu and then choose release compound. As you can see, affinity automatically brings out all the child shapes and deletes the compound layer in one go. Now, besides accessing the commands via the menu, you can actually make use of the Boolean icons in the toolbar to create compound objects. For this, you need to hold the l key while clicking on the icons. But remember, you can only use these four icons as compound objects do not support the divide operation. Okay, for example, we can select these three objects and then hold out and then click on the at Boolean icon. Notice the result is not a single irritable curve like a normal Boolean operation, but a compound layer. And inside layer, we have all the shapes that we selected before. What is so great about the compound layer is that we can change the bullant behavior of the member shapes if needed. In this case, we can only change the behavior of the cloud and conical shape. We cannot change the behavior of the polygon shape as it is DA Operan or the base shape. For example, I want to change the cloud behavior to subtrat instead of. For that, you can click on this small icon and then chooe subtrat. As you can see, now the cloud shape creates a hole instead of a solid zone. You can also change this to intersect or solve if you want to. Now, you may be wondering, what if you want to use the circle base instead and use the polygon shape to subtract the circle shape? Can we do that? Yes, we can. In this case, you just need to bring the circle shape down now the circle shape becomes the base ODAopran and so you are now free to change the polygon behavior to subtract, for example, Okay. Another advantage of the compound object is that it does not change or convert the shapes to itable curves. If the objects you select were of a parametric type, then they will still be parametric objects. Just to prove this, let me hide the polygon shape for now. If you select the cloud shape, and how this shape is still a parametric shape, we can change the value of the bubbles parameter, for example, the compound shape will get updated automatically. You are also free to convert the operand shape to itable curves if you want to say that I want to convert the circle into an editable curve. You can right click and then convert to curves or just press Control Enter for the shortcut. Now, the circle shape is editable. You can use the node tool to move the nodes or to move the handles as needed. The less important aspect of compound that you need to know is that compound layers can be nested. In other words, you can have a compound layer inside a compound layer, which is inside a compound layer, and so on. To show you how it works, let me take out the cloud shape from the compound layer and place it at the top of layer stack. Then make sure the circle and polygon layers are both shown, and a polygon is set as an add boolean. Okay? Currently, at the top level, we have two objects, a cloud shape, and a compound object. Notice if I select both of these objects, hold the al key and then click on subtract button. We now have a new compound object. Now, if you look carefully at the layer panel, the previous compound object still exists as the child layer of new compound layer. So again, we now have a compound layer that lives inside another compound layer. As you can imagine, with this feature, you can create complex shapes in infinity while still maintaining all the original shapes nondestructively. 42. 04-04 Skull bomb icon project: In this practice video, we will create this called bomb icon using mostly woolen freons. We can start by creating an ellipse shape. For now, we want to use one point or stroke with black through stroke color and no fill color. Click and drag in Canvas. Like so. Next, to convert this shape to an editable curve, we can press Control Enter, select the bottom node, and move it up while holding the shape key. Now, for the jaw part, we can use around the rectangle shape. Click and rec like so. Feel free to adjust it again if needed. Press V for the move tool, select both objects, and then use the line Center command. I think I want to move the jaw down a bit. After that, we can strike both objects and then perform an add woolen operation. Now, if you prefer to create an unrestructive compound object, you can hold the key while pressing the Ed button. For me, I'll just use ordinary Boolean operation. That is why I ended up having just a single curve object as the result. Okay. Next, to create the teeth gaps, you can make use of the rectangle tool, click and react in this location. Without releasing the mouse button, you can press the right arrow key on the keyboard twice and then press it again, but now hold the arrow key so the gaps between rectangles become wider. In this netion, you can still add or reduce the number of rectangles or move the mouse to defend width. If you are happy with how it looks, you can release the most button. To join all these three rectangles, you can press the at Boolean icon, select both objects, and then perform the line to center command. Before we continue, we can adjust the location or the height of the teeth gaps if you need to. After you are done, you can select both objects and then click on the subtrack Bull and icon. So this is what we have so far. For the eyes, we can start by creating a horizontal rectangle to duplicate the shape, you can press Control C and then control V or simply press Control J once. Rotate while holding Shift until it is straight vertically, select both objects, rotate them 45 degrees. And then perform the at Boolean operation. Place the resulting shape about here, and then while holding Control and Shift, drag it to the right to duplicate the shape, and then we can select both of eyes and then do another at Boolean. Next, we want to center both eyes against the skull shape. Make sure both objects are selected. Now, if you want to anchor the lgn process to the shape, you need to hold out and then click on the skull shape again to make it the key object, affinity will display thicker stroke lines on the skull to show that it is indeed a key object, then we can transform the line to center command. Okay? To create the nose, we can use the triangle tool, click Androag in this area while holding control. That's center it by also selecting skull object. Make the skull object, the key object and improve for line center. Next, to make the Is and shapes as holes on skull shape, you need to select all the shapes, and then you can either use the merged course command or use the supra Bollian operation. The result should be the same. But of course, clicking on the Con Here is much faster than having to access the menu. All right, let's preview the shapes fill a by swapping the colors. Everything looks good. Although in the final result, we actually want to make the skull shape holes in a bomb shape. Essentially, we will use the shape leader to perform subtraction on the boom shape. For now, let's swap the colors back. And let's create the main bom shape using the ellipse tool. Press V and select both objects, make the skull shape the key object, perform line center on the shapes. Now, we need to create the fused pot. For this, we can use the rounded rectangle tool, click and wag likes with just the radius if needed. To create the thus string, we can use the Pen tool, hold Control and click to make sure nothing is like that. Click and reg here. Then click and ag here. Control and click to finish up the doving. Currently, the curve does not have any thickness. We can use the contour tool for this, but I want to show you a new technique. First, you need to increase the strop with value. I think 25 points is enough. In this condition, you cannot actually combine the two objects using the Bolan operation. Reason is that Boolean operations need closed curves to work. To convert the stroke width into an actual curve, you can at click Angus expense stroke. Now, this object is no longer just a single stroke, but an actual closed curve. You can also select both of these objects, and sorry, I think I need to just this bit, select both objects again and then perform the ad Boeianoperation. Next, you can move and rotate the shape, so it looks more interesting and then select both these shape and the main boom shape and then roach them using the add Boolean operation. Finally, we need to subtract the shape with the shape. Remember our previous lesson, the base object or the one we want to subtract from needs to be at the bottom. Now we can select both objects and then perform the subtract Bolan operation and it is done. We can try swapping the color again to check whether we have the correct field area. And here is the result. 43. 04-05 Shape Builder: In this last and video, we will continue discussing the techniques for combining vector shapes in affinity. Although you can achieve a lot using the boolean or compound techniques, you can only use closed curves in process. In many cases, we cannot just rely on closed curves. You also need to put open curves into the mix. This is when we need to use the shape builder tool. Let's first cover the basics for a start, create the rectangle, and then the circle overlapping the rectangle and then a horizontal line and finally, a vertical line. Basically, we now have a mix of closed curves and open curves. To use the shape builder tool, first, you need to select all of the shapes that will be taken into account and then activate the shape builder tool from the tools area. Notice that as I have of curve objects, affinity highlights the zones formed by the curves, whether they are close or open. To extract a zone or transform a zone into a new curve, you can click once on zone. Notice how affinity created a new object containing the curve from the zone. But if you want to combine multiple zones, you need to perform a click Androg on zones like so. Then if you don't need the other curves or zones, you can remove them by holding the key and then click on the zone you want to remove. You can also click on a segment if you only want to remove that segment. Also, by holding out, you can perform a click Androg to remove multiple zones or segments, press V for the move tool and here is the result. Now, you need to know that you can also extract more than one zone using the shape builder tool. Whereas for create two more rectangles crossing the existing curve. Okay? Now, let's say that we want to extract this zone and the zone. We can click Androg Lo to extract the first zone and then do another click Andre like so for the second zone. As for the rest, we can remove them by holding down the key and rowing a free from stroke, touching all of them, and here is the result. As you can see, we have two objects now instead of one. Before we continue, you need to know that the shape Builder in affinity has some bugs. Sometimes it cannot delete certain segments or zones and creates double curves as the result. At least, this is the case with the current version that I am using while recording the lesson. I hope the version you are using is much better. That is when you are watching the video. If you still experience bugs, there are several tips that you can use to address them. First, you want to avoid using parametric effects such as the Corner tool and a contour tool. Just to prove this, if you create a curve, and then use the contour to double the curve and then create some other curves overlapping it. In this condition, when you use the Shape Builder tool, it seems nothing is wrong when you hover over these shapes, but noodles cyclic on one of the zones. The result is not as we expected. This is because affinity replace the contour effect on the resulting curve. Let me undo this. The work around for this issue is to always convert the curves with parametric effects into ordinary curves. You can do that quickly by pressing Control Enter on a keyboard. Know that this curve is an ordinary curve without any parametric effect. You can use the shape builder tool on it without any problem. The next step is to avoid using long self intersecting curves. To show you the problem, let's use the pen tool and create the agging horizontal lines like so, and then continue creating the agging lines in a vertical direction. Hold control and click on an empty space to finish the drawing. In this example, notice that all of these intersecting lines are just a single curve, a very long one, that is, again, you want to avoid this kind of shape if you are planning to use the Shape Builder tool. Notice, as I use the Shape Builder tool, I can successfully create a zone here and also create a zone here. But when it is time to remove the other zones and segments, affinity sometimes fails to do so. You can hold out and keep trying to remove the zones or segments. Sometimes affinity eventually removes them. Alternatively, you can just use the move to select the troubled curves and then delete it manually. Although you can fix the problem, it is better to just avoid very long self intersecting curves from the beginning. All right. Next, let's discuss the shape builders parameters. Plus icon is the default mode, which basically converts the zone that we click into the shape that we want to retain or extract. The minus mode is the same as holding down the Alt key. Basically, if you perform a click or click drag, affinity will remove the segments or zones. By now, you should already be familiar with these two modes. Okay? The third icon is the unique one. If this is on, the shape builder will generate a new curve instead of modifying the existing curves. So for example, if I click Android like this, on this so, this new shape is generated on top of the layer stack. We can move this to the side. As you can see, the original curves still exist without any changes. Alright? Let's activate the default mode for now. Next is the drag method. By default, it is set to free hand mode, which basically allows us to draw a free fm shape when we click and drag in Canvas. If you set this to the line mode, now, when you click and drag, you will get a line as the basis for selecting the zones. And if you choose the marque mode, you will get a rectangular selection region. For now, let's set this to the default free hand mode. The final feature we want to discuss is the cleanup feature. To clearly see the difference, we need to add some hanging open curves to the existing curves. All right. The default mode is none, which basically means that affinity will not perform any cleanup on overlapping or hanging open curves. Now, if you use the internal curves mode, when you click androg like this to define the zone, all hanging open curves inside the zone will be removed. Let me undo this. Now, if I change the cleanup mode to connected curves and perform the same click and Drog as before, not only does the inner area of zone get cleaned up, but all hanging open curves connected to the ones inside the zone also get removed. Let me undo this again. Finally, less mode or the unused geometry, we delete everything that we do not select. If we use this mode, we can only perform zone selection once. This is because once we finish defining zone, all other segments or zones get removed. So you want to avoid this mode if you need to extract multiple zones. 44. 04-06 Van icon project: In this video, we will create a an icon dislike this image. We can start with a blank document. We will need to use the snapping feature along the way, but we won't be using the spread or page snapping features. We only need the object snapping features, which are the first three options and the object geometry option. Okay? We can start by activating the rectangle tool. Make sure the stroke width is set to one and fail color is set to no fail, click and drag in the Canvas. About the size. This will be the box part of the vein. As for the firm part, we can easily create it by duplicating the back part, press Control C and then control V, and then drag this scale handle to the right to flip it about the size, but make it shorter. Next, select both rectangles and perform the ad boleropation, activate the node tool, and then add a node here. Move the top node to the left. Now, we need to make the corners less sharp. We can select these two top nodes and then these two bottom nodes, activate the corner tool, and then run these corners like so. Next, seck this top front node, drag this a bit further than the previous. And then finally, look for node. Now to create the frame for the window, we can first duplicate the curve. We can press Control C and Control V or simply press Control J one. Use the contour tool to make it smaller or shrink it to the center. We will be using the Shape Builder tool either, so press Control Enter to convert it into an ordinary curve, press P, Click here, hold shave, then here, and then here. Control and click to finish up. Now, select both the open cove and the inner cove. Activate the Shape Builder tool. Now, because we only want to extract the zone and remove rest, it will be easier if we use the all unused geometric cleanup mode. Click here and we have the window shape. I think I want to around the top corner of this window. And also the bottom corner. And, sorry, I think we should also round the bottom left corner of window. Okay. Next, we want to create the wheel. We can start with hip stool, click and drag from this point while holding control and shift. To about this size. We can move it to the left while holding Shift. Now, this circle is actually for heel housing for the wheel itself, we need to duplicate the circle. We can press Control J for this. Scale it down. We're holding control and ****. Duplicate the shape again, scale it down again. We're holding control and shift until roughly you have something like this. You can make small adjustments using the arrow keys if you want to. Next, full control and shift and drag this to the right. Again, we can make small adjustments using the arrow keys if needed. Next, set the main body shape in the two large circles and perform the subtract boolean operation. Lo car shape is basically done. The next thing that we need to create is the speed lines at the back of the van. Let me bring this to the right so we have more room to work with. To create capsule like shapes. We can easily do that using the Rondo rectangle tool. Drag the radius slider to mix up the corner rounding. We will need four of the shape. So I control and shift and drag this down and snap it to the original shape. Press Control J two times to repeats tronsom duplication. Select all these shapes and scale it to ft the height of the van. On second thought, I think it will be better if we have five of these shapes. So let me scale this down again. And in duplicate the ship again, so we have a total of five capsule shapes. Move this to the right a bit and this to the right also. While the center of one goes to the left. Basically, I want to randomize the ships so they don't look too uniform. Besides moving the ships, you can also scale the ship sideways. Don't worry, as the capsule shapes are still parametric, they won't get stretched or distorted. I think I want to move all of them up just a little Now, for the first, third and fifth ships, we want to add small loose trails on the back of the left side. We can do this by selecting the three ships and duplicate them by pressing control and shift and move them to the left. Make them all smaller horizontally. Feel free to adjust them as you see fit. I think I want to make the middle one quite small to almost a circle. Next, select the main body object, the first shape, the middle one, and the fifth, and then perform the e boolean operation. Next, select also these two capsul shapes and then perform the subtract Boolean operation. I think this shape can move away a bit. Let's select all of the shapes and then use the Mergkov command to combine them all into a single object. This way, if you need to make small adjustments like selecting the nodes and then shifting them to the right or left, you can do that a lot quicker. After you are happy with how it looks, you can swap the color. As a final touch, you can use the move tool and then try moving the mouse cursor to the top of the bonding box until you see a two way arrow symbol, click and drag to skew the shape. This will give the icon an additional speed effect, and that's it, we are done. This is the final result of our project. 45. 04-07 Layer Clipping: Let s continue discussing the techniques to combine vector shapes in affinity. In this last video, we will discuss Blayer cleaving feature. With this teacher, you can put multiple shapes inside one shape, and at one shape will constrain the visibility of the other shapes that exist inside it. To show you how it works, we can create a rectangle, set the stroke to zero for now, and give it a green fill color. Next, let's create a circle shape. Set the color to magenta. And finally, create a triangle and set the color to orange. All right. There are four ways to create layer clipping effects in affinity. First, by raging the layers manually. Second, through the layer menu, third, using the shortcut and fourth, using the insert inside bro mode. Let's discuss each of these methods one by one. Let's say that we want to place the circle in gap inside rectangle to use the first method in layer panel. You need to slack the circle in a triangle shape and then rack them just above the layer's name of rectangle layer. Remember, not on top of the thumbnail, but on top of the layer's name. When you release the layers, two things you notice right away. First, the circle and the triangle layers are now inside or become the children of the rectangle layer. The second thing that you should notice is that the visibility of the shapes is now controlled by the rectangle shape. Basically, these two shapes can only be visible if they are on top of rectangle area. If we drag them outside the rectangle area, they will become invisible. Now, you need to know that even if the parent shape does not have any fill color, the clipping effect still works. This gives you more creative freedom when composing complex artworks inside affinity, okay? If you are done with a click layer and want to release the chard layers, simply select the child layers in a layer panel and then drag them out to the bottom like this or to the top like this. When you release the mouse, layers become ordinary layers or independent from the rectangle layer. Let's discuss the other methods of creating clip layers. The second method is through the layer menu for this to work. You need to make sure the shapes you want to place inside are positioned just above the layer. You want to put them into in our case, the circle and triangle need to be on top of the rectangle shape. Next, make sure the circle and triangle are both selected and then open layer menu, then range move, and then choose inside. As you can see, the shortcut for this command is control of G. If you click on Command or press the shortcut, you will get the same result as dragging the manually in layer panel so that explains the second and the third method. Let me undo this the fourth method is more suitable when you need to create a new shape. Let's say that you want to draw a star shape, but you want to create it while inside the rectangle shape. For this, you need to select rectangle shape, and then you need to click on icon, which basically turns on the insert inside drawing mode, activate the start full, and then click Andro to create the shape. You may need to change the color to differentiate the shape from rectangle. As you can see, the star shape was created inside rectangle, creating o clip layer effect. Don't forget to turn off icon again if you don't need the insert inside mode anymore. One important thing that you need to remember is that because the star layer is now a child of rectangle layer. If you select the rectangle layer and move it, the star layer will follow. Let me also put these two layers inside the rectangle. You can see all of the child layers follow their parent. This is also true when you still the rectangle or when you rotate it, essentially, all transformations on a layer will also affect its children. Now, what if we only want to move rectangle layer without moving the child layers? Can we do that in affinity? Yes, we can. For this, make sure the per layer is selected and you have to move to active in the context too, but you can see a checkbox that says Log children if you turn it on and then try to move rectangle shape again. Only the rectangle shape moves while the shapes inside it stay in place. Again, this is without the lock children feature. And this is with the lock children feature. This also works if you try to rotate or scale the parent layer. Okay. Let's turn this option off for now. The next thing you need to know about clipping layers is that they can be nested, meaning that you can create a clip layer inside the clip layer, inside a clip layer, and so on. Just, for example, if you break the triangle shape and place it on top of the circle layer, now the triangle is inside the circle. And a circle shape is inside the rectangle. As you can imagine, you can create complex composition non exstructively using this method. Finally, let's discuss how you can select shapes that are inside a clip layer. There are three ways that you can do this. The first method, which is the most obvious is to use layer panel. Just expand the clip layer that you want to access, and then click the chat layer you want to select. The second and third methods use the move tool in a canvas area. Let's say that we want to select the triangle shape, which is two levels deep. If you click once, you select the rectangle object. If you double click once, you select the first level inside rectangle, which is the circle shape. If you double click again, you are now two levels deep. That is why you can select the triangle shape finally because there is no other shape to select. If you perform a double click again, the node pole is active. Okay. In conclusion, you can use the double click method to select shapes inside clip layers. But if layers are nested, you need to do that multiple times until you reach the shape that you want to select. Third method is using the Control key. Again, make sure the move tool is active for double click in an empty area to re select everything. If you want to select the triangle shape directly, you can simply hold the Control key and then click on the shape. As you can see, unlike the Double click method, you only need to do this once as afility intelligently selects the shape directly. 46. 04-08 Layer Masking or Clipping Mask: In this lesson video, we will discuss less technique to combine vector shapes called layer masking. Long story short, layer masking is like layer clipping effect, but works in reverse. Please note that the term masking in Affinity can be a rustle layer, and it can also be a vector layer. Officially, if we perform masking using vector shapes, it is called clipping mask because we are focusing on vector techniques. When I mentioned layer masking in this lesson video, it means the same as clipping mask. Okay? There are four methods that you can use to create layer masking in Affinity. First, it is by dragging layers manually. Second, using the White click method in Layers panel. Third, using the menu, and four, using the keyboard shortcut to show you how the methods work, we will be using the same objects as in the previous veson. But for now, let's move the circle aside and then hide it. All right. The first technique to create layer mask is by dragging the layer that will become the mask and then dropping it on top of the thumbnail of the target layer. Remember, not on top of layer's name as this will create a layer clipping effect, but on top of the thumbnail. When you drop the layer, you can see how the triangle shape controls the visibility of rectangle layer. So it basically has a reverse effect compared to layer clipping. The second thing that you can notice is that the mask layer is invisible. It does not matter what color you said as the field color in a triangle object. It will not be visible when it acts as a mask layer. What is unique about layer masking is that if you claps the parent layer, you'll see the taminal of the mask besides the main tumnal. This mask thumbnail will be hidden again if you expand the layer or it moves to the corresponding had layer, okay? To release mask layer, you simply drag the mask layer to the bottom or to the top of layer. So it is like releasing layer clipping as we discussed in the previous lesson. Next, let's see the other three methods of creating layer masking in Affinity. For the second, third and fourth methods, you need to make sure that the layer you want to convert into mask is exactly on top of layer you want to be masked. In our case, the triangle should be just above rectangle layer. And then you can click on the triangle layer, and choose create clipping mask. As you can see, the result is the same as the first method. Let me add this. For the third method, you need to select the triangle layer and then open the layers menu, and then choose create clipping mask. You can see here that the shortcut for the command is Chief C. Again, as we expected, we have the same result, right. The next thing I need to discuss is that you can stack layer masks on top of each other, and they can also be nested. Just to prove this, let's unhide the circle layer, move it here. And then if you drag this layer to the thumbnail of rectangle layer, now, rectangle layer has two mask layers. Each of these masks contributes to constraining the visibility of rectangle layer. Now notice a side wack and drop the circle layer on top of the terminal of the triangle layer. Currently, the circle layer serves as the mask for the triangle layer, and the triangle layer serves as the mask for the rectangle layer. Honestly, I almost never need to stack honest mask layers like this, but the features are here and you can use them if you want. The last thing I want to mention in this lesson video is that you can even combine layer clipping and layer masking features together. This is also another advanced feature in filty that I use, just to prove that this can work. We can first drag the circle layer up to release it and then and drop it on top of rectangle layer name. And here is the result. Now, the circle shape becomes the chart layer and is clipped inside the rectangle layer. While the rectangle layer is also being clipped by the triangle shape, which now acts as the mask for the rectangle. I know this can become confusing, especially if you then put additional stacked ensted layers into the mix. That is why I prefer to just use layer clipping or just layer masking separately. And I also try to avoid too many nested layers. 47. 04-09 Zoo logo project: Oh in this project video, we are going to create a Zoo logo by combining these two logo references. Basically, we want to create a Rhino silhouette logo, but inside it, we want to add colorful shapes, just like the giraffe logo at the right. So yes, from this lesson video, we will start using colors in our projects as a disclaimer. I did not create these reference images. I downloaded the Rhino reference from shutterstok.com, and I downloaded the giraffe reference from xos.com. We can start by tracing the Rhino shape. Press P for the Pen tool. Set the stroke width to one, and then try to set a stroke color different from reference so you can see it better. For example, you can use red and set color to no color. Click here, then here and here, and so on. Essentially, we want to create shop type nodes first. I'll just speed up the video, as I am sure you already understand how to do this. After we have all the sharp nodes, we can press A to activate the node tool and then direct the front segment of the horn to curve it. Do the same with the other segment on the horn. Feel free to just the nodes positions if you want to make the front segment at the foot curve and then make the segment at the belly curve also. Next, select all the shapes of rhino and perform the merge curves command. This will turn them all into an object. We don't need reference images anymore, so let's hide them. I think it already looks nice, but I still want to run some off lift shop corners using the corner tool. Just select the node you want to run and then click Androig because you should already understand the technique I'm speeding up the video for now. A next, press A for the node tool. Let's adjust this bottom foot area. Make this segment curve. I think we should also make these nodes closer, and that's it. I think we finally have a nice looking Rhine of silhouette. Next, we want to add colorful circles inside the Rhino shape. For now, we can at click here and choose Advance. We want to activate win view mode to see the shapes without any stroke thickness or few colors. Activate the ellipse stool. And create a circular shape a body size. Duplicate the shape by pressing Control J, scale it down while holding the Control key, and then press Control J again to perform a duplicate using the last transformation settings. Select the three circular shapes, full control, and then move them to the left to duplicate them. Next, you can play around with the placement of the circular shapes as you see fit. Now, we can start working with the field colors and clipping effect, activate the vector view mode. For the main rhino shape, we do not want any tro color. Sorry, click here first, and then click on the no color icon. For the field color, let's use an orange color. As for all of the circular shapes, we need to set them and then and rope them on top of the rhino shape layers name. This puts all the circular shapes inside the rhino shape and clips their visibility. The blue click or Control click on the left circle shape, set the fail color to red. Then select the next circle. Oh, sorry, I forgot to set the stroke color to no color. Okay. Select the next circle, swap the color first so the stroke has no color and then change the field color to green. On second thought, I think I want to use assign color for the circle. Next, set the field color of the third circle to green. And no stro color. From here, I just sped up the video as I don't have any new venus to explain. After setting up all the colors, feel free to adjust the circles rotations, positions, and even the scales. And here is the final result. Again, this logo is suitable for a zoo or a theme park related to animals. 48. 04-10 House logo project: In this project video, we are going to create this round housing logo. The inspiration for the logo actually came from this logo set that I found on Adobe Stock website. To avoid any copyright issues, we should make the design a bit different. Therefore, let's just cite the reference. Okay? For a start, we can use Dalit stool, set the stroke width to one and set the field color to no color. Create a perfect circle about this size. Then press V, hold control, and then rag to duplicate the object. Make this circle shorter, position it so it is lower than one third of the main circle. Control and wreck again to create another duplicate and scale it down a bit sideways. Select these two circles and then wreck them so they are clipped inside the main circle object. Next, let's create the house shape. For this, you can start from a triangle shape, or you can also start from rectangular shape. Make it tall, like so, and then pass Control Enter to convert it into an editable curve. We want to create a new node exactly at the center of the top segment. For this, you can select the top left node and then use the split curve command. Next, drag the new node upward while holding shift. Hold Control and Shift, direct the shape to the right to duplicate it. Press P for the Pen tool. To create a line that snaps to the existing nodes, we need to activate the snapping feature. For now, we do not need any page snapping features. We don't even need these three options, but we do need the snap to object geometry option. All right. Now we can click here, then here. Control and click. And then click here, then click here. Control click to finish up, press V and select all of these shapes and then activate the Shape Builder tool. Click Androg here, and then click Androg here, and then just click here once. Now we have three independent shapes that form a house. Let assign colors to the shapes. We can choose an orange color for the roof shape. As for the left wall shape, we can use a bright beach color, almost white. And for the right wall shape, we can set the color to a dark sine color. Okay. Now we can select all of these shapes and then press Control G to group them all. After that, you can hold Control and then drag the group to the right to duplicate it. Next, activate the node pool and then select these nodes at the bottom. Sorry, Control, click on the wh shape to select it, and then click and drag again to select the nodes at the bottom, drag all of them down while holding Ship, press V, and then scale the group up Sorry again, select everything first, and then click again to select the group object, then scale it up, but not too big, so both houses still look identical. Place it here, and then press Shift Control opening bracket to place the second group below the first house group. Okay? Hold control and click one with wall shape. I want to make the color a bit darker. So like all of the groups, N plus control G again, to group the two groups together. This way, we can move it as a single object, just the scale and position, so the borders of the houses are near the edges of the hills. All right. Now we can wreck the group layer, so it is inside the main circle layer, but we do not want it to be on top of the hills, whether behind or below the hill layers. We can set the hills feel colour to green. As for the stroke color, we want to use the same dark sign color as the wall shape to do this. You can click and drag the color bicker icon and then release it on top of the right wall shape. And for the stroke width, you can increase it. 20 points should be enough. Next, select the main circle shape, set the stroke width to 20 points also. And for stroke color, we should use the same dark sine color. Now, because the sine color is the last color we pick, affinity still holds that color. So you only need to click here to use the color. Then for the field color, we can set it to a bright blue sky color. All right. Next, we want to add clouds behind the houses. We can use the Ellipse tool again. Click and reg here, set the field color to white, and to remove a stroke, besides setting the stroke width to zero, you can also set the stroke color to no color. And then we need to put this cloud shape inside the main circle shape. Make sure the house group layer is on top of the cloud layer. Okay? Hold control and then duplicate the cloud to the right side, and then uplicate again for the center area, but make this one smaller. At this stage, you can keep taking each element's position until you are satisfied with how they look. Okay. Next, we can select the house group layer and then set its stro color to the same dark sine color. Set the troue color to 20 points, just like the rest. On second thought, I think 20 points is too big. Let's try 15 points. Okay, 15 points look better. Let's revise the other stroke to 50 points. Hold control to select the hlls and then set the stroke width to 15 points. All right. Finally, we want to add small windows to the houses. For this, we can use the rectangle tool. We do not need any stroke for now. As for the field color, we can first make the sky color, but then make it a bit darker. Now we can click Androg here while still holding down the mouse button, press the right arrow key once, and then press and hold it to make the gap larger. Press Control G to group the windows, press V, and then you can use the arrow keys to move the windows to the center of the wall. Hold control, and then duplicate the windows to the left house, and then change the fill color. You can pick the existing dark sign color. Currently, if we move logo, the window shapes stay in place. To make the logo easier to control, we should move window shapes inside the main circle shape. Now, if we move the circle shape, all of the shapes, including the windows follow along. So here is the final result. 49. 05-01 Basic stroke parameters: In this lesson video, we will cover the basic parameters of vector strokes in affinity. Let's activate the pen tool and then draw an open curve. Something like this. Now, while you still have the pen tool, or if you switch to the node tool or the move tool, you will see an icon in the contextual toolbar that looks like a leech. If you click on it, the stroke panel will open. Here, you can access all the parameters that control the stroke of the selected object. Please note that you can also access these parameters on the left side by opening the stroke panel, or you can open the appearance panel and then click on the Stroke Width number here. We will discuss this panel either. For now, I'll be using the stroke panel from the contextual tool bar. By default, the stroke style is set to solid, meaning that the line or curve will be solid from start to end. If we click this X icon, this will zero out the stroke width, making the stroke invisible in Canvas. If you click on this icon, the stroke will become the lines, and this brush icon is used to control the path brush feature. For now, we will only focus on solid style stroke, so make sure you click on this icon. The first parameter is something we have used before, which is the stroke width. This controls the thickness of the stroke. Okay. Next is the cap style. Essentially, this controls the visual behavior of the start and the end nodes. By default, the cap style is rounded this icon makes the caps flat without any extension, and this icon makes the caps flat also, but it is extended from the node location. Next is the join parameter. Basically, this controls the behavior of the corners. The default round option makes the corners round. The bevel option makes the corner bevel, and the mitre uption makes the corners sharp. Now, if you set the mitre option, you can set the threshold value here. Essentially, this value determines the maximum sharpness of the mitre effect. If you set this to very low number, then almost all of the corners become beveled. But if you set this to high value, then affinity will allow longer or spikier sharp corners. Okay. Next is the line parameter. Basically, this controls the placement of the stroke against the actual line of the shape. Unfortunately, in infinity, you cannot see the effect if you use an open curve. So let's create a closed curve, say, a hard shape. Click and drag here. And let's set the field color to orange so we can see it better. Okay. So this is the central mode. As you can see, the width of the stroke is evenly distributed. This is the inside mode where the width of the stroke is placed inside the actual vector line. And then finally, this is the outside mode, where the stroke width is all distributed outside of the line. All right. Let's say this back to the default aligned center. Next is the placement of the stroke color against the field color. By default, the stroke color is placed on top of the field color. So the bigger the stroke is, the more of the fail area gets blocked. In certain cases, you want to place the stroke below or behind the fail area. For this, you can click on this icon. Notice, if you have the appearance panel opened, clicking on these icons actually changes the stacking order of the stroke and the fail elements. So yes, you can also drag and rope this element to change the stacking order if you want to. This works both ways. Doing this manually affects the icons automatically. Okay. Next, this option is very important. If you are dealing with logos or icons that use the stroke width by default, or if the option is turned off, when you scale a vector object, the stroke width value stays the same. Therefore, the size ratio of the stroke area against the field area is changing. In certain scenarios, this is the effect that you expected. But if you do want stroke width to adapt to the scale transformation, then you need to turn on this option. Notice now, if I change the scale of this heart shape, the stroke width also changes automatically. Basically, the size ratio between stroke thickness and the field color area stays the same. All right. Finally, there are the arrow settings. Although closed curves can have arrows, most likely, we don't assign arrow heads on closed curves. So let's select left open curve again. Let's see what happens if we set to start option to circle And an option to triangle. Feel free to try other arrow options if you like. These percentage values determine the size of the arrow heads based on the width of the stroke. So the bigger the stroke width, the bigger the arrows will be. Next, these two icons control whether the arrow heads are drawn before the N nodes or extended out of the N nodes. Then this icon will swap the settings of the start and the arrows. Again, this does not change the direction of the curve, but only swaps the two primeters finally, if you click on this trash icon, the settings for the arrows get reset, or the curve will have no arrows. All right. So those are the basic primeters that we can use to control the stroke appearance. We will discuss more primeters in the next video. 50. 05-02 Dash line style: In this lesson video, we will continue discussing the stroke primes, specifically the dash line style. First, let's create a straight line, activate the pen tool, set the stroke width to 30 points. Make sure the stroke color is black, and set the fill color to no fill. Click once in a canvas, hold sheaf and then click again on the right side. Hold Control and then click to finish up or press V to switch to the move tool. Okay. We have discussed the solid line style before. Now, you can click on this icon to activate the dashline style. As you can see, this line style has all the primeters of the solid line style. The only difference is that it provides the dashline parameters at the bottom of the panel. To clearly see how the primes work, we should use the Butt Cap option. This way, there are no extensions coming out of the end of the nodes or the end of each dash line. Also, we need to turn off this balanced option for now. We will discuss this option in a moment. Please note that most of the time, you only need these two values. This value determines the length of the solid parts, while this value determines the length of the gaps. For example, if you set this to two and we set this to one, now we have two units of solid line and one unit of gap. These two by one ratio will always apply regardless of the stroke width. If we set this to three, then we have three units of solid against one unit of gap. This is four units of solid and so on. Please note that you can also set the value smaller than one. Let's say that we set the gap value to 0.5. Now it is four units of solid with a half unit of gap. I am sure you get the idea. Until this point, you may be wondering. So what are the rest of the solid and gap values used for? Well, the create additional dash line patterns. For example, if you set the third value to one, now we have four units of solid, 0.5 units of gap, and then one unit of solid. Because the next value is zero affinity, we look back to the first four units solid value. This way, we actually have five units of solid and 0.5 units of gap. But if we set the next gap to one, for example, now we start to see the pattern more clearly. We have four units of solid a half unit of gap, one unit of solid, and then one unit of gap, and then it loops back to the previous solid value and so on. By now, you should already know what these two values do. Essentially, in infinity, we can repeat three patterns of solid and gap. All right. Sometimes in certain designs, you want the dash line to start, not from the first pattern, but from a certain unit of pattern. This is what the phase value does. Let's say that we want the dash pattern to start with the solid line, not this one. For this, we can increase the face value to four units. Now the dash pattern starts with a small solid line instead of the four unit solid line. The final option that we need to discuss is the balance option. We can see what this feature does more clearly if we have a closed curve. So let's create a rectangle right away. You can see the problem with the dash line effect on this rectangle. Notice how some of the corners just don't look nice. Yes, you can play around with the width. Or by changing the phase value, sometimes you can fix the corner issues this way. But the easiest way to do this is by turning on the balance option. With this, all corners become well defined and have a consistent look. The last technique that I want to mention is making dotted lines. Although finity does not provide primeters to create dotted lines, you can actually create dotted lines easily by tweaking the dash line style primeters. For this, you simply need to use the round cap option and then set a solid length to zero. Let's just zero out the other solid gap values for now, and then you can tweak the gap value. If you want finer or smaller value increments, you can hold the Control key while scrolling with the most well. As you can see, you can have doted line effects infinity using this method. A 51. 05-03 Path Brush: In this lesson video, we will discuss the path brush feature in infinity. So what is a path brush, it is essentially a feature that allows you to set raster image to flow along a vector line or curve. Since it contains raster image, it is not ideal for logo or icon designs. However, for other use cases such as illustrations, the path Bush can be very useful. Since this course focuses on logo and icon design, we will only briefly discuss the feature. At least, you will have a basic understanding of how it works. Okay? There are two approaches to creating a path brush effect in affinity. First is by creating the path and then later assigning the brush to that path. And second, by using a special tool called the Path Brush tool. Let's discuss the first method. To create the path, you can use the pen tool, draw a custom or random path in a canvas, but make sure it has at least one sharp corner, as we will cover several options to control corner points. And then to assign a brush to the Path object, make sure the Path object is selected. Then you need to open the Path Brushes panel. If somehow you cannot find the panel, you need to open the window menu choose vector and then choose path brushes. Okay. Once you are in the Path brushes panel, simply click on the brush that you want to assign. As you can see, affinity comes with a ton of brushes. They are neatly grouped within their own categories. They are acrylics media. Engraving and more. So there is the first method of creating a path brush effect. The second method of creating it is by using a special tool called the Path Brush. Please note that this method is better suited for use with a brrowing tablet. You won't have the full experience if you use only a mouse. To use this method. First, make sure that nothing is selected. Then click and hold the pencil tool. Then ooe the path brush to like, select the brush you want. Then draw Rocov in a canvas. Bear in mind that, this process is quite demanding for the system, so you may experience some leg. This is especially true if the size of the brush is big. Okay, once you have a path brush, you can freely customize either the path or the brush element to customize the path, activate the note pool, and edit it as you would edit any vector curve. Notice that, as you edit the path element, the brush element follows. If you want to edit the brush element, there are two approaches that you can take. The first and recommended method is using the stroke panel. We have discussed this panel before, but only using the solid and the dash modes. Now we are discussing the path brush mode. As you can see, most of the solid mode primeters also exist in this mode. You can even add arrowheads to the path brush if you want to. What makes this mode different is that when you click on a properties button down here, the brush floating window appears. Here, you can find all the primeters to tweak the brush behavior. You can see the path brush preview at the top. Here, you can tweak the size. As for these two sliders, they work with brewing tablets. Essentially, the more you push this to the right, the larger the variance gap between when you press the pen and when you loosen the pen. The top slider controls the size variance, and the bottom slider controls the opacity variance. We have to skip these features for now as we are not using any drawing tablet in its course. Next, the stretch option means that affinity stretches the brush image along the path while the repeat option repeats the brush image. In the bottom area, we can see the image that is being used as the brush. Again, this is not a vector but a raster image. Now, in certain cases, you want to use only a portion of the brush image, say, from here to here. For that, you can drag the red line to the right and write red line to the left. Besides dragging the lines, you can also type in a value in pixel units here to define left red line and type here to define the right white line. Please remember that affinity only repeats this middle portion and forget the left and right portions. All right. However, these red lines work a bit differently in stretch mode. While in mode, affinity stretches only the middle portion. Left portion and white portion of the image are displayed without being stretched. Last but not least, it's the corners option. To see the differences between these options, you need a corner with an angle smaller than 90 degrees. Okay? So this is the fold option. You can see how the brush is folded to form the turn. Next, is the overlap option. When it's smooth, affinity does not try to fold the drawing. Instead, it creates a new flow to form the corners. And the third option, which is the default option is pool. This mode just flows the image on a path smoothly, even on sharp corners. Best method of editing path brushes is by double clicking on any of the brush items in a path brushes panel. Please be aware that I am strongly against using this method. That is, if you are new to affinity, why? Because although the floating window looks similar, any changes you make here will be permanent. Meaning it will be stored in a brush library rather than in your project file. So if you change this brush with value to 150 pixels, for example, then you close affinity. When you reopen affinity later, the brush will still be set at 1:50 pixels. Pressing this reset button won't help. As this button only works if you're still in the same session, it won't reset the settings to their real factory defaults. Now, you may be asking, What if we accidentally double click on one of these brushes and make a change? How can we reset them? To do so Open the edit menu, then select settings. In the miscellaneous tab, you'll see the reset brushes category. As you might have guessed, pressing the reset button, we'll reset all the parameters to their defaults. 52. 05-04 Variable stroke width: In this last and video, we will discuss how to create variable strockwidth in affinity. Up to this point, you already know how to control the stroke width via the stroke panel or the contextual tuber. But changing the stroke value affects the entire curve from start to end. In other words, the width is uniform on all parts of the curve object. In certain cases, you want to have a non uniform or variable stroke width. Say this part is thinner. This part is thicker than this spot is thinner again. In Affinity, there are three methods that we can use to create variable stroke. First is by drawing the curve using a pressure sensitive tablet. Second, is using the pressure profile instruct panel, and third, is using the stroke tool. Again, we won't be using any drawing tablet in this course, we will have to skip the first method. To use the second method, first, you need to make sure the curve object that you want to edit is selected in an open stroke panel and click on this box that says pressure. This line represents the thickness of the stroke object relative to the stroke width value. Nos side wack, the node on left or the node on the right, the overall stroke thickness changes if you click on this area and drag up, a new node appears and the similar area in the curve becomes sticker. If you click and drag down in this area, the curve in this area becomes extremely thin, if we move the node all the way to the bottom. If you click and drag up in this area, the curve in this area becomes sticker. I am sure you get the idea. Now, if you have too many of these nodes already and need to remove them, simply right click on the node you want to remove. You can also select it first by clicking on the node and then pressing the delete key. But I found right clicking method easier as you won't accidentally create a new node. At this stage, you may be wondering, why are the right node and the left node always moving together? What if I want to move them independently? Well, the reason why this happens is that having left and we nodes the same size ensures the stroke wave looks smooth when you are working with closed curves because in closed curves, the start and the end nodes are joined together or at the same location. If you do want to have different thickness between start node and the end node, you can force Affinity to do so by holding down the key and then ragging one of the nodes. As you can see, this node is now thinner than this node. If you want to make both nodes uniform again, simply drag any of them closer to the other value or height. If they are close enough, Affinity will snap their values again. You may need to click away once and then click and drag again on one of nodes. As you can see, they are uniform again just like before. The cool thing about this pressure profile feature is that you can save it as a preset and then reuse it for other curve objects. To do that, simply click on the save profile button. Affinity creates a thumbnail for every preset that we save. Let's say that we create another profile and then save this as a preset also. Now we have two presets. If we create a new curve, for example, we can open stroke panel and then apply the profile preset we created before easily just by clicking on the preset thumbnails. If you don't need the presets anymore, you can click only small x icons to delete them. The next method of creating variables stroke is using the stroke. You can access the tool from the tools area. With this to active, you can hover over any location on a curve and then drag out to make the stroke width thicker and drag in to make it thinner. If you drag on existing nodes, you are editing them. But if you click and drag on an MP area, you are creating a new width node on that area. Now, notice if we go to the stroke panel and then open the pressure profile, what we are doing with stroke width tool actually affects the width diagram or the pressure profile. Is relation works both ways. Changing the curve in a profile will also change the width nodes on a curve. If you want to remove width node besides clicking inside the profile box, you can also do this directly in Canvas provided that the stroke width tool is active. You can hold the Control and all keys together and then click on any of nodes that you want to remove. Another way to do this without using the keyboard is simply by double clicking on the nodes. Next, let's discuss more features that the stroke has to offer. By default, when you click and rag on with node, you are changing both the location and with value at the same time. If you only want to focus on changing the position while maintaining the width, you can do so by holding down the control key and then wagging the node. As you can see, Affinity only moves the node while maintaining the width. Conversely, if you only want to define the width while maintaining the position, you can hold the shift key and then move node. Again, I repeat holding control and gging will let you move node along the curve and holding shift and gging will let you change the width without moving the node. Finally, let's discuss the options on the contextual tool bar. The snapping off nodes option will make the width node snap off nodes if you position it close enough to one of them. Then this icon will let you snap the width of the current node to the width of any of the existing nodes. You'll see purple color highlights indicating which node width is snapping to. Next, by default, you can write a node three passing other nodes on the curve. But if you turn this option on, now, you cannot move a node past other nodes. Basically, the order of width nodes is now locked. Last but not least is this icon. While this is on, Affinity will limit the width of the nodes to the current stroke width. In other words, you can only set the width of the nodes to a maximum of the largest existing node width within the curve because currently this node has the largest width. I can only set other nodes width to that size at maximum Okay, guys, so really saw you use the stroke width tool in infinity. 53. 05-05 Expanding strokes to fills: In this lesson video, we will discuss how to expand stroke Width to create a solid field area and then do a simple project to test the technique to provide you with a context, when you create a curve and then assign a variable stroke with effect like this, either using the profile diagram or stroke. You usually can make use of the visual to enrich your resigns or illustration. But the problem arises when you need to edit the object further. That is, if you need to use it on a process that requires close curves, such as using the Shape Builder tool or using the Bolling opresion. If you click here, choose advanced and then activate a frame view mode, you can see that this object is just a thin curve. It is not a closed curve to convert the stroke to an nitable solid area. You need to use the expense stroke man, simply right click on the object, and then choose expense stroke. Now we have an actual solid area that we can further use with the BollanOshap Shape Builder tool. Say, you can roll a circle here, select both objects, and prove form and add boolean operation, or you can roll two lines using the pencil tool like so, select all the objects, and then use the Shape Builder tool to further edit the foam. Here is the result if we are back in a vector view mode. So that is basically how you use the expense troman in Affinity. Let's do some exercise to try out the technique. We want to create a swirl shape that cuts through a heart shape. Dislike this image. The easiest way to create a swirl like this is by using a spiral tool. So let's activate the tool. Click andro in a canvas likes Let's reset the profile for now, and then set the struck with quite low. By default, the spiral uses the linear style, which I think looks to generate. If you want a more natural looking squirrel, you might want to try using the decaying option and then play around with the primetersO use the Fibonacci ratio now, I am nowhere near a math expert, but if you remember the math lesson in high school, the Fibonacci sequence is basically created by adding the first value and second value to create a third value, and then just repeat the process because it has a fixed calculation. It does not provide many parameters that we can tweak. So if you need more tweaking, then you should use the decaying style instead. For now, I'll just stick with the Fibonacci option. But let's turn it down to only two. Next, let's play on with the profile again. I want the right side to go down, so hold out and then rack this down to about half of the lower rectangle and then rack the center up so it bulges a bit. We can write changing the width value. I think 60 points are enough for our purpose. Next, we want to draw a hard shape. First, make sure nothing is selected and then active with the hard tool. Set the fail color to no color for now. Set the stroke width to only one. And then reset the pressure profile, click Andrag in Canvas to create the heart shape. Feel free to keep adjusting the heart shape and also the suit object until you really like how they interact. All right. Now, to punch a hole in the heart shape using the swirl shape, you need to convert the swirl shape to an actual solid area. Again, we can do this simply by clicking on the object and then choosing Expense stroke. Next, remember that the open A object must be located at the bottom of the open B, not on top. So just direg the swirl object up and then select both objects and then use subtract Boolean operations. Now, if you want to have further control, instead of clicking the icon directly, you can hold the key and then click on the Supprek button. Again, we have discussed this before. Essentially, with this technique, the bullion created non destructively using a compound layer. This way, we can still select the swell shape or the heart shape and adjust each of them individually. If you are done tweeting the shapes, select the main compound layer again, swap the colors and then set the field color to a dark purple color, for example, and that's it, we have the final result. 54. 05-06 Ship logo project: H in this project, we'll create this ship logo using all the techniques we have learned so far, especially the presser profile and expense stroke Man. Let's start with an A for paper size document, but make it a landscape orientation. Let's zoom in a bit. We'll create the ship or both part first using the Pen tool. Set the field color to no color, and set the stroke width to a low number such as one or two points. Click here, hold Shift, and then click here and so on. Until we have a boat shape roughly like this, Control click to finish up. Next, create the sail part by clicking up here. Then clicking here. Hold sheaf and then click here. Create the left sail using the same method. All right. Now we can use the node tool to refine the shape. Basically, we can click and wreck the segments to curve them out like so. A next, we can tweak the boat body. Curve this segment out to the left a bit. As for this corner, we can round it using the corner tool, just like Androg the node to make the corner curve. And we finally have the shapes for the boat part. To combine all of them as one object, we can use the d Boolean operation. Let's move this to the side for now. Next, we want to create a large circle, activate the lift tool, and then click Android while holding the Shifkey now we need wave line. For this, you can use the Pen tool again. Click and rack here, and then click and drag here. Pass A for the node tool, tweak the curve to make the wave line look more interesting. Eater, we want to create a sharp cut here and here. So for this, we can use the pen tool again. Just create a sharp open curve like so on the left side. We will add the thickness leader using the pressure profile feature. Let's do the same with the right side. I don't actually want to place them at the same level. The left curve should be higher than the right curve. Alright. Next, we want to split the circle into two parts. To play it safe, we can copy and piece the circle. So we now have two circles at the same location. Select the top circle. Use the node tool and click here to create a new node. Oh, sorry, guys, we should convert the object first into an editable curve. Okay. Now we can click here and then click here to create new nodes. To remove the unwanted segments, we can hold Control and then click on the segments. Basically, we now have a cut circle or a crescent. To really make it look like a crescent moon, we can use a custom pressure profile, bring both nodes down, and then click androg at the center to the top until the thickness of the crescent looks ideal. If you are done, you can hide the object for now, so it doesn't get in the way. And let's also hide the boat for now. Next, we need to focus on the bottom part. To extract the bottom of the circle, we can select the circle and the large wave curve, activate the shape builder tool, click once in this area, and then hold out and click and rack to remove the rest. If it doesn't work on the first try, you may need to hold out and click again. Okay. Next, we want to make the two small curves sharp and then use them to cut the shape at the back, select the curve, open the stroke panel, and then go to the pressure box, hold out, and then wreck this node down, and then break this point up. Increase the stroke width to body value. To send the same profile to the other curve, you need to save it first as a preset. Stek the white curve. A set the stroke width to the same value as before, which is 22 points, and then use the preset we saved before from left curve. Now, if you experience something like this, you need to flip the curve direction. You can tweak the profile, but it is faster to just flip the direction. Simply activate the node tool and then click on the reverse curve icon in Context tool bar. Next, to be able to use these shapes as a Boolean subtraction to this large shape, you need to select both of these curves and prove the expense stroke man, select all of the shapes, and then click on the subtract Boolean button, and the wave element is done. We can hide all of the objects. Move the boat shape, so it is in center of the circle. Rotate it a bit. Feel free to tweak the transformation until you really like how it looks. If you have done, you can swap the color, so the shape has only one fall color. Do the same with the wave shape below. Next, we need to arrange the stacking order. We want to with shape at the very top, followed by the boot shape. So let's drag this up and make sure the crescent layer is at the bottom. Now we need to create a small gap between the sail and crescent shape. The easiest way to do this is by using the stroke feature. First, give it a white color and then increase the width. Currently, the stroke width blocks the fair area. To fix this, we should set the stroke line option to outside. And then change the stroke with about seven points or any number that you think is best. We can do the same with the bottom width element. Set the stroke color to white, and set the width value to seven points. And then to make the stroke go outward, we can use the outside uption We can remove this small area either. For now, you need to know that although the silhouette looks correct, the logo is not entirely made of solid and transparent areas. If we have a background color other than white, say a rectangle with a green or a teal color. If the background color is behind the logo, you can see that the logo contains white stroke colors. Basically, we want to replace these white colors with actual holes that shape the silhouette of logo. This, let's first stroke the background layer so you don't accidentally select it. Then to use the white stroke color to subtract the crescent object. We need to strike the object. Oh, sorry, we need to strike the crescent shape first, as it is still a stroke width element. White click and then choose expense stroke. Now it is truly a fill or solid area. Next, select the boot object, white click and choose expense stroke. As you can see, the white stroke has transformed into white color fill area, which we can use to subtract the crescent object. So this is the result of the Boolean operation. Next, select the top shape, right click and then choose Expense stroke. Now that it is an independent fill object, we can use it to sutrak the boat shape. Just click on Sutra Bollan button to that. I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of this small area. If you want to get rid of it, you can use the node to hold out and then click and drag to also select the nodes and then read them. Finally, you can combine them all into one object if you want to using the ad Boolean button. As a result, you will get just a single object that you can easily move around. Now we can hide or remove the background rectangle and then assign any color that you like to the resulting logo, say, a green or sign color. And that's it, we have the final result. 55. 05-07 Working with multiple strokes: In this lesson video, we will discuss how to create multiple strokes on a single curve object. And the discuss several examples on how to use the feature. Until this point, you should already know that you can hide or show the stroke element of a curve object by adjusting the stroke with value. If we set it to zero, the object will have no stroke visible. And we already discussed that we can hide the stroke element by setting the stroke color to no color. So those are two methods that we can use to show or hide the stroke element. Now there is actually a third method. You can open the appearance panel and then click on the icon to the right of the stroke element to toggle the stroke visibility. As you may have guessed, you can also show or hide the fill element by clicking on the icon on the right side of the fill element. Okay. What we want to focus on now in this lesson video is actually this button that says at stroke. If you click on it, affinity creates a new stroke element on top of the existing stroke element. Basically, now the curve object has two stroke elements. You can also create multiple field elements in a single curve object if you want to, but we will cover this feature in another lesson or another course. For now, we will only focus on working with multiple strokes. So let's delete this additional fill element, and let's also hide this fill element. Okay? If a curve object has multiple strokes like this, the upper stroke will block the button stroke. You don't see that now because currently the upper stroke is invisible. So yes, each of these strokes can have its own independent primeters. Nothee as I select these two stroke elements back and forth, the primeters that you see in the context tool bar change. In conclusion, the parameters you see here depend on the stroke element that you select in appearance panel because the top stroke will block the bottom stroke. If you want all strokes to be visible, you need to make sure the bottom stroke is wider than the top stroke. As an example, let's say that we want to create a board game similar to snakes and ladders game where players can place their pawns on the board and then use dice to dictate how far the pawns move. We can use this curve as the path for our board game. Struck the bottom stroke, struck with a value quite high, such as 80 points then set the stroke color to black. Next, set the upper stroke. As a reminder, besides accessing the stroke panel from the contextual toolbar, you can also access it by clicking on the width value in the appearance panel. Let's set the width to 70 points. So it is ten points smaller than the bottom stroke. As for changing the color, you can simply click on the circle, assign a different stroke color, say, a green or a tale color. To divide the green stroke into multiple square steps, you can change the style to dashline style. Hold control, and then scroll down the gap value. You want to turn off the balance option to make the dash lines more consistent, especially if you have sharp corners. If you need to slide the dash pattern, you can do that using the face value. As you can see, by leveraging the multiple strokes feature, you can create board game paths quickly and easily. As a bonus, the result is a dynamic object, meaning that you can still tweak the path to your liking. Let's see another example. Let's say that we want to transform this board game path into a road. First, we want to change the color of the first stroke to a drug gray color. Then for the second stroke, we want to turn this into a road line. Let's first change the color to orange. Next, change the width value to quite small number, such as four points. As for the side line value, we can increase it to five units. Then set the gap value around two units. Now we can start to see the shape of road. But let's add one more element. We want to add curves at the side of road. For this, we can add a new stroke. Move the new stroke so it is at the bottom of the stack. Change the stroke color to a bright gray color and finally make it bigger or wider than a dark gray color stroke, say 90 points. It looks great already, but I think you should set the dark stroke cap option to bad cap. And there you have it rod created simply by using three strokes on a single cuff object. 56. 06-01 Picking colors: In this video, we will discuss how to pick colors in affinity. There are at least three methods that you can use to pick colors inside the affinity. First is using the click and drag method with the color picker icon. Second, is using the color picker tool. And third, is using the quick color picking technique. We will discuss each of these methods one by one. But first, let's input an image into affinity using the place command. So we have some colors that we can sample. Feel free to use any image that you have. Next, create several rectangles or any vector shapes that you want. And then give them random colors, all right? We can use the first method when we have a color panel open. We have discussed before that affinity has many types of color panels. The most obvious one is the color panel located at top we by default. You can see the color picker icon here. If you open other color panels, such as on the contextual tubar, you should also see the color picker icon on these panels. And if you double click on the stroke circle, on the field circle, you should also see the color picker icon here because the way these color pick icons work is the same. We will just focus on the main color panel in the top right area. Okay? If you are in this panel to pick a color, first, you want to activate the color element that will be affected. Is it a stroke color or is it the field color. After that, click and hold the color picker icon and then wreck the mouse without releasing it. Notice affinity magnifies the pixels below the most cursor. This way, we can precisely sample at the pixel level. If somehow you do not want to use this magnifying effect, you can press the chef key. Without the magnifying effect, you are left with just a simple plus cursor to sample the color. Again, you are doing all of this while still holding down the most button. When you are happy with the color you want to pick, just release the most button. After you pick the color, you can see that not only does the color of the active element change, but also the color of this small circle. This small circle indicates less color that we pick. This is useful when we need to select other objects and then apply the same color repeatedly. Let's say that we want to select the subject. And then use the same color for the stroke element of the object. Simply activate the element and click on the small circle to extract the color. Okay. Next, you might be wondering, what do these colors watches do? Well, these are basically history colors watches. In other words, these are the colors that you use most recently. Please note that picking a color does not automatically add the color to the history colors watches. Only when you use or assigned color to an object will affinity added to the history swatches. This can be very helpful if you need to colorize objects using the colors that already exist or have been used before. Otherwise, you need to perform color plicking back and forth, which can be tedious. The next method of color picking is using the color picker tool. You can access the tool via the tool panel on the left side. If you prefer shortcuts, you can also press the letter Ike on the keyboard to activate the tool. Notice that the tool works similarly to the color picker icon. That is, it also displays a magnification effect, and just as before, you can press the Shift key to turn off the magnification effect. To sample the color, just click once on the object or image that you want to target. As you can see, the color shows up here as the new active color. Please note that clicking with the tool does not automatically close the tool, so you will still be in color picker mode until you activate another tool. Next, let's discuss the parameters belonging to the color picker tool. Pressing this option is basically the same as pressing the shift key. So if this is off, affinity will not display the magnification effect. Next, this applied to selection option, we'll sign the color directly to the selected object. If this is on and you have an object selected, when you use the color picker tool, the resulting color is immediately applied to the selected object and also to the small circle. Now, if I set this option off, when I click to pick up a color, notice that distracted objects color does not change. Only the small color circle changes, right. Next is the radius option. By default, affinity uses a very precise sampling area of one pixel by one pixel. Essentially, any color on that pixel we click, we get sampled. But if you change this to five by five pixels, for example, affinity will average the colors inside a five by five pixel area around the most cursor location. So the result will not always perfectly match the pixel color under the cursor, but you will get the average color. Okay. Let me change this back to one by one pixel. Finally, the source option. Current layer means that affinity will check the color that exists on the selected layer, while the global option will take into account all the stacking layers that generate the final color. To see the difference more clearly, let's say that I created a new rectangle overlapping the image. For the color, we can set it to black, but turn down the opacity 50%. This way, the rectangle has a semi transparent black color. Now, if I select the image layer below, if I have this option set to current layer, when I click here, affinity disregards the black rectangle on top of it as if it does not exist. Again, this is because we have the bottom image layer selected and we have the source option set to cron layer. But nonetheless, as I changed this to global. Even if I have this image layer selected, if I click here using the color picker tool, it is not the actual color image layer that gets mixed up, but the resulting color, in other words, I get the same pattern paren black color mixed with the image color below it. So there is the difference between the two options. The third method is using a quick color picking technique. Now, we won't be using this technique in this course, as this only applies to raster based brush tools, but we still need to briefly discuss it so at least you know that the technique exists. If you activate the pixel studio in a tools area, you can see the paintbrush tool and its siblings. All these tools have one thing in common. While using them, you can hold the alkey to temporarily activate the quick color picking feature. Now, if you want to have a magnifying effect while sampling a color using this method, you need to perform a click and rack instead of a click and release. So again, hold the l key as before, but now click and hold the most button. If you find the color you want, just release the most button to sample it. As you can see, with this method, you can be more precise in picking the color, like how you use the color picker icon and color picker tool. Sometimes it is too much of a hassle to import an image into affinity just to be able to sample its color, or perhaps the color you want to capture is on a website or inside the UI of another application. Don't worry. You can perform color picking outside of the affinity app area using either the icon or the tool. But first, we need to adjust the size of the affinity app so that the color we want to sample is visible. And then if you prefer the icon method, simply click and hold and then move the mouse to any area on your screen. Release the mouse button to capture the color. As you can see, the color gets picked up without any problem. Now, if you prefer to use the color picker tool, you cannot use it using the default clicking and releasing method. Notice that as soon as the mouse cursor leaves the application area, the tool becomes deactivated. Instead, what you need to do is to perform a click and hold inside the canvas area and then wreck the mouse. Note, it will still work, even when it is outside the app area, then is to capture the color, as you can see, this works just like the previous can method. 57. 06-02 Gradient: In this lesson video, we will discuss the gradient color features in affinity. If you create a rectangle and set the fill color to a certain color, such as red, the current coloring type of the fill element of this object is called solid color or just color for short. Basically, you have one color value throughout the fill area. Now, if you open a field color panel from the contextual toolbar, you can see that besides the color type, there is also the gradient type and H pattern type. This swatches option is not actually a coloring type. We will discuss this feature in another video. For now, we want to focus only on the gradient coloring type. Please note that the stroke element can also have a gradient coloring type, but because the way it works is basically the same as the fail, we will just focus on fail elements for now. There are two methods that you can use to assign a gradient to an object. First is by triggering it via the color panel, and second, is by using the field tool. Let's discuss the first method for this. Make sure the object is selected and then open the color panel from the contextual tool bar. Open the gradient tab, and click on any of these color nodes. As you can see, the rectangle now has a gradient coloring. If you want to turn the coloring type back to solid color, simply select a color from the color picker. These watches are less pick color circle. Any of these will turn the coloring type back to solid color. The second method, which is my favorite method for assigning gradient color is by using the fill tool. While it's still is active, simply click and drag on the field area to define the orientation of the gradient color. Notice how affinity automatically uses the original color as the starting color and sets a darker shade of red color for the end color. Just to prove this, if I set this to green or teal color, and then perform I click and ag again using the field tool, the N color is not a dark red color, but a darker teal color. All right. Now, when clicking ragging to define orientation, you can hold the shift key to snap the direction to every 45 degree angle. So you can easily create straight vertical or straight horizontal gradients this way. Next, let's discuss so we can control the gradient. There are two ways to control the gradient, just like how we use some gradients, we can control them directly in a canvas using the fail tool or via the color panel. Again, my favorite method is using the fail tool. But let's see how we can use the color panel first to control the gradient. Each of these circular nodes holds color information. To change the color of a certain node, you need to select it first, and then click on this color box. Say we want to change the color to purple. We can select this node and change the color to a different color, say orange. Besides the color, you can set the opacity level of the selected node using this opacity slider. The line at the center is called the midpoint. Basically, it controls the distribution of the colors between two nodes. Next, if you want to add a new node, just click anywhere on this line. Unlike the starting and ending color nodes, you can move these nodes fly along the line. You can give it a different color if you want to. Sometimes you want to reverse the order of the node colors. You can do that here by pressing this reverse button. As for this gradient type, we will discuss this more thoroughly later in the video. So that is how you use the color panel to edit the gradient. Now, let's see how we can control the gradient using the fail tool. If we have to active and we have an object with a gradient coloring selected, you can move the color nodes to any location that you want. This will change the direction and also the distribution of the colors. If you want to change the color of a certain node, just click on the node and then select the color in color panel. So again, click on the node first and then pick the color that you want. You may also use the color picking techniques we discussed before. If you want the color to be transparent or sem transparent, you can direct the slider to the left or just type in the opacity value that you want. Next, this line at the center is the gradient midpoint. Essentially, we can move it to control the color distribution. If you want to add more color nodes, just like in the color panel, you can hover anywhere on this line. As long as you see the plus symbol on the cursor, when you click, you are adding a new color node. You can assign a different color to that node, as we discussed, you can move the node along the line. And because we now have four color nodes, we get three mid points that we can control as a result. Now, when you have more than two color nodes like this, it will be too complicated if you need to reverse or flip the colors manually to quickly flip the colors, you can simply click on this icon if you created too many color nodes and you want to release them, you can click on the node and then press the delete key or the backspace key on the keyboard. Another way to remove a node is by dragging the node to one of the nodes. With this, the previous node gets removed. Replaced by the node you drag. Just beware of this technique as you will lose the color that you have on the node, okay? The next important aspect of gradient coloring is the gradient type. While using a field tool, if you click on type drop down list, you can see that affinity provides a lot of field types. Please note that not all of them are gradient coloring types. The fil types that are gradient are the linear, elliptical, radial, and conical. The solid option will set the color back to the solid coloring type or just use a single color. So this is not a gradient type, and the mesh option is more or less like a gradient coloring, but the color nodes are connected like a grade. We will discuss this type and the other types in lay lessons. We already see the linear type, which basically distributes the color in straight line. Now, if you choose the radio option and then move the color nodes around, you can see how the colors are now distributed from a central point outward. So unlike linear type, which is straight, this one forms a circular distribution. The third type we want to check is the elliptical type, as the name suggests. This one does not form a perfect circular distribution, but in the form of an ellipse. You will get two nodes that represent the width and height of an ellipse. Please note that if you want to move the two nodes freely, you should turn off this maintain aspect ratio option. If you have it and run, moving one node will automatically move the other as affinity tries to maintain the ratio. If you turn this option off, you can move the nodes freely again. Next, if you want to reset the nodes so both have the same length, you can double click on one of the nodes. Finally, the conical type using this type is like applying the gradient on the side of a cone and then viewing the cone from the top. You can move the center of the gradient by dragging this node, and you can freely change the color of these two end nodes to any color that you want. You can move the midpoint or add more color nodes if you want to. Basically, all the things that we can do in linear type can also be done in other types, right. Before we end this video, let's discuss of the photo perimeter that we haven't discussed. Pigment blend is a unique option. If this is turned off, the colors will transition between the nodes directly in your RGV space. But if you have this turned on, affinity will try to simulate the behavior of railroad paints. Please note that this effect can be seen more obviously when you have pigments primary colors such as blue, yellow and red. To see the effect better, let's change the gradient back to the linear type and make the color nodes to only two. Now, if you set the first color to blue, and then we set the second color to green. Sorry, I mean yellow. If this option is of the colors transition from glue to yellow directly. But if Chilton is on, notice how the green color shows up in the middle of the transition. Again, just like how pins in the real world behave, okay? Next, we can use this icon to rotate the gradient in 90 degree increments. We already know this one is for flipping the order of the colors. This is for keeping the expect ratio. This is especially important when working with an ellipse type gradient. And finally, this togo icon is for anchoring the gradient to the document instead of to the object. You see, if you have the uption turned off, when you use the move tool to move the object, the gradient color moves with the object. But if you use the field tool and then activate disruption, when we use the move again to move the object, notice how the gradient stays in place. Again, this is because the gradient is now anchored to the page instead of to the object. 58. 06-03 Gradient Mesh: In this video, we will discuss the grading mesh feature in affinity. We already learned gradient coloring in the previous video. Well, the gradient mesh feature is almost similar to the gradient coloring feature. The difference is that the color nodes in a gradient mesh form a grade or a mesh. To see how it works, let's create a basic rectangle object on a canvas. Next, to turn the field coloring into a gradient mesh, you need to activate the fill tool, and then without clicking or bragging on a fill area, simply head over to the contextual tool bar and then change the type to mesh. Notice how these color nodes form a grade. It may be hard to see anything for now because all the nodes have white or bright gray colors. If you want to change the color of a certain node, you can click on it to select it and then choose a color from the color panel. Let's set this one to red, select this node, and let's set this one to blue, for example. Next, we can select this one and set the color to green. I'm sure you get the idea. Now, what if you want to change the color of several nodes at once. We can do that by clicking and dragging on a canvas to select the nodes. Once you have the nodes selected, if you pick a color, the color will be applied to all the selected nodes. As you can see, affinity automatically creates color transitions between the color nodes. All right. The biggest benefit of having a grading mesh coloring is that you can move the nodes and also the handles really. To move a node, simply click and drag on it. Please be careful when you move a node inward, passing the border area of the object. As you can see, affinity does not display any color outside the mesh. So you always want to place the nodes exactly at or at least outward slightly beyond the shape of the object. Besides moving the node one by one, you can also select multiple nodes using the click Androg method and then move all of the selected nodes together. Okay. Next, if you want to move or twack the handles, first, you need to select the node or multiple nodes where the handles are emitted. When a node is selected, affinity will display the handles attached to that node. You can click and drag the handles to move them, which eventually deforms the grade and color transitions. And just like editing vector shapes. You can also hover on any of the segments that form the grade and then rack to control the curvature. By default, the handle is set to smooth, meaning that changing one side of the handle moves the other side automatically. If you want to make the node a sharp or a cusp type, you can click on this icon that says cusp as you can see in this mode, moving one handle does not affect the other handle. Another method to create a cause node is by holding out when dragging the handle. But remember that you need to press the alkey when ragging the handle, not before. If you press out before you drag the handle, you are triggering the quick picking feature. So again, click androg on the handle. Without releasing the mouse, hold the alkey. As you can see, this also converts the node to shop or cust type. All right? The next important feature that the grading mesh has is the flexibility to add or reduce the number of nodes on the mesh. Please note that you cannot just remove a single node within a gradient mesh. When you delete a node, all the nodes connected to that node vertically or horizontally will also be removed. For example, I can select this top node. If I press delete or big space, not only does the top node disappear, but also the nodes in a vertical line are in the same column. If you select the node the left or right border and then press delete or big space, all the nodes in a horizontal line on the same row disappear. And if you select a node in the center of the grade and then delete it, all the nodes in the same column and row as that node also disappear. Okay? Now, what about adding new nodes? Well, just as with deleting nodes, when adding nodes inside a gradient mesh, you cannot just add a single node. You either add a column or a row or both column and row. If you click on horizontal or row line, you are adding a new column, and if you click on vertical or a column line, you are adding a new row. At this point, you may be wondering. What if we want to add a node in the center area where there are no existing rows or columns before? For that, you can perform a double click. Notice that when you double click, affinity creates a new node on the location, including the column and the row, it's supported automatically. When you need to create a gradient color that flows around a curve shape, the best way to do this is to start with the fewest number of nodes and then keep adding the nodes as you go. To give you an example, let's activate the pen tool, use a red solid color for now. Then click here, click here, and so on, until you have roughly something like this, press A and then wreck this segment to curve it to the left, and then the segment also. Let's say that we want to create a gradation of color perpendicular to the curve from red to green and then orange. For this, we can activate the field tool. And then change the mode to mesh. Now this affinity creates a four by four grade straight by default. In this condition, it will be too complicated if we have to move all of these nodes one by one to form the curve shape and then follow it by taking the handles. It is way easier to just select these center nodes and then delete them. With only four nodes, we can easily place the nodes near the corners of the shape. And then drag the segments so they are closely aligned with the borders of the shape, and then fix the bottom and on top handles. Now we can select this top node, hold shape, and then select this bottom node, change the color to orange. To create the center green node, simply click on this segment. On this side, the new column flows along the existing curve. This saves us time from having to manually move the nodes or handles. Next, select both the top and bottom nodes, and then choose a green color. Now, if you think the green area is too big, you can create another column of nodes, select the nodes, and then change them to red. Do the same with the right side, create a new column of nodes, select the new nodes, and then assign an orange color. So that is basically how you approach creating gradient colors on complex shapes using the gradient mesh. Basically, you need to start with the smallest number possible of nodes, fix the curvature, and then slowly add more nodes from there. 59. 06-04 Flood Fill tool: In this lesson video, we will discuss one of the coloring features available in infinity called the vector flood failed Tool or Flood failed tool for short. You can find the tool at the same location or as the sibling tool of the Shape Builder tool. The reason for this is that the flood failed tool and shipbuilder tool used the same core technology. But as the name suggests, the flood failed tool is designed to be used as a coloring tool rather than a shaped editing tool. Essentially, it does not change or edit the existing curves. It only adds or affects the colors. To give you examples of how the tool works, I have created a circular shape with a fall color, and in some random lines and rectangle that overlap each other, I am sure you already know how to create something like this. Make sure you have the flood fill tool active to use the tool. First, you need to choose a color, say, light purple color. Next, you need to make sure that the objects you want to target are selected. If you have nothing selected, offinity automatically changes the tool to selection mode. You can click Androg to select a circle object for now. If you have a closed curve object like this sitting alone without any overlaps, if you click on a field area, affinity does not create anything new, I will just edit the field color of that object. Most likely, this is not how you want to use the tool. Real power of the tool can be seen when you have multiple curves over lap like this. Remember that you need to select the objects first in order for the flood field to take them into account because we want to detect all of the objects, we can just press Control A to select everything. Okay. Make sure the flood field tool is selected. Now, if you hover over these lines, you can see blue highlights indicating the zones that can be colored. There are two methods to perform coloring with this tool. You can either perform clicks and releases or perform clicks and regs. Let's try clicking and releasing in this zone and then in this zone. Now, let's pick another color, say, a green color. And then we can try performing a click androg like so. If you activate them tool, and then try to select or move the field zone. You can see that the tool created a new object every time we click and release. So each of the zones becomes an independent object. But if we perform click and drag, all of the zones are combined into a single object. Okay. Notice also that the original curve objects did not change. We still have them in the original state. So this is quite different compared to how the Shape Builder tool behaves, right? Next, let's discuss the parameters that exist in a contextual toolbar. These two options in the insertion mode category are only applicable when you have an object with a fail area and then some strokes or objects of lapping on top of it. Again, you need to select the objects first so they will be taken into account. Make sure the flat fail tool is active. For now, let's set the color to blue so it is different from the existing fail color. If you set the insertion mode option to inside and then click on the zone, for example, Notice the result in a layer panel. The new shape generated by the tool is located inside the existing object. Let me unwit for now. But if you choose the second option called in between, and then click on a zone as before, you can see that the new object created by the tool is located between the field object and the stroke object, Affinity did not place the new object within the existing object as before. Okay? So that is the difference between the two options. Next is the field mode options. Please note that these three options are only applicable if you have the active color semitransparent. That is, if you drag the opacity slider below 100%, if the color is fully opaque or at 100%, then none of these settings matter. Let's say that we have a shape with a solid yellow color. Make sure the flood fill tool is active and insert the color to purple. With the opacitive value lower to about 50%. This makes the color sematransparent. We can select the target object from the latest panel. For now, let's use the first option called add on top. It is cognition, if you click on a field area. Notice how the yellow color changes. It does not quite become purple, but a mix between yellow and purple. To really see what is going on, you need to open the appearance panel. As you can see, affinity just created a new field element with a semi transparent purple color on top of the existing yellow fill element. If you click again on the field area, the color will stack up. Please note that affinity needs time to update the appearance panel. You can open another panel and reopen the appearance panel to force it to update. As you can see, now we have two fill elements with semi transparent purple color sitting on top of the yellow fill element. So this is basically what the first option does. It just tags the field element on top of the previous one. Let me delete the purple fill elements, so we are left with only the yellow one. Okay? Now, let's see what the second option does. If you click one on a field area, the same thing happens. Affinity created a new semitransparent purple fill element on top of the yellow one. But notice if I click again and again on the field area, nothing happens. Well, this is because the smart refill option for detects whether the active color is the same as the target field color. If it is the same, it will automatically refuse to add any new field element. Okay, let me delete this fill element again. The third option will basically replace any existing fill element with the active color. So if you click on the field area, the yellow color is now gone replaced with a semi transparent purple color. So there is the difference between the three options. Let's set this to the default, which is the second option and set the color back to an opaque or 100% opacity. Okay? Because we are currently focusing on vector techniques, we won't be using this bitmap field feature. So this will be the last setting that we need to discuss in this video. Essentially, this option makes affinity detect only visible boundaries and ignore any overlapping edges that are hidden or blocked. To see the difference, clearly, we need two overlapping objects. Here, I already created two variations, first, using the same color, and second, using different colors. If I select all of these objects and then activate the flood field tool without activating this option, when you hover over these shapes, notice that each of the overlapping zones is highlighted individually. So you can click here. And also here to colorize the central zones. Okay. Let me undo this. Now, this is what happens if we set this option on. When we hover over these two objects, affinity will treat them as a single zone. This is because visually they both have the same color. If you click on it, as expected, the whole zone gets the same color. And if we try to hover over the zone, the three zones with the same green color are now considered as a single zone. And so if we click, the purple color covers only the green zones while ignoring the yellow zones. So there is the difference between having this option turned on or turned off. 60. 06-05 Chrome like logo project: In this project video, we'll create a logo that looks like a Google Chrome browser, but uses gradient colorings similar to the Microsoft H browser. This is the final result of the project. Basically, we will create a large circle. Inside it, we will create and duplicate three smaller circles using the circular distribution technique. Then use the vector flood fill tool to extract the shape. And then finally, use the field tool to apply gradient coloring. All right. As a start, we need a reference for the center point of logo. To do so, we can press Control R to show the rulers, then create a vertical guide and also a horizontal guide. So this intersection point will be the center of logo. We can press Control R again to hide the rulers. To be able to snap to the guides, we need to turn on the snapping mode. Make sure the Snap two guides option is active. Otherwise, the guides will be useless. Okay. Next, we need to create a large circle, activate Dips tool. Try to snap to the guides intersection point and then click drag and press and hold the Control and Shift key. Make it roughly the size. So do stroke width to one point with no fill color. X, activate the move tool, and then to duplicate the circle, you can press Control J. Scale down the new circle while holding Control and Shift to about this size. Move the small circle up while holding down the Shift key. Usually, the snap result is not enough for the flood fill tool to work. To fix this, we can notch the shape up a bit by pressing the up arrow key on the keyboard. Again, this is just to make sure the curves overlap. Next, we need to duplicate the small circle, so we have a total of three circles using the guides intersection as the custom transform origin. For this s, we need to activate the enable transom origin feature and then move this transform origin point. So it is located at the center of the intersection point. Press Enter on keyboard to open the move duplicate window, set the rotation value to 120 degrees. Then turn on the duplicate option and finally set the number of copies value to two. Click the OK button. And now we have the base curves for our logo. To extract the shape, first, press Control A looks like everything and then activate the flood field tool. Oe a color, any color will do, as we will replace it later with a gradient. Now, perform a click wreck on these three zones like so, hide everything except the new crescent object, press V for the move tool, and then drag the transform point to the center so that it will rotate correctly later. All right. We will use a gradient color. But for now, we can choose an orange color as the starting point, activate the failed tool, and then click and drag from the left border to the right border of the shape. I don't think we'll be needing the snapping feature, so we can turn it off. Next, create a new color node at the center. This node is to be the main color node that has a strong, saturated orange color. As for the node at the far right, we can start with the same orange color. But then we make it darker. Lastly, for the left node, we can also start with the same orange color, but we push it towards white, so it looks brighter for the center node to have a larger area. We can drag this mid point to left and this mid point to the right. Feel free to tweak the nodes positions or their colors until you like how they look. After you are done, press V for the move tool, then press Enter on keyboard. Input 120 for the rotation value, turn on duplicate, and then input two for the number of copies. Click Okay. And we are done. As a final touch, let's hide the guides for now by pressing Control semi column. And then create a large rectangle. We need this for the background, so move layer to the bottom. We won't be needing this stre color as for the field color. I think I want to go with a purple color but very close to black. And there you have with guys a chrome like logo but with gradient colors similar to the H browser logo. 61. 06-06 Hatch Pattern: In this video, we will discuss the third type of coloring available in affinity called the hedge pattern. Basically, a hedge pattern in affinity is just a seamless pattern of lines. Although you almost never see logos or icons with hatch patterns, we still need to discuss this feature in case later you need it for illustrations or comic books, for example, essentially, it's useful when you need to create patterns involving lines. Let's create the rectangle. Let's change the field color to a solid orange for now. To apply the HH pattern to an object, there are two ways to go about it. First, you can open the field color panel in contextual tool bar. Open the H pattern tab and then click anywhere in this area to trigger the H pattern assignment. However, you can see that this method does not respect the existing color. It simply replaces the orange color with white. Let me undo this. The second method is by using the fill tool. While the tool is active, you can access the type drop down list and use the HH option. As you can see, we also get a hg pattern, but this method respects the original color. Using the fill tool is preferable as you get more controls in a contextual tool bar. Currently or by default, the lines are very thin. To see lines, clearly, we can increase the hedge line weight. As you can see, this controls the thickness of the hedge pattern. For now, let's just set these two points, okay? The first thing you may want to change are the colors. If you have the fail to active, you can change the colors by clicking on one of these boxes. For example, we can click on this box and select a red color. Now the lines are red. Alternatively, you can click to center node and select a color from the color panel. This will be the background color. If you click on one of the handle nodes, then choose a color in color panel. This will be the line color. I personally like using these boxes because they are easier to click. If you want to quickly swap these two colors, you can do so by clicking on this icon. All right. Now, let's see how we can edit the pattern to control or define a custom pattern. You can click here. As you can see, this is the same panel we saw earlier when using the move tool. Here, you can control a lot of blind behavior. Unfortunately, in a version I am using, I cannot change the values in these fields using the scroll wheel. I hope this bug gets fixed in the future when you watch the video. For now, I need to rely on a pop up slider or type the value manually. The rotation value here controls the patterns direction or orientation. Zero makes the pattern straight horizontally. Well Nandi the greaves make the pattern straight vertically. If you click on Carrot icon, you'll see more parameters that you can twick. Here, you can control the spacing between the lines. To clearly see what the other parameters do, we need to create a dash effect. For this, you can click here to add a solid dash and click here to add a gap. You can create as many solids and gaps as you like. You can control the length of each dash element. Say, we want to set this to two millimeter and then set this to two millimeter also. As you can see, now we have 1 millimeter solid, 1 millimeter gap, two millimeter solid, and 2 millimeters gap. You can lead the gap or solid elements by pressing this X icon with the dash effect and done, we can now clearly see what these parameters do. This is for moving the pattern horizontally, and this is for moving the pattern vertically. While the sheaf parameter slides 1 line to the next line vertically. What is so great about the HH pattern is that you can create multiple lines in one pattern. To do so, you can click on this plus line icon. You can control each of lines individually. Let's say that we want to rotate this one to very high value and set the spacing to five units. Create a new line. You can rotate this line independently of the previous line, say 45 degrees, or reduce the spacing, say to three or two units at a solid dash or a gap, for example, and so on. As you can imagine, you can create your own unique pattern by combining multiple lines. If you want to remove a line element from a He pattern, simply select the line and then press the trash icon at the bottom right corner. All right. So that is basically how you can tweak or create your own custom He pattern. Next, let's discuss the rest of the primeters in a contextual tool bar. As reminder, you need to have the field tool active in order to see these primetersF is this icon. This is for rotating the pattern by 90 degree increments. Please note that this is different from rotating the line. If you use this rotate field, it will only rotate the corresponding line element, not the entire H pattern, while this icon rotates the H pattern globally. So if you have two or three line elements, all of them will rot it together. Okay? Now, if you want to rotate the whole pattern manually or in greater detail, you can either edit this rotation value or use its slider, or you can also do that by logging the field tool handles in canvas. If you do this while holding Shift, you will get the same 90 degrees snap as when you use this icon. Notice that while dragging the handles, you are also scaling the pattern. That is, if you move the mouse cursor closer or further away from the center of thegizmo, if you prefer the contextual toolbar, you can also scale the pattern by typing in a value in this field or by dragging slider. If you want to move the whole pattern, you can do so by dragging the center node of gizmo. All right. Next, use CN controls whether we want to maintain the aspect ratio of the scaling or not. If this is off, you can drag one of the scale handles independently of the other handle. And if you want to reset the scaling and the rotation back to the default, you can click on this icon. Alternatively, you can also perform a double click on one of the handles to reset the scale. This anchor icon will reference the H pattern to the document instead of the object by default or when this is off, if you move the object using the move tool, the He pattern follows. But if you activate the failed tool again and then turn on this icon, when you use the move tool and move the object, you can see how the He pattern stays in place. Finally, you can use this big appearance button to convert the hash pattern into ordinary lines. As a result, affinity will place the line object inside your original object. So you may want to drag this layer outside if you want to quickly edit or access it. If you use the Node tool, you can see that these are just ordinary lines combined into a single object. 62. 06-07 Swatches basics: In this video, we'll discuss the basics of the Swatches feature infinity. Essentially, swatches are colors or colorings that you store using Swatches panel. With the Swatches feature, you can easily access commonly used colors and help create a consistent theme across different designs. Besides solid colors, you can save gradient colorings and hatch patterns as swatches. For now, if you don't see the Swatches panel, you can open the window menu. In general and the swatches. Inside the swatches panel, colors are grouped or categorized inside containers called palates. By default, affinity already provides us with several palates. There is one called colors, gradients, and so on. There are also palettes provided by Pantone if you have never heard about Penton before, it is basically a company that creates formulas, standards and licenses for printable colors. To assign a color inside the swatches panel to an object in Canvas, simply select the object, then determine whether you want to use the color for the stroke or for the fill color. Open the palette that you want to use, say, the colors palette, and then just click on the color. Another way to assign a color to an object is simply by drugging the colors swatch and then release it on top of the object. If you open a gradient palette and then click on any of these swatches, you can see that gradient colorings can also be stored as swatches. And if you open the HH palette and click on any of these swatches, you can see that the swatches feature also supports storing hatch patterns. All right. In affinity, there are three types of palettes. First is the document palette Basically, it is local palette that gets stored inside the document or the dot Af file. If you open another document, the palette you saved before inside the previous document will not be accessible. In this condition to share palettes between different documents, you need to use the export and import features. More on this later. The second type of palette is the application palette. This is a global palette that gets stored in the application folder, meaning that they will always be available whenever you use the Affinity app. Type is the system palette. Basically, this type of palette is stored at your plating system level, making it available across different applications, not just within affinity. Please note that this is only available in the MacOS version of affinity. I am currently running Windows OS, so I cannot use this feature, right? To create a new palette, you can click on a down Cart button, as you can see, because I am not using a computer. I only have two options here, the application level palette or the document level palett. Let's create a document level palette. Name the new palette, my palette or name that you think is proper. Click Okay. And now we have a new document palette called my palette. So the icon is different. The ones with the square icon are the document palettes. Well, the ones with the G icon are the application palettes. For now, just make sure our new document palette is active, okay? There are four methods that you can use to add colors to a palette. First, use the current feel icon. Second, is by holding down Control while using the color picker tool. Third, is by extracting the colors from an external image. And fourth, is by extracting the colors from the current document. Let's discuss each of these methods one by one. If you choose a custom color in the color panel, and then you want to save the color to the active palette, you can open the Swatches panel and then click on this icon. Be careful not to click on one on the right. We will discuss this icon leader. You just need to realize that there are actually two icons here, and what you need to click now is the one on left. Okay? We can do the same technique for gradients and H patterns. Simply select the object. Make sure the gradient coloring you want to save shows up as active color. Then save the color by pressing the current fill icon. The gradient color is now safe inside the swatch. Let's now try selecting an object with a H pattern and then press the add current fill icon. Here is the swatch we just created. I know that the thumbnail looks off, but this is actually a H pattern. Just to prove this, we can drag the swatch onto the rectangle. If affinity does not show the pattern right way, you may need to zoom in and out to trigger the update. On this sold offel color changes to a HH pattern, right. The second method to add colors to the palette is by using the color picker tool. By default, when you click with the Color Picker tool, you just extract the color and use it as the active color. To save the color directly as a swatch, you need to hold the Control key. Let's say that I want to extract the color in this pixel to the palette, hold Control, and then click on that location. As you can see, a new color swatch was just created as a result. The third method is useful when you have an image that you want to use as a color reference in this scenario, instead of picking each of the colors one by one, you can let affinity do that automatically. For this, you need to click on a Don Carrot button in a SwojsPanel and then choose Create Palette from image. Next, click on this Select Image button. Feel free to use any image that you have on your computer. I already prepared this nice looking Jellyfish image. By default, affinity will pick five most prominent colors from the image. If you need more than just five colors, you can wreck the slider or type in the value. Say, we want to extract ten colors instead of five. After that, you need to press the preview button to see the colors. Again, affinity will pick the most prominent or dominant colors from the image. In this case, it is now picking the ten most dominant colors. If you decide that you like the colors, you then need to specify where the colors will be stored. Application means that it will create a new application level palette to store the colors. Document means that it will create a new palette also, but at the document level. And finally, the chronly selected palette means that it will not create a new palette I will just use the active palette to store the colors. Let's select the last option and then hit the Create button. And here are the colors. The fourth method is to extract the colors from the document. This is useful when you are working with a design or opening other people documents, and you find that the colors in the document were not safe as watches. To do this, you can click on Down Cart icon and then choose Create palette from document. Notice that in sub menu, there is no option to extract the colors into an existing one. With this method, you can only create an application palette or a document palette if you click on a Document palette affinity will create a new document level palette with a generic name based on the name of the file. You may want to rename the palette to something else. To do that, you need to click the down Caret icon again, and then choose rename palette. Just type a new name that you want. I don't actually want to rename this palette, so I just hit the cancel button. If you want to delete a palette, make sure you have the palette active. Be careful not to activate the wrong palette. After that, open the carat icon menu again and then oe delete palette. Usually affinity will display warning message. Click yes if you do want to delete it because the video duration is getting too long, we will discuss the rest of the swatches features in the next video. 63. 06-08 Swatches advanced techniques: In this lesson video, we will continue discussing the Swatches feature. We will cover how to create color variations, how to use the global colors, and finally, how to export and import palettes. Let's first speak a color, say this beige color. Click on this add current fail icon to save it as a color swatch. To create color variations out of this single color swatch, you can Rod click on it, and then choose Add Cord to swatch. As you can see, affinity provides different methodologies for creating color variations. Let's select the shade method for now. And here is the result. This method can be very useful when you need to create consistent shading colors on your designs or illustrations. Before we move on to the next topic, I need to mention that you can arrange the watches simply by dragging them. And you can also give them custom names. To do that. You can right click on Swatch and then choose rename fill. As you can see, by default, the swatches are given names based on their RGB values. Let's name this one Big for example, and then click the OK button or just press the entire key on the keyboard. Now, if you hover the mouse on top of the swatch, the Big name appears as a tool tape, right. One of the most powerful but often overlook feature in affinity is the global color. So what is a global color? When you assign a global color to an object, the color is not tied to the value of the color, but to the swatches or the container of the color. Because of this, if you make changes to the swatch color, the color on the object gets updated automatically. This feature can be useful if you are doing a very large project where you need to work with many key colors. By thinking ahead and using global colors in your works, you can make revisions a lot easier down the road. To create a global color, there are three methods that you can use. First is using the Ed global color window. Second, is by pressing the Ed current color as global icon. And third, is by converting the existing swatch color to a global color. Let's see each of these methods one by one. To use the first method, we need to click the Dawn Carrot icon and then choose Add global color. By doing that, the Ed global color window will show up. Here, you can specify the color and also the name of the swatch. Just for example, we can name this one main color and then pick a color, say, an inigo color. Click AD and now we have a new global color. Notice that global color swatches have a small white triangle in their bottom left corner, while ordinary swatches do not have any now to actually make use of global colors, you need to assign them to an object. Let's say that we want to assign this global color to these two rectangle objects. So is poin. There is no difference between ordinary colors and global colors, but notice if I the blue click on this color swatch and then change the color to other colors. The two rectangles change their colors automatically. So that is basically how the global colors work. To use the second method first, you need to strike a color. And then in the sports panel, you can click on this icon that says at current color as global. Again, it is the icon on the right side, not on the left side. If you do that correctly, you will get a new global color based on the color you selected before. The third method is by converting existing color swatches into global colors. For this, you need to right click on swatch and then choose make global. Please note that if you have used this color before on an object, that does not mean the object will automatically be assigned to the global color. You need to reapply the global color to that object for the effect to work. All right. As I mentioned before, the application level palette can be accessed globally from different documents, but document level palettes are local. In other words, you can only access them when you open corresponding files to share a document palette with other documents. We can use the export and import features to export a palette first. Make sure the palette you want to export is active. Open the carat menu, and then choose Export palette. Next, you need to specify the folder where you want to save the file and also the name of the file. As you can see, palettes are saved as dot AF palette format. Let's just leave the name and click the Save button. Let's say that we are on a different or a new document and want to bring in the palette which is exported to do that, simply open the carat menu again and then choose Import palette. You have the option of importing the palette as an application palette or as a document palette. Let's select the document option for now. Select the file we exported earlier and then hit the open button. As you can see, we successfully imported the palette with all the colors into this document. 64. 06-09 Blur shading techniques: In this lesson video, we will discuss an advanced shading technique that uses the light filter feature Affinity. At a glance, it looks like gradient colorings, but it is much more flexible in terms of creating the shading shapes. Before we get into the technique, let's first discuss the basics of live filter in Affinity. Essentially, light filters are visual effects that you can apply to an object non destructive way, meaning that you can turn it on or off and you can remove it without affecting the original layer. To apply if filter to a vector object, you can do this in two ways, either through the menu or by using the icon in layer panel. If you prefer the menu, you can open the Pixel menu and then choose new live filter layer. As you can see, there are many different filters that you can use. In this video, we will only be focusing on the blur filters, which are the Gaussian blur and box blur. But let's see the second method for now. After you have the target layer selected in layer panel, click on this icon that says filters. Unlike the menu here, you can see all the filters in one long list without any sub menus. So you may need to scroll the menu up or down to find what you are looking for. For now, let's see what happens. I features the at noise filter. If you do that correctly, you will see a slider down here where you can control the amount of noise that you want to add to the object. If you are done, you don't want to click outside in a canvas area, as that will zero out the value. I believe this is a bug, and I hope it gets fixed by the time you watch the video. To close this window without zeroing of the value, you need to press the X button. Okay? On that, filter effect is basically just another type of layer, and it is placed inside the vector object we selected before because it is just a layer. You can show or hide the layer to control the effect. You can also move it to another layer, which will also move defect. Please note that there is a difference between dragging life filter onto a thumbnail of a layer versus dragging it onto the layer's name. If you drag it onto the layer's name, the filter will be treated as a nested layer. Meaning that you can place it on top of or below certain layers that are inside the parn layer. Any layers you place above the filter layer will not be affected by the filter. Only the layers below it get affected. But notice if I drag the filter layer on the thumbnail of the parent layer, now the filter affects the paren layer directly, meaning that all the child layers will always be affected. Another advantage of applying the filter this way is that when you claps the paren layer, you can still see the filter thumbnail beside the thumbnail of the main layer. This way, you can easily click on it to access the parameters using light filter layer as so layer has some advantages, and in certain scenarios, we may need the feature. But for this video, we will only be using light filter effect on a parent layer directly, right? If you decide that you don't need effect anymore and want to delete it, you can select the layer by clicking the thumbnail like this, or if the parent layer is expanded, you can select the layer like this and then press the trash icon at the bottom corner of layer panel, all right. The basic idea of using the blur filters for shedding is to put the shapes that have darker or brighter colors inside the main shape and then apply a blur filter on them to resemble gradient effects. For example, I have created the simple shape of an eggplant. If I want darker colors along this border, it will be hard to achieve using simple gradient colorings, as you can only use linear or elliptical distributions, you can use the gradient coloring for this, but setting up a gradient mesh can be quite time consuming. To create the shading shape, you can use the pen tool, choose a darker purple color and then create the shape of the shadow area. After that, you can wreck the object, so it is inside the main object. As a reminder, do not drag it onto the thumbnail area, as that will create a mask, drag it here onto the layer's name. After it is inside the main object's layer, you can select it and then apply a blur filter. For this, you can use the Gaussian blur filter for a smoother, high quality result, or you can also use the box blur filter for a faster result. And then you can wreck the blur value as much as you need. If you want to make the color below this layer darker, you may want to use the multiplied blending mode because it makes the colors below it darker. This mode is suitable for shading or shadow effects. Just remember that you do not want to use the multiply blending mode on the filter layer, but on a shape layer, you will get strange results if you change the blending mode of the filter layer. Next, let's add highlight or specular colors in the main eggplant body. Use the tentle again. Choose a bright purple color and then roll something like this. Drag layer. So it is inside the main eggplant layer. Assign a blur filter. For the subject, you don't want it to be too blurry. And finally, for highlights or speculars, you should use the screen bending mode. Again, as a reminder, make sure you set the blending mode of the shape layer, not the filter layer. Contrary to multiply, screen bending mode makes the colors beneath it brighter, so it is more suitable for adding highlights. Feel free to twit opacitive slider again if needed, okay? Another approach to creating shading shape is by using the insert inside mode, which is this icon at the top. For example, you want to add a shading color to the stop part of the eggplant. First, you need to select the object and then activate this icon. Now, in this condition, if you draw a shape using the pen tool, you are drawing the shape directly inside the selected object. You can then give this shape a proper color and then apply a box or Gaussian blur filter and increase the value. Again, because this is for shadow, we want to use the multiply blending mode instead of the normal mode. If the result is way too dark, you can always tweak the color again, or you can also reduce the layer's opacity. Any of these methods will do. Let's finalize the drawing by creating a cast shadow from the stalk to the main eggplant body. For this, we are going to use yet another different approach. We are not going to use insert inside mode. Instead, we will select a layer that is already inside the main object. Use the pen tool and then draw a shape below the sock shape. Just imagine how the shadow falls in this area. Notice that because layer selected is inside this object, when we draw a new shape, it will be placed at the same level as the layer or inside the main layer. You can remove the stroke color. Use a dark purple color. And then apply a Gaussian blur light filter for this object, I think four or five pixels is enough. You can set the blending mode to multiply and reduce the opacity if you want to. As you can see, this approach is very flexible as you can stack multiple shapes of shading and highlight on top of each other freely. I 65. 06-10 Gradient waterdrops logo project: In this project video, we'll create this water drop logo. The logo uses mash gradient coloring and also shading colors with the blur technique. As a disclaimer, the real inspiration of this project actually came from a logo created by Onyx Asare. I hope I pronounce the name correctly. You can see the logo on his Instagram channel. Before we start, notice that the center area here is a bit brighter, and in a top white area, we can see a bit of highlights, right? We can start by creating a new document. Make the size a four with a landscape orientation. To create a water drop shape, we can use the TR tool. Click and rack in the canvas area, like so. We can drag this handle on the left to make the upper shape more round. Feel free to tweak the shape even more until you like how it looks. Remove the field color for now. Then set the stroke width to one point. Press V for the move tool, then press Control J to duplicate the object, scale the new object while holding the Shift key to about this size. After you are done, you can select both objects and then press Control J again to duplicate them. So currently, we have a total of four objects, but we have only 12 of them selected. Activate the counter tool and make the objects shrink. Two bodies size. Next, select only the two small objects, move them so the upper sharp corner and left curve are aligned with large shapes. I think we can do this more precisely if we use the wireframe view mode. Just make sure the top corner slightly passes the large curve. And the bottom left curve also slightly passes the large curve. Okay. Now, select all of the objects and activate the shipbuilder tool. The idea here is that we want to get rid of the segments that we don't need, hold out, and then click here, and then here. We don't want to break these shapes as we'll need them reader to create the shadings. So instead of the shipbuilder tool, we are going to use the flood fill tool. The color does not matter for now. Click on the center area to extract the shape. Currently, the color looks blunt or transparent. Don't worry. This is because we are in the wireframe view mode. Let's go back to the vector view mode. As you can see, the field color is actually a solid red. Next, we can hide all of the lines layers by clicking and ragging the icons. Now, before we do anything on the mein shape, to help see the colors better, just like the reference, let's create a dark background color using rectangle shape. Swap the color and make it a dark gray color. Move layer, so it is at the bottom, lock the layer, so you won't accidentally move it. All right. Next, we want to add gradation coloring to this sheat and make the center color a bit brighter and warmer. For this scenario, we can use a mesh gradient coloring, activate the field tool, and change the type option to mesh. We don't need these many nodes. We can select one node at the top, and then press delete, select one at the side, and then press delete also, and then select this whole column and drag the nodes to the center. Press sat while doing this, so it goes straight. Select only the center node and move it to about here. For the upper color, we can select all the upper nodes and then change the color to a bright sine color. As for the middle nodes, we can set the color to dark blue. And for the bottom nodes, we can set them to a purple color. Okay. Now, for the center node, we want to make it move towards a color or an orange color. Make it in the middle, so about red or magenta color, move it towards white, just a little. For the bottom corner nodes, we can select them by holding them to Control key and make them a bit darker. As for the top center node, I think I want to make it brighter. All right. I believe we already have a nice looking gradient coloring. Next, we want to add the shading effects. First, we can lock the main layer and just hide the layer and also the background layer. Click and drag here to unhide all the lines. We want to create shapes that form the shadow areas. We can activate the pen tool, make sure the field color is off, and set the stroke width to one. This will trigger the stroke color to black. Click and then click drag like so. Cold Control and then click. Then click here and click drag like so. So like all the objects, activate the flood field tool and then click here and then here. If you are done, you can hide the lines again. But because we don't need them anymore, I just delete them. These red ships are actually for the containers of the shadow ships. Later, we will make them fully transparent. To create a shadow shapes, we can use the penol again, draw the shape like so. And then roll another one in the bottom area. Imagine where the schedules will be. If you think ships are not quite there yet, feel free to tweak them with the node tool. If you are done, you can select both shadow objects and then swap the color, set the color to dark blue. After that, assign a Gaussian blur light filter to soften the shadow, drag the blur slider and find a value that you think is the best. Notice that affinity only created the blur filter on the upper layer. No worries. We can select the filter and then press Control J to duplicate it. Drag the new filter to the thumbnail of bluer layer. For this shadow shape, we want to put this inside the top red shape. So drag this and release on the layers name and then put this layer inside this one. To remove red field color, we can select the parent layer and then set the fill color to no color. Do the same with the other parent layer. All right. Now we can unhide the main shape and see how the shadows interact with it. If you think the shadows are too strong, you can wreck the opacity down. You can use the multiply bending mode if you want to let's just set this to 80% or perhaps 75%. We can set the upper shadow area to 75% also. Okay? I think we already have nice looking shadow effects. Let's unhide the background liner to see the colors in a dark environment. The logo looks great both in bright and dark backgrounds. As a final touch, we want to add white highlight to the top right area of logo. For this, we can use the Pen tool, set the stroke width to one point and make sure that we only use a stroke color. Click here, and then here and so on. Activate the node tool, react with segment to curve it, try to align the curve to the logo shape press V, flip the colors, and make the color white. You may also use yellow or other colors if you want to place the shape inside the main logo layer, and then assign a Gaysenblur filter on it. Don't set the blur value too high. I think this is enough. One small final adjustment. I just want to make the center node color brighter. All right. All hdulla, we are done. If you want, you can select all layers and then press Control G to group them. This way, you can easily select and move the whole logo. A 66. 07-01 Artistic Text tool: In this video, we will discuss the artistic text tool. Just as with any other tools inside the affinity, you can access the tool from the tools panel. It is the one with the letter T symbol on the icon. Notice that, if you click and hold on the tool Icon, affinity actually offers two types of text objects, the artistic text and a frame text. So, what is the difference between the two text types? Long story short, you use the frame text for creating long text contents consisting of multiple paragraphs. This type of text supports multiple columns, and the text can flow from one frame to another. So this is more suitable if you are working on books, newspapers, magazines, and the like. The artistic text type, on the other hand, is best suited for decorative or artistic typography. So if you need to create text for titles, icons, and logos, for example, you should be using the Artistic text tool. Okay? There are two methods to create an artistic text in affinity. First by clicking and releasing second is by clicking and ragging. Let's refers method, which is just clicking to create a new text object. Notice that you'll get a text cursor that you can use to type in the text. The text you type, we use the parameters that exist in architecture tool bar to show you what I mean. Let's say that I press Enter to create a new line. Then I can use another phone and then type again. Press Enter again, change the size of the font, then type again and so on. You get the idea. The second method of using the artistic text tool is by clicking and dragging in a canvas. If you do this, affinity will show you a letter that resizes dynamically with the mouse movement. No worries. This letter is just a visual indicator of upon size. Affinity will not actually put on a letter when you release the mouse. If you like the size, you can release the mouse and you start typing for the rest of the process, it is basically the same as the first method, okay? After you have created an artistic text using either method, you can still edit the text. The way you edit text in affinity is basically the same as you would use any word processing software. So I don't think I need to go up it in too much detail. Basically, you need to select the text that you want to edit and then change the text parameters, such as changing the font type, changing the font size by tapping the value manually using drop down list. Using these two icons. This one to make it bigger, and this one to make it smaller. You can make the text both italic, change the color, and so on. Again, if you use Microsoft Word, Google Docs or LibreOffice before, you should already be familiar with these text pameters. Now, if you need even more controls on text editing, Affinity also provides several dedicated panels for this task. You can go to the Window Menu and ue text here, you can open the character panel, paragraph panel, Glip browser panel, et cetera. If you open the character panel, you will see even more primeers regarding text editing. Some of these are unique. For example, you can use a different color for text decorations. If I select these letters and then add a single strike through decoration on them by default, the strike through line color is black, the same color as the phone color. But if you click here and set it to a different color, now the strike through line has a different color independent of the main phone color. Another unique feature in affinity in terms of text editing is how we can adjust the leading and cunning values. If you are accustomed to using other software, you might think that you need to use the character panel to edit leading and cunning values. In affinity, however, you can do that using shortcuts. But first, let's discuss what kerning and leading are. Leading basically controls the gap between texas from one line to the next line. In other words, the gap between texas in vertical direction. Other apps may refer to this value as spacing. Cunning, on the other hand, controls the gap between letters. In other words, the gap between texas in the horizontal direction. In affinity, you can quickly adjust the leading and cunning using the key and the arrow keys. You can change the leading by holding down the alkey and then pressing the up or down arrow keys. O and up arrow keys to make the leading value smaller, while out and down arrow keys make the leading value larger. To control the kerning, you can hold the l key and then press the left arrow key to make the letter closer and press the right arrow key to make the letter further away. Alright. 67. 07-02 Reshaping texts: In this video and several subsequent videos, we will discuss different ways to reshape or restort text objects. When creating logos, we often need to restore texts or confirm them to certain shapes. In affinity, there are at least three methods that we can use. First, by converting the text to an editable curve object. Second, we can float the text on a curve or path. And third, using the web group feature. This video, we will focus on the first method. We will discuss the second and third methods in the next videos. The first method of reshaping texts is by converting them into an ordinary or editable curves. Please note that this method is destructive, meaning that you won't be able to edit the text again once it is converted into a curve. But because it is a curve, you have total freedom to edit it just as with any other vector objects in affinity. For example, say that we want to create a logo type from the words time travel. Perhaps it is for a movie title or a game title. First, we can use the artistic text tool. Feel free to use any font that you have on your computer. For now, I'll just stick with the default aerial font, but set the phone weight to bold italic. Click Android to about the size. And then type in time travel with uppercase T letters. Now, if you want to reduce the conning of all texas, you can first press Control A to select them like Z. Or if you are currently in a move tool, just make sure the object is selected. After that, hold the key and then press the left arrow key several times, make the letters close enough, but keep them from touching each other. Okay? Now, we want to lengthen the upper T part all the way to the V letter. For this kind of scenario, there is no other way, but to convert the text into a curve, you can right click and then choose convert to curve or use the keyboard shortcut Control Enter. Either way, you will get ordinary curves that are grouped inside a group layer. Each of letters becomes a separate layer. Before we combine them all, we want to remove the dot on top of the eye letter. Make sure you are in the node tool, select the four nodes that make up the dot shape, and then press the delete key. Next, select the ti lateral object, and then select only these two nodes. Drag these nodes to the right while holding Shift to above this location. Next, select the lateral object and then select only these two nodes. Now, to move the nodes in the direction of existing segments, you can move them while holding down Shift key. Make sure you see the purple snapping lines as these purple lines indicating that you are indeed moving the nodes along the existing segments direction. Activate the move tool, hold shaft and then click on these two objects to also select them. While we have the three objects selected, activate the Shape Builder tool. Click inside the tilateral shape and then drag through the zones until the lateral zone. We don't need these two parts, so hold on the alkey and then click on this zone and then on this zone. Okay. Because the two laters are not connected, you may notice that this gap looks too big. We want it to be as small as this gap, and we also want this gap and this gap to be smaller. To make writing nodes easier, as first combine all the shapes into a single object. For this, you can just select the group layer and then click on the at Willian button. Now, we only have a single object or layer. Press A for the node two, select all of these nodes, and then just press left arrow key to nudge the nodes to the left. Again, try to make this gap roughly the same as this gap. Then select only these nodes, use left arrow key again like before. Until this gap is about the size of this gap. Next, select all these nodes. Move them also to the left. But now we want this gap to be about twice the size of this gap. It doesn't need to be exactly accurate. At least people understand that the words time and travel are two separate words. Okay, guys, so that is the first method of reshaping text objects. 68. 07-03 Text on a path: The second method of reshaping text objects is using the text on a path feature. Unlike the previous method, this method is non destructive, meaning that you can always edit the text afterwards or edit the curve that forms the path. As the name suggests, basically, this feature allows us to flow a text on a curve object. There are two ways to create a text on a path object. First is by using the artistic text tool. And second, is by converting a curve to a text path object. Let's see the first method, which is using the artistic text tool. But before you activate the tool, make sure you already have a curve that will serve as the path. It can be an open and editable curve like this one, or it can also be a closed and pragmatc curve like this circle. Let's foresee how we can place a text on this open curve. Make sure the object is selected. And then activate the artistic text to move the mouse cursor to the curve object until you will see a letter T with a small path symbol on the cursor. In this condition, if you click on a curve, you will get a text cursor on the path. You can then start typing in the words. As you can see, the text doesn't go sideways as it normally would. Instead, it flows along the curve. Before we do anything else, notice if you press Control D to reset everything, the curve object we had before is now invisible. This is something you need to keep in mind when creating a text on path object. If you do need to display the path, you should duplicate it before creating a text on path object. All right. Let's click again on the text. Everything that we have discussed in terms of text editing still works on this text. You can select the text, change the phone, change the size. Make the text bold and so on. You may notice the flags on the path, while the green flag indicates the starting point, and the red flag indicates the ending point. If the text is aligned to the left, changing the green flag will change the position of the text directly. If you change the alignment to the right, however, it is the red flag that controls the position directly. And as you may have expected, if you change the text alignment to center, both flags affect the position of the text. Okay. Now, what if the text is too long that it crosses the red flag. Usually, you don't want this to happen in an open curve like this as the text will flow on the other side of the curve. It is almost impossible for people to read the text. If it is upside down like this, you should try making the text smaller or shorter or make the curve longer. As I mentioned earlier, you can still edit the curve. For this, you need to use the node tool. You can add and remove nodes or twix the handles like any normal curve. Okay. Now, what if you go to the extreme? I mean, the tax is way too long, or you drag the flags too narrow that even splaying the tags upside down is not enough for affinity. In such a case, affinity will display an icon in a bottom right area. This icon is basically a toggle button to show or hide the clipped text content. As you can see, if the text is not hidden, it will continue flowing based on the directions of the segments at the ends of curve. For now, let's press the escape key and just hit the lead to remove the object, right? The second method of creating a text on a path object is by converting a curve into it. Let's say that we create another curve using the Pen tool. Now, instead of using the artistic text tool, we can open the layer menu, then choose Convert and then choose to text path. As you can see, we get the same text on path object as before. Unfortunately, at the current version, there is no command in affinity that can convert the path back to an ordinary curve. That is why it is important that you duplicate the curve before you convert it into a text path. Just in case you need to respey the curve reader, let's just delete it for now. Next, let's see how we can apply a text on a path feature on a closed curve. Just as before, we can use the convert method or the artistic text tool method. But I want to show you something important if you use the artistic text tool method. So make sure the curve object is selected and then activate the artistic text tool. In this condition, you need to be careful where you put your muscle ser. Why? If you position it slightly below the line, when you click, the text will be placed inside the curve. Let me undo this. But if you position a mouse cursor slightly above the line, when you click on it, the text will be placed outside of the curve. So again, this is something that you need to be aware of. As for the rest of the text editing, it is basically the same as the open curve version. You have the green and red flags to control the text placement. Usually, for a circular logo like this, you want to set the text to central alignment and then drag the flags to make it symmetrical. Affinity will snap the flag if they are symmetrical. One feature that I have on this cat is changing the baseline value. For example, you want to create a funny quote on the circular path. Follow your dream and keep sleeping. Press Control A and increase the font size. It's okay if some of the text flows to the bottom, but I want to place D and keep slipping part at the bottom. To do that. You need to place the text cursor just before the N word and then press enter. As you can see, the new line is placed inside the curve. But because it is circular, you can wreck the green flag and red flag, so they are both at the bottom and symmetrical. This way, the text is readable. I think we can make the text bigger. Now the problem with this setup is that the top text and the bottom text aren't actually lined. To fix this, you need to tweak the baseline parameter up here, select all the bottom text by triple clicking and then scroll the baseline value. You can hold the sheaf key while doing this to make the changes go faster or by ten value. You can also do this with the upper text. Just triple click on the text to select it and then change the baseline value. If you prefer keyboard shortcuts, you can change the baseline value by pressing **** out and then the up or down arrow keys. Notice that if you do this, you are moving the text up or down relative to the path line. At this point, you may be wondering, but why is the baseline value up here not changing? Well, this is because the shortcut actually applies to the main text baseline and not the path baseline. So if you open a character panel, and then try to change the baseline using the sheaf out any up or down arrow keys again. You can see that the baseline value here changes. I am not sure why affinity does this. I think it should just use the same baseline value for the text and the path, but that is just how it is in a version I am currently using. 69. 07-04 Warp Group mesh basics: In this lesson video, we will discuss the third text distortion method, which is using the web group. There is not that the web group feature is not just limited to restorting text objects. It is a general feature that you can use to distort all objects including text. Just as with the previous method, this feature is non destructive, more on its leaer. To see how it works, I already created this star object. Feel free to use a different shape if you want to to assign a web group to an object, you need to select it first. You can also select multiple objects, but for now, we'll just use a single object. Next, you need to open the vector menu and then chose the new web group sub menu. As you can see, affinity provides many different whopping types. You need to remember that after you assign any of these types, you can feel a switch between them leader. You also need to know that the mesh is the default type while the other types are just presets or variances of the mesh type. This explains why only the mesh type has a keyboard shortcut Control out. Let's assign the mesh type for now. If you do that correctly, two things will happen. First, the node two becomes active automatically. And second, if you look closely at the layer panel, the previous star shaped object is now placed inside a group layer. This is the reason why the feature is called a group because it is basically a type of group layer, okay? If you select WAP group layer and you have the node tool active, you'll see the p group parameters up here in architectural tool bar. In this condition, you can drag the nodes to restor the shape object. You can select multiple nodes by clicking and ragging like so or by holding shift and then clicking on the nodes like so or by holding down the key and then clicking and ragging with the left mouse button like so. After you have them selected, you can hover over one of the selected nodes and then click Androg to move them. Now, there is one unique feature that web group has in terms of moving multiple nodes. If you click inside the node mesh, but do not touch any of the nodes. Affinity will create a temporary node. If you click and wreck this node, you will move all neighboring nodes at once. Okay. When you are moving a node, notice that affinity tries to snap the node vertically or horizontally to other nodes, even though we don't have the stamping feature turned on. Well, this is due to this option up here. You can turn it off if you don't want any stamping behavior when ragging the nodes. The second icon is also for snapping, but it only works if you set the first icon on. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not. Anyway, the difference between the two options can be seen when we move multiple nodes. If we have multiple nodes selected and you only have left option tune. When you click and wreck a node, all the selected nodes move, but only the node, you click stamps to other nodes. However, if you turn the right option on and then try to move the nodes again, of T will try to snap all the selected nodes, not just do one under your mouse cursor. All right. For now, let's just turn both options off. To refine the distortion, you may need to break the segments to control their curvatures. And if there is not enough, you may also need to drag the handles by default. The handles are in smooth mode, meaning that dragging one side will also move the other side. To convert the handle to cast mode, you can either click here or you can hold the alkey and then wreck the handle. This will also convert the handle into a shop or cusp type. For now, let's press the reset button, so we have a fresh start. Okay? Different shapes will require a different set of controls. So most likely, you will need to add or remove nodes to make them fit the objects shape, like working with a mesh gradient. You cannot just add a single node. You either add a column of nodes or a row of nodes. To add a column, you need to click on any of the horizontal segments. You can also do this in a border area. Just make sure the most cursor is inside the group zone. If you click slightly outside the zone, it won't work. As for adding row, you need to click on one of the vertical segments or vertical borders. Again, just make sure you move the cursor slightly inside the group zone not outside. To remove nodes, the same concept still applies. You cannot add or remove just a single node. You either remove a column or a row or both. If you select a node on a vertical border and then press the lead, the whole row gets removed. If you select a node on a horizontal border and then press lead, the whole column gets removed, and if you select a node in the middle and then press the lead, the row and column connected to the node get removed. Because the video duration is getting too long, we will discuss the rest of the web group features in the next lesson. 70. 07-05 Warp Group presets: In this lesson video, we will continue discussing the web group feature. Previously, we have assigned a web group to star object. For now, make sure the group is selected and you have the node to active, you can press the reset button and then make some restortion by moving the nodes or the handles. All right. First, let's discuss how the web group actually works. As I mentioned before, the web group defect is non restructive. This is because affinity does not apply the distortion to the objects directly, but to the group layer that contains the objects. This gives us the flexibility to add or reduce objects that are being controlled by the web group. Just for example, if we create a new artistic text tool, let's just type here morning routine. Currently, the text is not the child of up group, which is why it is not affected by the wopping effect. But if we place the text inside the group and try to move it, notice that as it passes the distorted wp nodes, the text gets distorted also. And if I pull the star shape out of up group, no it is not affected by the distortion of Op group. In conclusion, to be affected by the wopping effect, the object must be inside the wop group, and it must be placed beneath the distorted nodes. I'm sure you get the idea. Let me unit. So we have both objects inside the wb group again. Okay. Sometimes we want to preview the original objects inside the web group. For this, you do not need to dig them out of the group. Simply pass the mute mesh option up here. When you are done reviewing, you can turn it off again. All right. If you need to delete web group object, you can activate the move tool and press the delete key on the keyboard. But notice that this will delete everything, including all the shapes or texts inside the group. Let me unut if you want to remove only the b group object, but keep all the objects inside it, then what you should do instead is to ungroup the wp group. You can use the user shortcut for ungrouping, which is Shift Control G. If you ever forget a shortcut, you can go to the layer menu and then choose ungroup. As you can see, the Op group is gone, but the objects inside it are safe. Now let's delete the star object, select the text object, and then press Control M to assign web group to it by default affinity assigns the mesh type. As I mentioned earlier, the mesh type is the basis or the curve feature of the web group. You can pretty much create any kind of distortion shapes using mesh. But in certain cases, it may not be the fastest option, as you need to tweak a lot of nodes and handles to achieve what you are looking for. This is why affinity provides different presets for the web group. Let's briefly discuss each of them one by one. The quad preset gives you four simple nodes without any handles. This is perfect if you just need a straight line distortion and don't want to be bothered with moving the handles. The prospective presets is almost identical to the Quad type. The only difference is that it tries to simulate how prospective folks by setting the handles non uniformly. So if you can see the handles, this part is actually longer than this part. This is quite different from quad preset, which always makes the handles uniform in length. The arc vertical gives you a parameter to quickly create an arc distortion in a vertical direction. Then the arc horizontal is basically the same as before, but in a horizontal direction, the band vertical and band horizontal are basically the same as the arc presets. The only difference is that the nodes may touch each other if the value is too high. This never happens in the arc presets. The fish eye preset will bulge the center nodes out or vice versa. I will contract them towards the center. And finally, the twist preset will rotate the center nodes clockwise or counter clockwise. Okay. Now, because any of these options are just presets of the mesh type, if you try to make changes to the mesh, such as dragging a segment or adding a column or row, affinity, we'll convert it back to the mesh type. Just to prove this, currently, I am using the quad preset. After I distorted the text like so, if I drag one of the segments, notice now it switches back to the mesh type. Another example, let me change this back to the quad preset. Let's say that we decided to add a column here. Remember, you need to click on a border but slightly inside the zone. Notice that once we have a new column, the web group type is back to the mesh type. Okay, guys, that is how you use the web group feature in infinity. 71. 07-06 Working with assets: In this video, we will discuss how to manage graphical assets inside affinity. If you have multiple vector objects that you often use, perhaps it is your company logo or perhaps your favorite set of icons. You can manage them using the Assets panel. To open the Assets panel, you can go to the Window menu, then general and then assets. By default, affinity includes an icon set called the simply flat icons, which is designed by Anatoly Baby. I hope I pronounce the name correctly. Note that the names of the set you see in the dropdown list are called categories. And inside the category, you can divide the assets into subcategories. Here, the simply flat icons category has many different subcategories. That is creativity, e commerce Education and so on. So again, the items in this list are called categories, and for each category, you can create subcategories. Okay? There are at least two advantages of using the Assets panel. The first advantage is how fast you can access them. You can simply click and drag the item that you want onto the canvas. It is faster than trying to find them in folders and then importing them. The second advantage of using the Assets panel is that it s globally across multiple documents. You need to know that these assets are not stored in a conventional method. Instead of using the AF format, it uses a database stored deep inside the application folder. That is why it is faster and available across documents as long as you are using it on the same computer. If you need to use the assets on a different computer, then you need to export them. We will discuss how to export and import assets in a moment. For now, let's focus on creating a new category, subcategory, and saving an asset. For example, I have created these two icons. Let's say that we want to save them as assets. First, we need to create a new category. To do that, we can click on this Dom car button and then choose Create New category. Let's name this one person. Now, you will see a new item in a Rob Brown list called ProsenF now, make sure it is active. Notice that by default, you will get one subcategory. We need two. So let's create a new subcategory by clicking on the card button again. And then choosing the create subcategory command. We have two subcategories now, but they are still using generic names. To rename them, you can click on a Sandwich icon next to the subcategory name and then just rename. We can rename this one full body and then you can rename the second one to upper body. Now, to save this icon as an asset, simply drag it and drop it inside the subcategory that you want. We can do the same with this icon, but we put this inside the second subcategory. You do not need to save the file or press anything as affinity does that automatically for assets. Now that we have the assets, we can click and drag these icons whenever we need them. They are also accessible from other documents. Just to prove this, you can create a new blank document, and then test dragging the assets from the assets panel. Right? If you need to name or delete an asset, you can simply rod click on it. You can see the RNam command and the delete command here. There are still many commands on the Assets panel that we haven't discussed yet, but because they are quite basic, I believe you should be able to identify them by their names right away. Just be careful when deleting an asset because it cannot be undone. This means that if you delete an asset, it will be gone forever unless you have a backup. This leads us to our next discussion on exporting and importing. Exporting and importing assets are important for two reasons. First, if we need to create a backup of our assets, remember affinity stores the data locally on our computer. What happens if the computer breaks or stolen and whatnot? Of course, we never hope for bad things to happen, but we need to prepare if those do happen. Second reason we need to export and import commands is when we need to transfer our assets to other people, such as our family and friends to export all of your assets, you can click again on Cart button and then choose export assets. Affinity will ask you where you want to save the file. As you can see, assets are stored in a special file format called AF Assets. You can then save the file in Google Drive, for example, or share it with your team. Then on another computer or if you need to retrieve your assets backup, you can click on the Cart button again, choose Import assets, and then look at DIF assets file that you exported before. If you do that correctly, you will have all your assets back. Okay, guys, this is basically how you can use the Assets panel to manage your graphical objects. 72. 07-07 Getting free Google Fonts: In the next video of the course, we will create three logos that use custom fonts to prepare for these projects in this video. I need to briefly discuss how you can download free phones from Google Repository. If you already know how to do this, feel free to skip the video and continue with the projects. For example, in the first project, I will create this Kenny product logo. Let's say that we know we want to use the word priceless in logo, but we are still not sure what phone we want to use. In such a scenario, you can head over to the Google phones website, which is at phones.google.com. After you have the website loaded, you can type in this box the word or multiple words that you want to use. Now, if you cannot see the left sidebar or section, make sure you turn on the filters button. If it is off, you cannot see the left sidebar, which basically displays the filters. Okay? We want to create logo type from the word priceless. So let's type in priceless in this box. Next, we can use the different filters provided in a sidebar. Please note that you can activate more than one filter if you need more precise or narrower search results. For example, for the filling category, we want it to be playful, and then you can also activate the appearance category, say, the Bigels filter, and so on. For now, I just need a font in some set of category, say the humanist type. So again, currently, I have two filters active, the PlayfallFlter, and the humanist filter. And here is the list of the fonts that match the filters. Now, I personally like the wendy One font, but I also like to try different alternatives inside affinity. Let's say that I want to download the Wendy one font and also the Kendle font. For this, you can first click on Wendy One font. And then click on the Get font button. If you do that, the font will then be placed inside the shopping cart. Now, we can go back to the font list. And then click on a second font that you want to download. Here, you can review the font again in more depth. If you are done, you can press the G font button. So now in a shopping cart, we have two fonts. Wendy One and Candle. I know it seems strange to have a shopping cart feature inside Google Phones. Don't worry, all fonts in the Google Phones repository are free. The shopping cart feature is just an easy way to download multiple phones at once. To download all the phones in the card, you can press the download all button if you change your mind, or perhaps you want to download the font individually. You can do that also by pressing the download icon on each of the phones in the list. We want to download all of them at once, so we press this button. You will get a single zip file containing all the phone files. Next, you can choose where to store the Zip file. Or you can find a file in your download folder depending on your browser settings. After that, you can open a folder and then unzip the Zip file. I am using the seven Zip application for this kind of task. Yours may be different. As you can see, we now have the candle folder and one folder. To install a font, simply go to the folder, Right click on the phone file, and then choose Install for all users. That is, if you want the phones to be accessible to all users of the computer. I actually already installed the font before, so I don't need to install it again. For the Candle font or any other phones you downloaded, you can use the same process. Now, if you are using my computer, I believe you need to double click on a font file, and then choose Install from the popup window. Okay, guys, so that is basically how you can find custom phones for free from the Google Phones website. 73. 08-01 Candy logo project part 1: In this project video, we will create a logo for a Kenny product. Honestly, the real inspiration of the project is actually the Pringles logo. Of course, we don't want to create exactly the same logo as that will be less challenging and also to avoid any copyright issues, that is why I decided to create this Kenny product logo instead. For the font, we will be using the fonts we downloaded in the previous lesson video. To start, we can create an AF document in landscape mode. Next, to create a text, you can use the artistic text tool, click and drag to about this size. And then type in priceless. I know that the correct spelling has two as letters, but we will just use one to make the logo less complicated. Press escape or activate the move tool. Next, change the phone to we one. And then you can hold the key and then press left arrow key to make the letters closer together. I think I change my mind. Let's try the other font called candle. We can hold the key and press the left arrow key again to make the letters closer. I think this is enough, but I want to add more distance between the ii and R letters. We can double click and place the text cursor in the middle and then hold out and press right arrow key. And let's make the R letter move to the right bit. Okay? Scale the text object if you need to and then recenter it again. Next, we want to bend the text. For this, we can use the web group feature upon a vector menu, choose new wb group, and then let's use the quad type as the starting point. Move this node to the right and bottom direction of the sheaf and also select this node. Move them like so. Move the bottom right node to about here. Next, we can make the top segment curve by dragging it. Make the bottom segment curve also. Just twig the nodes or handles until you like how it looks. After that, you can press Control Enter or press the button up here that says convert to curves. Now, this is no longer a text object, but multiple curve objects placed inside the group. Press V for the move tool, and then press Shift Control G to ungroup the object. Activate the node tool. I want to bring the circle over the eletter down a bit to select only the nodes of the circle. You can click and wret L Z or you can also select one node and then press Control A. Use the down arrow key, and also the white arrow key to position the circle. We can direct this segment down to curvate and we can position the circle again. As you may notice, I am trying to make the eye letter look like the original pringless logo. If you are happy with the result, you can use the Move tool again, press Control A to select, and then use the Ed Bullion button to join all the shapes into a single object. Next, let's change the fail color to yellow, slightly orange. And then the stroke color to black. We can increase the stroke thickness. We don't want to stroke area blocking the fill area. To fix this, we can place the stroke element behind the fail element. And to make the corners sharp, you can set the join parameter to mi dr. If you find some corners blunt, you can try increasing the mire threshold. But now I think it looks way too sharp. Let's just set this back to two and just play around with the width value. Okay, to dit the stroke element more freely, we can convert the stroke to an ordinary object. Through that, we can right click and then choose Expense stroke. Now, the black outline is not a stroke element anymore, and it is independent of the yellow fill area. If you activate the node tool, you can see that it is basically just a fill area. Next, we need to duplicate the black outline object by pressing Control J. Move the new layer down and to the left, just a bit to add a dep effect on the text. To see the next step more clearly, let's hide the yellow fill object first. Select the two layers and then press the ad Boolean button, so they both merge into a single object. Let's unhide the yellow field element again. Now, we need to edit the black object using the node to. To make the black outline look like a continuous shape, we need to delete the nodes that make the corners look jagged. We can delete these nodes, for example, then we can delete these two nodes. Y then these three nodes on the P letter, and so on. I believe you already understand what I am trying to achieve here. We can lead these nodes. And then these two nodes. Now, for the letter, we want to drag this corner down and move this one to both here. I think we are done here. Oh, sorry. Let's late these two nodes also. Alright? Next, inside the yellow text, we want to add a high light effect. Basically, we want to create an illusion that the light is shining from the top. First, we can duplicate the yellow shaped object by pressing Control J. Hide the top layer for now. Select the bottom layer, and then change the fail color to something bright. But first, let's set the stroke color to no color. And now we can set the fail color to almost white slightly towards yellow. Okay. Let me hide the black shape for now so you can see this better. Select the top layer. Make sure that it also has no stroke color. Now, here comes the important step. We need to put the top layer so it is inside the off white layer. Then make sure you select the inner layer and then move it down and to the left just a bit. This way, we have a highlight effect. Feel free to twit the yellow shape position until you like how it looks. The text part of logo is done. If you want finer control, you can use the noeTol to tweak the shape even more. For me, I will just go with this version because the video is already quite long. We will discuss adding the Kenry element in the next video. 74. 08-02 Candy logo project part 2: In this video, we will continue the Kenny logo project that we started in a previous lesson. This is what we have so far. Now we want to create the Kandy drawing on top of the text. But before we do that, I don't think I want to have this thin hole in text. We can b click on it and select one of the nodes, press Control A to select all the connected nodes and then press the lead. So now this area is solid. All right. Next, we need to create a circle shape. We don't need a field color for now, only the stroke with one point for width. Click and react in its location and hold control and shift while doing so. Let's select the text objects. And then press Control G to group them, hide the group. This way, we can focus only on the Candy element of the logo. For the Candy, I want to add a spiral effect about ten spiral lines should be enough. We have discussed the spiral tool before, so you should already be familiar with this tool. Click and drag from the center point. Reduce the tunnel's value to only one. Then reduce the arc angle value to about 80 degrees. Scale the spiral to body size. Okay? Now, we need to duplicate the spiral curve in rotational motion using this as the center reference to do this. Make sure you are in a move to click Ougikn and then activate the enabled transform origin. Now we need to move the origin point to the curve end. Do this precisely, we need the snapping feature. We don't need any page snappings. We just need geometry snapping for now. Move the origin point and then snap it to the curve, and you should see a yellow color on the curve indicating that the snapping feature is working, right. To perform duplication, as always, we can simply press the entire key on the keyboard. We want a total of ten curves. So turn on the duplicate option and set the number of copies to nine. And then to set the rotation value, we can let affinity do the calculation by tapping in 360/10, then enter. Now we have a total of ten spiral curves. Click the Oki button to close the window. Select the spiral objects and then move them inside the main circle. You don't need to place these curves exactly at the center. Feel free to move them slightly to the right or left. To make things less complicated, let's just merge our curves for now. To play safe, we can duplicate the circle first by pressing Control J and then height the layer. Select the spiral and atop circle layer. To extract the zones from these lines and give them colors in one go, we can use the flood fill tool. Choose a color, say magenta color. Click on E zone and then click again on every other zone. Next, we can pick a blue colour or perhaps more towards Cien and then click on Rest of the Zones. Okay. I don't think we'll be needing the spiral curves anymore, so let's just delete the object. We can hide the circle shape. Select all of these layers and press Control G to group them. Let's cite the Candy shape for now, let's focus on circle objects. We can move this down so it doesn't get in the way. The reason why we need these two circles is that we want to create a white highlight effect on the top right area of the candy. We can scale this down a bit. And then position it like so. I think we need to make this bigger again. We are going to extract the top right zone, but we don't want the edge touching the original circle. So press Control J to duplicate the main circle, and then you can either scale it down or use the counter pull. Let's hide the original size circle for now. Make sure both circles are selected, activate the flood field to again, select white for the color, and then click in a zone. Yes, we cannot see anything for now, but if we place this layer just above the main candy layer, and then let's hide the circles. If you want to hide the candy shape, we get this white highlight on top of the candy. Currently, it looks too strong. We can turn down the opacity to about 50%. Okay? Next, we want to create a shadow area. Let's cite the highlight shape and unhight the circles. We can use this one, which is the smaller one, but on second thought, let's use the original circle shape for the shadow move the circle to the top right direction. Let's side the Kenny layer for now, select the two shapes, activate the flood filed pool, choose black for the color, and then click in a zone. We cannot hide all the circle shapes, and then unhide the shadow, highlight canny layers. We are not going to use this solid black shadow. Let's pick a purple color, and to make the shade of shape darken the colors below it, we can use the multiplied blending mode, reduce the layers of opacity if you still think the shadow color is too dark. We can then place this below the highlight layer. Oops, sorry, guys, not inside the highlight layer, but below it. Okay? Next, we can hide all the circle layers. We won't be needing the circle shape, so we can safely delete it. Select all of these layers. Place them below the text layer. In this phase. You can freely scale, position, or even restort the shapes as you see fit. Now, the reason why I still include the circle shapes is that I want to use them to add a specular effect to the candy. Let's first hide the text object, and let's hide the outer circle. Scale the circle down, and then convert it into an ordinary curve by pressing Control Enter. Now that it is an editable curve, we can use the node tool to add more nodes along the top white part. After that, you can hold the Control key and then click on segments to remove them. Just follow how I place the nodes and how I remove the segments. If you are done, you can activate the move tool again, change the stroke color to white, and then increase the stroke thickness. As you can see, we can create nice looking specular effects using this method, which is basically just a stroke. Feel free to adjust the thickness and cut the curve even more until you like how it looks. I think we can move the specular shape to about here. Next, you can reduce the opacity if you think white colour is too strong. And that's it. We now have the base y shape for our logo. We are not done yet. We will add more details in the next lesson video. 75. 08-03 Candy logo project part 3: In this video, we will continue our Kenny logo project. This is what we have so far from the previous lesson. Before we add more details to the logo, I changed my mind again. Now, I don't want a shadow ship touching the border. To fix this, we can use the contour tool, but I'll just scale it using the move tool. And adjust the position using the arrow keys. Okay. Next, we can select the circle or the ellipse shape. As you can see, it has the same shape as the base candy shape. We want to make use of this shape to create the outline of the candy. We can set the field color to black and then adjust the stroke thickness. We should be able to see the effect better if we place the layer below the candy layer. Now we can adjust the stroke thickness. Personally, I prefer not to have uniform stroke thickness around the candy. It just makes it feel more natural or organic. We can do this simply by scaling it using the move tool. Essentially, I want to make the top and bottom parts thicker than the side parts. All right. Next, I think I want to change the dy color. Let's expand the y group. Strike the magenta spiral layers. Combine them all using the At Bollin button, and let's do the same with all the blue spiral layers. Let's change the blue spiral to something else, say a green color. Okay, this matches better with the yellow text part. Before we move on, let's tidy up the layers, so we end up with only having two layers. One pootex part, and one for the candy part. Next, we want to create ice porto candy. For this, we can activate the pen tool. We don't need any fill for now. And we can start with just a thin line. Click here, hold Shift, and then click here, press A for the node tool, rag this segment up, and then adjust the handles I now we can make it thicker. Move the eye shape to the right. We're holding Control and Shift to duplicate it. Okay. Next is the mouth. We can use the pen tool again. Click here, hold Shift, and then click here. Then click Andret in this location while also holding Shift, and then click again on starting node, activate the node tool, and drag the segment down a bit. And let's move this also. Basically, we can tweak the nodes or even the whole object using the move tool until you like how it looks. To make the mouth corner of shop again, you can increase the miro threshold. Now we can set the field color to a dark red. I think I want to tweak it again. All right. The next step is to add that heat inside the mouth. We can use the pen tool again. Click here. Then here and so on. Swap the colors and change the color to white. Use the node tool to curve down the center segment, and also the side segment and then we can direct this so it is clipped inside the mouth shape. Next, we want to create the bottom teeth. The process is basically the same. Create the base shape with the pen tool. Use the no tool to tweak the shape, swap the colors. And make the color of white. We need to have a slightly different color from the top teeth so people can see the shapes better. Okay. Now we can place this shape layer inside the mouth, just below the top teeth layer. To make the teeth look even better, we can add some shadow effects. You can use the pen tool. Click here, click and drag here. Click here, click and drag out and move the handle here and so on. Feel free to tweak the shape again if you need to. Next, you need to create another shape for the bottom teeth shadow. Click here, click Androg here, and so on. Don't worry if it doesn't do crack the first time, you can always just sit again afterwards using the note tool. Okay. Next, we can select both of the shadow shapes, swap the colors, and let's make it darker and a bit bluish. Change the bleeding mode to multiply. Put this layer inside the bottom teeth layer, and then put this layer inside the top teeth layer. So currently we have three levels of hierarchy for the teeth element. A I think I want to make the eyes and the mouth wider. And also try out several small adjustments to see how they look. All right. Next, we need to add a small highlight effect under the mouth. Use the pen tool again and then draw a shape similar to the mouth. Use the note to tweak the shape. And After you are done, swap the colors and then change the color to white of any bright colors such as yellow. Set the blending mode to screen, as this is for a highlight color, not a sudo color. Reduce the opacity to about 15%, and then place it just below the mouth shape. Sorry, I think 15% is too low. Let's try 20%. Okay. Next, we want to add red or bright circles on each of cheeks. You can use the Ellipse stool stretch the ship just a little and then rotate it. Hold control and move it to the right to duplicate it. Rotate this one and scale it down a bit. Select both of the shapes and then change the color to red, reduce the opacity. About 45% should do it. Let's combine the ships, so it's just a single layer. This is what we have so far. I think we need to make the ice a bit bigger. And also, let's move the ice down. Okay? If you are done, you can tidy up other facial layers by placing them inside the y group. As for the red check circles, I think we should place the layer below the specular layer. Let's also change the blending mode to screen so you can see the shape better against the magenta colors. All right. The final part of logo is the stick. We can create this real quick using a rectangle shape, press control enter to convert it into a curve. Use the not to select this left node. Move it through right using the right arrow key. We can do the same midwe node. I think the stro color is fine. You only need to change the field color to an off white. Place it here and rotate it a bit. Pace sit at the bottom of layer stack. As the final touch, I want the shapes to be thinner at their ends. We can click to access the shape, hold sheaf and click the right shape, so both eyes are selected. With the node tool active, we can open the stroke panel in the pressure box, bring the nodes to the middle, and then click and wreck the center up to make it thicker. And Al handlaO project is done. We have created the Kenny product logo. 76. 08-04 Laundry logo project part 1: Starting with this video in the next view, we will create a logo for a laundry shop. The inspiration of this logo actually came from this logo designed by an Indonesian artist with a nickname of Krajasabutan. I found this logo on the magnific platform formerly known as free Pig. As always, we don't want to create the exact logo as the reference. We should create something original to make the project more challenging. After you have the main reference for the logo, the next thing that you want to do is to find other references, such as the color palette, the graphical elements, and the fonts. I believe you already know how to find things on the Internet. We have also discussed how to download fonts from the Google repository before. Please note that in this project, I will be using two Google fonts. One is called Yellow Tale for the main text, and another one called Fredoca for the circular text around Logo. Alright? Let's first extract all these colors that we downloaded into the Swatches panel for this task. You can use the create palette from Document Uption and then choose as document palette, but you will end up with too many color variations. I personally prefer fewer colors when working with logos or icons. So we will go the manual way. We can let this palette and start new document palette. Let's name this new palette laundry logo, and then press Enter. For now, just make sure the palette is active. The quickest menual method to put these colors into the active palette is by using the color picker tool, but you need to click on a color while holding down the Control key. Notice that if you hold the Control key, the color you click will be stored as color softs automatically inside the active palette. I don't think I need these two colors, and for these colors, we will need all of them. Okay. Before we move on, I want to dreg this red color to the left and then make it a global color. So right click on the color and then make global. Now that we have all the colors in such panel, we can safely delete the reference image. All right. Next, we want to draw the washing machine element. We will be using this reference image. The layer is already locked, but you still need to reduce its opacity so that later we can see the actual curves more clearly. Activate rounded rectangle tool. Now for stro color, we want to use the global color we created before and set the color to of fail. We can click Android to create a rounded rectangle. Try to match this size with the reference image and set the cone radius down. Next, press P for the Pen tool. For now, we only want to use straw color without any field color. To make the line snap to existing drawings, we can activate the snapping feature. For now, we won't be needing page snapping. We just need the geometry snapping feature, the only visible option, and also the bounding box option. Okay, press escape. Click here, hold Shift, and then click here. Hold Control and click on empty space. Then click here, hold Shif and then click here. Control and then click. Next, we want to draw the knobs. We can activate the lips tool. Click Android from this point, while holding Control and Shift. Use the arrow keys to adjust the position. You can move the circle to the right, while holding Control and Shift again to duplicate it. Move the circle to the left while holding Control and Shift to duplicate it. Scale it up while holding Control and shaft Press Control C and Control V to duplicate it, and then scale the new circle while holding Control and Shift. To create the front load, we can duplicate the knob circle by moving it down, we're holding control. And then scale it up, we're holding Control and Shift. You can use the arrow keys to align it to the reference, press Control C, then control V, and then scale it down, we're holding Control and Shift and then wreck this circle to the right while holding down Control, activate the rounded rectangle to login, and then create the rectangle in its top part. Next, activate the pen tool. You want to create a word surface inside the machine. I think we can do this better without the snapping feature. Click here, click on right here, and so on. Control and click to finish up. Et's create another water surface. The process is similar. Just try to make the wave shape different from the first one. You can hold control while using the pen tool to activate the note tool temporarily. After we have all the curves, we need to clean them up, use the move tool, and then make sure all the objects are selected. Activate the shape builder tool, while holding the al key, click on any of the segments that we don't need. Be careful not to remove the segment that we actually need. Okay. We won't be needing the reference image anymore, so let's just delete it. One final touch, I think I want to add a small circle inside the machine to make the order look more dynamic. All right, to tidy up the layers, we can select all the objects by pressing Control A and then go to the vector menu and then choose merged curves. Now all the curves are combined into a single layer. 77. 08-05 Laundry logo project part 2: In this video, we will continue our laundry logo project. We created the washing machine in last video. Now we can move on to creating the clothing. I prefer to create this shirt and the spans. Currently, the reference image is too small. Let's unlock layer first and then scale image up to about this size, we can lock the layer again so we don't accidentally move it, reduce the opacity. And let's hide the washing machine layer for now. Okay? To start drawing, you can activate the pen tool. Make sure the stroke color uses the global red color we said before. First, we need a center reference. Click here. Shift and click down here, press V for the move tool, and move this line so it's perfectly at the center of roof shot reference. Next, make sure you have the snapping feature turned. Use the pen tool again. Control click to this. Click here, then here, and so on. Shift click. Then Shift click again at the center. Control click. And then click here, here, then here on the top node. Next, we can click here on the node, then here, and then here on the node. If you are done, you can press V, then move the center line aside for now. We'll use this leader for the pens. Press A for the node to write this segment down. Make sure you end up with a horizontal curve at the center node. Next, we can curve this segment and then the segment. Well curve the bottom segment leader, use the move tool and slack all these curves, move it to the left while holding Control and Shift. White click and then transform and choose flip horizontal. Now, before we combine the two parts, we need to remove the center top line because this is a continuous line. You need to use the node to select the bottom node and then press the lad. Now we can go back to the move to select the left part. Make sure the snap mode is on and then move these curves to the right. We're holding the Shift key until they snap. Next, select these two curves. Press A, select these two nodes, and then to join the adjacent nodes, we can press the join curves button. And let's just delete the node. Break the segment down to curve it, and that's it. We have all the curves that we need for the shirt. To tidy up the document, we can select all these curves. Go through vector menu and then use merged curves. So now the short curves are just a single layer. Next, we can move on to drawing the pens. First, we position the center line, so it is at the center of the pens reference image. Activate the pen tool. Control and click first so we don't have the center line selected. Now we can click here. Shift click. Click here. Then Shift click here and so on until we are back at the center line. Control click to start with the new curve. Click here, then shift and click about here. Click up here and shift and click down here. Next, click here. Then here, press A for the node tool, and then direct this segment to curved. Oh, sorry, guys, we should drag this segment first. Okay. Then we drag this node to the segment. We won't be needing the center line anymore, so let's just delete it press A and then drag the segment down a bit. Use the move tool and select all these curves, dig the curves to the left while holding Control and Shift, right click, transform, flip horizontal. We need to delete the center line, or we will have double lines if we don't. Select all the left curves again and then drag them all to the right to snap them to the right part. Finally, we can select all these shapes, go to the vector menu, and then choose Merge Curves. Now we have all the curves for the pens in a single ear. We won't be needing the clothing reference image anymore, so let's just delete it. To recap, up to this point, we have three layers, one for the washing machine rowing, one for the shirt, and less one for the pens. I think the pens needs to be bigger. Let's turn off the snapping for now. Essentially, we want to make the pens have a rational size if they are paired with the shirt. All right. After we have all the curves, we can start adding field colors to them. We can start with the washing machine. Use the flood fill tool. For now, we want to use the smart refill mode so we can recolor the zones safely without having Affinity recreate the shapes. For the main area of the machine, we can use this color. Next, we can use the darker version of color. Use it for this area and also for this area. Pick the brighter version of the color for the front load door. Then we can use the dark blue color for the screen zone and the inner zone. This blue color is for water at the back. As for the brighter color, we can use this for water at the front, for the knobs. I think I want to use the brighter version again. We can use the darker version for the big dial. All right. P V for the move to now, before we continue, let's double click onward global color and then change the color to something dark almost black. Let's now focus on a short drawing. Make sure the colors that belong to the short drawing are selected. Use the flood fill to log in with the smart refill more active for the shot. I think I want to use the orange color. As for the short color, you can use a brighter version of the orange color. And for the inner short part, we can use the darker version, okay? Use the mouth to to select the pen curves. For the pens, we want to use the bright green color. And that's it. We have finished giving colors to all the drawing elements. 78. 08-06 Laundry logo project part 3: In this video, we will continue working on our laundry logo project. Now, we want to add shadow colors to the existing graphic elements we created earlier. Let's start with the washing machine. We can create a circle using the lip stool. Click and Drag while holding Shift, press V, and move it to about here. To differentiate the shape from the existing curves, we can change the color to red or magenta. For example, hold control and then drag the circle to duplicate it, scale the circle non uniformly. So it looks something like this. When you are done, you can select all of the curves, activate the vector flood fill pull. But make sure it is set to a two top mode to play safe. Next, select the version of the machine color. But then we make it even darker. Click here and then here, press V, then select all the ellipses and then let them. I think you also need to select the shape and then set the color to the same color as the shadow area. Alright, the washing machine is done. Next, we can work on the shirt. Let's activate the pen tool. Click here, then here, and so on. Try to imagine where the shadow will fall on this shirt. Press A, then wrote this segment to curve it down. The segment also. And finally, the segment, press V, and then strike all these curves. Use the flood field tool again, find the color of the shirt, and then make it darker. Click and drag here, so we have a single shape as the result. Press V select the red shape and then later, the short is done. Before working on the pens, I forgot to joint two shadow shapes in the machine. Just use the ad bullion button to jointed two shapes all right. For the pens, you can use the pen tool again. Click here. Then here, Control, click. Click here. Then here, Control, click again. Lastly, we can click here. Then here, then Control, click. Press A to activate the Node tool, direct this segment to the left. And then segment. If you are done, press V and select all the shapes. Activate the throat field tool again. Select the dark version of the green color. Click here, and then click and drag here, so the result is a single shape, press A and then slack and delete all the red curves. Currently, we have the shade of shape and the shape separated. We can select both objects and then use the Ed Boolean button to combine them. Next, I want to show you a technique to quickly add variations to the existing line width. In affinity, there is command to separate certain segments from an object, but we can work around this limitation quite easily to do this. First, we need to select the curve object. Let's say that we want to make these three lines smaller in width. You can go through the vector menu and then separate curves. Please do not click on anything else. In this condition, you need to hold Shift and then keep clicking on the curves we want to extrate which of these three curves. After that, open the vector menu again and then choose merge curves. Now, these curves are combined again as a single object. Let's increase the line thickness of the object to 1.5 points. We can keep the width of the three curves the same, but we should merge these curves into a single object using the merge curves command. Okay. Next is the short. It is basically the same process. Select the curve object, go to the vector menu, then separate curves hold shift, and keep clicking on the curve that we want to separate Sorry, for the shirt, the border curve is actually already a single object, so you don't need to perform merged curves. Just set the line width to 1.5 points. Next, we can select these curves. And then perform the merged curves command. All right. Finally, the washing machine rowing, select the line object, then perform the separate curve command, hold shift, and then keep clicking on the curves if you want to separate After that, combine the selected curves again using the merge course command and set the line width to 1.5 points. I don't think I want any lines visible in these zones, so I prefer to just delete them. As for the rest of the thinner lines, we can select them and then perform D Merge cvs command, as you can see, simply having two types of line width can make the drawing look less generic and much more interesting. Before we move on, I think we should select all the circle shapes and a front loading door and then combine them all as a single object. We can do the same with the top panels. Combine these two shapes using the at Bullion command. When you are done, select all the objects belonging to the washing machine and then press Control G to group them. To do the same with the shot drawing, press Control G to group them. Lastly, the pens drawing. At the end, you should have only three group layers. One is the pens drawing, one for the shot drawing, and one for the washing machine, right? Next, we need to arrange the drawings and also add a semi circular shape behind them. First, let's move the washing machine here. Then rotate the pens, and then move them to about here, rotate the shirt clockwise, and then move it to about here. Okay. Next, we need to create a circle. For now, we don't need any fill color. Let's just make stroke color use the global color. Start from this point and then click Andra while holding Control and Shift. To both the size, press V, and let's adjust it again. All right. Next, press Control J to duplicate the circle. We will need to duplicate leader as the path for the tag line text. As for now, just make sure it is hidden so it doesn't get in the way. You only need one of them visible next, create a rectangle. We will use this to cut the circle, select both of the shapes and then perform a subtract volian eration. Okay? So this is what we have so far. Next, we can make the stroke wider. I think three points are enough. Set the field color to the dark purple color and then place the shape all the way to the bottom. Finally, we want to add forms inside the circle background object. We can start by creating a circle. We don't need any stroke for the shape. As for the field color, we can use the bright water color, but we can tweak it to be even brighter to almost white. Just make sure it is different from the washing machine color. Control androc the circle to copy it. Make it smaller, control and wreck again to copy it, and then duplicate the circle to this area. Just repeat the process until you like how the foam looks. To cover the bottom part, we can create a large rectangle. So like all the circles and rectangle and then perform an ad boolean operation. Finally, drag the layer so it is inside the half circle layer because the video is already quite long, we will continue the project in the next lesson video. I 79. 08-07 Laundry logo project part 4: In this video, we will finalize our laundry logo project. This is what we have so far from the previous lesson. Now, you want to add the main text or the brand name at this location. Use the artistic text tool. And then type QuickleN with one K letter and an I letter. Press escape, change the phone to yellow tail. As a reminder, you can download this phone for free from the Google Phone's website or the text here. To make the text closer to one another, you can hold out and press left arrow key. Just find an arrangement that you think is the best. You can resize the text again so it matches the width of the upper logo. For a text color, I'll go with this light purple, almost pink color. Now we need to create multiple stroke elements on this text. The thing is with affinity, at least at the current version, when I'm recording the video, it doesn't allow us to add multiple strokes to a text object. So the only way we can add multiple strokes is to convert the text object into ordinary curves. We can press Control Enter or open a vector menu. And then just convert to curves. As a result, we have each of the letters as editable curves all contained inside a group layer. To combine these curves into a single shape, we can select the group layer and then press the ad Boolean icon. So we are left with a single object. Now we can add multiple strokes to the object. Let's start with the first stroke. We want to use the same pink color as the field color. Four width, I think four or just three points are enough. Next, we can add the second stroke element by clicking on this button. We can drag this new stroke element, so it's behind the field element. As for the stroke color, we can open Swatches panel and then use the global color. Then click on With value and make it quite thick. I think ten points are enough. After that, we cannot just position again. Basically, I want to cover this line at the bottom. I think this is enough. Now we can move it to left or right. If needed, you can readjust the washing machine position again. And also reposition the shirt. Okay. Now the reason we add two strokes, one of which uses the same color as the fill is to add with graphic inside the text to create this. We can use the pen tool. For now, you only need to fill color without any true color. As for the fill, you can use the darker purple color. We can click here, then click Androg here and so on. A until you have something like this. Then we also need a wave shape inside the eye letter dot. You can simply click here, then here, and then end it by clicking on the first node. Hold Control to activate the node tool, and then drag this segment down. Just twick the handle until it covers the dot area. We can do the same with the we dot. Click here, then here, then click again on the first node, hold Control and click drag the segment down. We can also drag this top segment down to cove it. Let's also drag this stop segment Okay. When you are done, you can use the move tool to select all these purple wave shapes and then combine them all using the Boolean button, wreck the shape, so it is inside the text shape layer. The wave shape needs to be higher. We can double click to select the shape, activate the node pool, select one of the nodes, press control A to select all the connected nodes, and then move them up, using the up arrow key. Now, I think the first stroke is to take webset these two points and set the second rock stroke to nine points. Next, we want to add shiny stars or clean effects around the logo. For this, we can use the star tool, but we set the points value to only four. Set the field color to pure white, and set the stroke to no color. Click and drag to create a star. We can direct the left red node to curve out the center corners Move this star here, rotate it a bit. Control and move it to the right to copy it, rotate it the other way and scale it down. Just repeat the process until we have around four or five stars. To make them random or less uniform, I think we should move this one closer to the center. All right. Before we move on to adding the tag line, I want to make the tag lines in drawing elements even thicker to quickly set a curve object inside the group. You can double click on it, and let's change the stroke width two points. Dub click on this line, change the stroke width two points also. And finally, the B click on this line and change the width two points just as before. The last logo element that we want to add is the tag line around the logo. Previously, we hit a circle shape. Now it is time to use the circle, scale it up while holding on control and shift for both the size, activate the artistic text tool, then click on the top or at the outer area of the circle, not below or inside it. Currently, the text is too big. Let's first change the phone type to Fredoca set the style to medium and set the phone size to 11 points. We keep it small so the text can fit in. We can just the size reader if needed. Start typing in the text. For example, laundry now or naked tomorrow. To center the text, we can use the center alignment and then wreck the green cursor here android cursor here. On second thought, let's move these control nodes close to the main text like SOL. Now we can make the text bigger. Control A, just like, scroll up the phone size value about 23 points should be enough. As for the color, I believe the dark purple color will look nice on a text. Okay. Notice that we now have this small bright area on logo. To fix this, you can create a rectangular shape using the dark global color. Or another way to fix this issue is by using a mask. Basically, we can keep a certain part of the background element visible and high dress. For this, we can use the pentol set the stroke width to zero and then create a shape where you want a background shape to be visible. I Okay. Next, we need to dig the shape, so it acts as the mask for the circular background layer. Let's make this panel taller so we can see the bottom layer, all right. Remember to create a mask. You need to drag the shape into the thumbnail of the target layer, not on its name. So again, drag here, not here, and here is the result. Oh, sorry, guys, the mask shape is cutting the top part of Glogo. You can fix this by clicking on the mask layer or thumbnail and then use the node tool to dig the upper node until no area is being clipped or cut. Finally, because you are using a global color, if you think the global color is too dark, you can double click on the swatch and then make it a bit brighter or even change it to any color that you want. I think I will go with this purplish color. And h DullaO logo is done. 80. 08-08 Game title project part 1: In this project video, we'll create a game title from the words Zombie and boots. The font for the Zombie text is Bubble B, and the font for the bots text is tomorrow. As usual, you can download the fonts for free from the Google Phones website. To start, we can create an AF document in landscape mode. Next, to create the text. You can use the artistic text tool, click AndragT body size, and then type in Zombie press Escape, and then change the phone type to Bo B. If you think the gaps are too wide, you can hold the key and then press left arrow key. Try not to make the letters touch each other. Okay. Next, you want to add a bit of prospective effect. For this, we can go to the vector menu, then choose New group, and then choose quad. Move the top node to the right slightly, and let's do the same with the top right node. If you are done, you can press Control Enter to convert the text into ordinary curves. They are all inside the group layer. Make sure the group layer is selected and then press the Ed Boolean button so the curves are combined into a single object. All right. For now, we can swap the colors. Currently, I am using only 0.2 points for the stroke width. Press Control J to duplicate the object, strike the bottom one, move this down a bit, and then scale it down. We're holding control and shift. To body size. Let's move this down again. Basically, I am trying to avoid seeing holes inside letter B holes. Next, we need to create lines to bridge the top and bottom text shapes. For this to work properly, we need to use the snapping feature. We don't need any page snapping. We only need the geometry snap and the visible only snap settings. Activate the Pen tool. You can start from Z letter, click at this corner, and at this corner on bottom text. Control and click, then we can click here, click here, then Control click because this will be just a repetitive process. I speed up the video to save time. All right. Next, we can select the up tex shape. We want to place this on top of allers. You can do that quickly by pressing, **** control, closing bracket. Let's swap the color and change the field color to green. Okay. Sorry, you also need a stroke color. Use the same green color first, but then we make it darker. Let's adjust the width so we can see the stroe color. I think two points are enough. Place stroke not in the middle, but inside the shape a. Feel free to just stroke color again if needed. If you are done, we can select all of the objects by pressing Control A. Sorry, I think we should first join all these curves as a single object, so later we can easily select or delete it. Select the first curve, which is the one just below the green color text, called sheaf and then click on bottom layer. Open a vector menu and then choose the merge curve command. Now we only have two layers. Make sure both are selected. Activate the vector flood field tool. Select the less dark green color and make it even darker. Click right here, and then click right here. As for the bottom, you can click Break all these three zones. We will fix this spot leader. Click and drag these three zones around the letter. Click ones here. Click, click. Click, click, click and drag here. Click and Drag again. Click. Click drag these three zones to remove the hole. Zoom in and try to click drag from the smooth zone to the left. Click and Drag here, and then click drag here. Click and break these three zones. Click and Drag this side. Click, click Brek and finally click and drag. Now that we have the fill areas, we can select the black stroke object and then delete it. All right. Before we move on, let's fix several areas in existing shapes. For example, we can select this shape, A, select this node and then just delete the node. Let's find other unwanted shapes that we need to fix. Notice that there is a small gap below the B letter. Again, we can fix this using the node tool. We can move this node to the top and we also need to move the handle like so. Okay, guys, I think we are done for this lesson video. We'll continue the project in the next video. 81. 08-09 Game title project part 2: In this video, we will continue our project, which is creating a game title. This is what we have so far from the previous lesson. Now we want to add shading effects using gradient coloring. We will start with simple two node gradient coloring, and then after that with more complex three to four node gradients. Let's start with this shape. Use the field tool. I think we should turn off the snapping feature so it doesn't get in the way. For the shape, we can click andrag from left to right. Next, we can select the shape. On second thought, let's first focus on other shapes that need simple two node gradients. For example, we can click on this shape and then click Andrag to the left. This should use a more complex gradient. You can use a simple gradient for the shape. Click and drag to the top, slightly to the right. I think you can use a simple gradient also with the shape. And also on the shape. Okay. Click on this shape, and then click Androg to the left. Click on the shape, click Andro likes and we can do the same with the bottom hole. Select the bottom shape, click Andro to the right We can also use a simple gradient on each side. And also on the side, play around with the nodes positions until you like how it looks. Select the shape and then click Andrag to the bottom left part, and then just do the same with the shape. Okay. I think all of the simple gradient colorings are done. Next, we can start working on more complex gradients. We can click on this shape and then click Androg to create a simple gradient first. We want to make this area darker, just like the upper area. For this, we need to add a new node at the center. For the new center node, we can pick a brighter version of the green color. As for the bottom end node, we can pick a darker green color. I think we should add another bright color node in the center, so we have a total of four nodes in each gradient. All right. For the bottom shape, you can start from a two node gradient and repeat the process. But a faster way to do this is by copying the existing gradient from the previous shape. For this, we can use move to first, and then select the shape you want to copy, press Control C. Next, select the target shape, and then press Control Shift V to paste only the style. If you forget the shortcut, you can always open the edit menu, then paste and then choose style. As you can see, the shortcut for this command is Control Shift V. Now, sometimes affinity slings or skews the gradient nodes. No worries. We can easily fix this by moving the strengthen nodes. Let me move this here so you can see it better. Basically, if you make it perpendicular to the main nodes, you will get the original gradient control nodes. Okay? Just move the nodes around until the shading effect looks believable. I think I'll go with this setup. Next, we can select the shape, press Control Shave V, or use the edit menu, and then the pace style command again, just as before. Fix the skew control nodes. And then tweak the nodes until the shading looks nice. Select the bottom shape, press Control Shave V two pace the style, fix the skewing and then adjust the nodes positions And that's it, I believe we are done with the gradient coloring. Next, we want to add highlight effects to the text, but before we do that, let's like all the layers that make up the shading colors. And then press Control G to group them all. This way, we are left with just two man layers in layer s panel. Okay? Now, we need to focus only on the upper text layer. We can hide the bottom layer for now. To create yellow highlight effects on top of the text, we can first press Control J to duplicate layer. Hide this layer for now. As for the bottom layer, we want to change the field color to yellow. Okay. Now we can unhide the top layer again. As a reminder, we now have two similar layers stacking on top of each other. The bottom one is yellow, while the top one is green. We want to drag the green layer, so it is inside the yellow layer. Just to show you again what is going on here, you can see that the green text is now inside the yellow text. Okay? Next, by using the down arrow key, we can notch or move the green layer down a bit. For the inner green tags, we don't need any straw color, but we do need to add gradient coloring to it. Use the fill tool. Click and drag from the bottom to the top while holding Shift. Like so. Let's unhight the bottom shading sheets. So this is what we have so far. Next, we need to add additional details to the highlight areas. We can use the pen tool we will be needing only the field color without any stroke. Set the field color to solid color and then pick the existing yellow highlight color. I don't think I will need to change the yellow color, but to play it safe, you can create a global color from this yellow color. That is, if later, you want to easily revise it, you can start by creating a new document palette named the palette Zambiogo the yellow color is already active, so we can just click on this add color as global color icon. Next, we can create a polygonal shape like this. Then another one here. And let's create another shape here. Basically, I am trying to make the highlights look better by adding more shapes on top of the existing rowing because the process is repetitive, I am speeding up the video. As you can see, I am just using polygons or sharp nodes in this process. You can create better shapes with smooth segments if you want to Now, when you are zooming in, you may get annoyed by this pixel grid. You can turn it off by going to the video menu, then show, and then choosing pixel grid. Again, because the process is repetitive, I'll speed up the video to save time. After you have all the shapes, feel free to tweak them again as you see fit. I'll just skip the video. As I am sure, you already understand the process. After you are done, you can select all the yellow highlight shapes and then combine them all using the Ed Willian command. A 82. 08-10 Game title project part 3: In this video, we will continue our game title project. This is what we have so far from the previous lesson. Now, we are going to add green dots all over the zombie text. For this, we will need to use the Ellipse tool. We won't be needing the stroke color, but we will need a fill color. We can set it to the dark green color that we used before. Create one single ellipse here. And then we holding control, we can copy this ellipse. Just repeat the process until we have multiple ellipses across the text. Try to randomize the ellipses so they look natural. To make them look even more organic or less generic, you can rotate and stretch or squash them. Just repeat this process for all of the ellipses. I'll speed up the video to save time. Okay. After that, we can select all of Phillip's layers and then combine them all using the ad Willian button. We can reduce the opacity just a little bit. And then we want to clip or move this layer so it is inside the top text layer. If you want to edit some of ellips placements, you need to do this using the node tool for the Block leak to select the ellipsis object, and then select one of the nodes, Control A, and then move them to any location that you want. I think we need to lower the opacity again to around 60 or 70%. All right. Next, we want to add the bots text. Use the Artistic text tool, click and write like so. Then type boots. Let's Escape, and then change the phone type to tomorrow. Change the style to both or perhaps extra bold. Before we edit the gap, let's first add a gray field color. For the stroke color, we can also set it to gray but much darker. Next, we can increase the stroke with value and set the corner type to mi dr Now, we can edit the tracking or the kerning, press V, then hold out and press, arrow key to add more gaps. As you can see, the gap is not that uniform. You can double click to place the text cursor here, press out, and then left arrow to move the text, place the text cursor here, and then hold and press, left arrow again to reduce the gap. Okay. Next, we want to add yet another stroke outside the existing stroke. If you remember in this version of affinity, we cannot add multiple strokes to a text object. Basically, we need to convert this text into an ordinary curve object. For this, we can press Control Enter. As usual, affinity creates all letter shapes inside the group. You can then select the group object and press the add Bolan button. Now we can add more strokes to the object, place the new stroke at the bottom. Set stroke color to yellow, almost orange. And then you can set the stroke with value quite high. Let's make the corner of shop I think about 5.6 should do it. After that, we can place it in front slightly below the zombie text. All right. Before we move on to the next step, I think we should add a dark background color now. Use the rectangle tool. Click and drag to body size. We don't need any extra color for this background, and then choose a dark bluish color almost black. Place this layer at the bottom, and then lock the layer. Sorry, guys, I think we need to make the background darker. You can double click here if you need a larger color picker. Okay, we can now lock the layer again. First, we can use the fill tool and then click and write downward while holding Shift to create a straight gradient color on both stacks. Next, we want to add a reflection effect. For this, we can click here to create a new gradient node and then change the nodes color to something bright. We can make it light sine color. And then we can add yet another node here and make the color for this node darker. Move this node up almost touching the next upper node. Just play around with the nodes positions. Essentially, I want to make it look like a reflection of the horizon. And for the bottom node, I think I want to make it brighter. All right. Next, we need to create another gradient coloring, but Oatic stroke. For this, first, we need to select the stroke element. Sorry. Make sure the object is selected, then select this stroke element, activate the field tool. Before we do anything, make sure the content type is set to stroke. Click andro or holding shift from top to bottom. For the upper node, you need to use a very bright color. The brightness should surpass the bright color in the field area. We can make it almost white. As for the bottom node, we can make it darker than the bottom fill color. Okay. Next, we can draw custom shapes to strengthen the highlight of the specular colors. For this, we can use the pen tool. We will only need the fill color. We can set stroke width to zero, just to play it safe and then set the field color to white. You can click here, here, then here and here. Control click to finish up. Just do the same with the other letters. I'm speeding up the video to save time. Now, we want to add the opposite effects. We want to strengthen the shudo area. We can use the pen tool again, but now we use a black color. We need to reduce the opacity. We can input the value if we use the color of spanel. Let's set this to 40%. We can click here, here, then here and here, and back to the first node. I'm splitting up the video again as the process is basically identical. All right. Next, I think I want to add highlight colors also on surfaces that are less bright than the top surfaces. You can use white again for the color. But you set the opacity value to only 30%, create a shape on the surface. Next, on the surface, and so on, the process should be identical, so I'm speeding up the video again. And this is what we have so far. 83. 08-11 Game title project part 4: In this video, we will finalize our game title project. Previously, we added highlights and shadow color effects to the bots text. I still think that the bots text needs more specular effects to define some of its edges. For this, we can use the pen tool again, set the color to white. Make sure the opacity is set all the way to 100%. For example, we can create a white, sharp edge on this area. Like so, we can also create one on the left side of the letter. Then another one on the right side of the letter. And finally, create another one on the letter. I think these are enough. Before we move on to the next step, we currently have so many layers. We can selack all the shape with the same fill color and then combine them using the Ed Boolean command. We can combine these back transparent layers. And finally, we can combine all these white colored layers. Now, we only have one, two, and three layers for the effects. We can select the three layers and then group them. So at the end, we are left with just a single layer to control the effects feasibility. Next, we will add both or screw elements around boots text. We can start with the Ellipse tool, click and ack while holding Shift. Use the field tool and then click and Rack like saw change the gradient type to radial. Then for the top node color, we can dig this bright color. And for the bottom node color, we can pick this dark color. Now I want to make the specular highlight on both shape sharper. We can do this by first creating two additional nodes. Make them close to one another, then select this node and then make it darker. Okay. Next, we want to add a bit of shadow area around the bolt. You can do this by adding a black stroke color and then make the stroke wider. Sorry, I forgot to select the bolt object, make sure it is selected, set the stroke color to black, and then try to increase the width. I think one point is more than enough because the bolt object is very small. Set the stroke placement to be in the middle and place the stroke beneath the fill element. I think the size is already correct. We just need to make the stroke color less opaque. I think 20% is enough. Next, you can use the move tool to reposition the bolt object. Hold control and then move this down holding sheaf, then hold control and move duplicate here, and then duplicate another one here and so on. This will be a repetitive process, so I'll speed up the video. Alright. To tidy up layers, we can select all the both layers and then group them all into a single group layer. And so this is what we have so far. Next, we want to create green melting glue from zombie text. For Ruffles phase, we can create ellipses, set the field color to solid color, and then pick the existing green color in a zombie text. But let's make it brighter. We won't be needing any stroke, so let's just zero this out. We can place an ellipse here, then here, and so on. Remember, this is the first phase of the process. We will connect these ellipses later so they look like a continuous liquid. Just try to place these ellipses according to how you want to form the liquid. Okay. Next, to connect the ellipses, we can use the fan tool. For now, we won't be needing any stroke element. We'll just need to feel color. Also, the snapping feature should be helpful in this process. We can start from here and then click and drag here. Essentially, to make the final surface look seamless, we need to drag the handles so that they align with the cur feature of the ellipse. Another example, you can click and drag like this and then click and drag in its direction to match the curvature of iv shape. Click here and just repeat the process. I am speeding up the video asst of the process is practically identical. Feel free to edit the ships with the node tool if you are still not satisfied with the first drawing we created using the Pen tool. All right. When you are done, you can select all the green shapes and then combine them all using the Bullion command. Press control shave, open bracket, to move it to the bottom. Now it is hidden behind the background layer. Press control closing bracket to move it up one level. The last step of organ title project is to add a black outline around the title. First, try to find the layers that hold the text element. They are inside these three layers. Select these layers and then press Control J to duplicate layers. Let's move this on top for now. We can directly combine these two zombie text layers using the Ed Bullen button. But for the boots text, you cannot do that directly. Just to prove this, if I use the Ed Bolean command directly, you can see how the stroke elements are discarded by affinity. Let me undo this. Basically, if you have stroke elements and you want to add those strokes in Bollan process, you need to first convert the strokes to fills to do this. You can open the vector menu and then choose expense stroke as you can see, the strokes are converted into fills in separate layers. Now we can select all these layers and then press the eight boolean button to combine them all into a single object. Okay. You can change the field color to black and also set the stroke color to black, set stroke type to mire, and I think we can leave the rest as they are. Move layer, so it is at the bottom, but above the background layer. Now we can increase the width value I want to make this whole fully covered or in by color. 8.9 should do it. If you like how the title looks, then you can consider this project done. Personally, I am not a fan of this sharp bump at the top. If you want to fix this, you need to perform the Band stroke command again. As before, affinity creates additional layers to contain the converted field area. You can select both layers and then combine them using the Adblean command. Now you can press A for the node tool, select this node, and then move it down. You can edit other areas if you want to. As a final touch, let's add a bit of gradient shading to the go element. For this, we can activate the field to click and drag from the bottom up while holding Shift, and that's it. AHdilla, our game title project is done.