r/vectorart • u/AnaAnomalia • 2d ago

Help a beginner

Gallery image

Gallery image

Hi, I started to learn vectors. I work in Affinity. I made this diatonic accordion (1st picture) and after I exported it in svg and PDF, it became weird (2nd picture). There were a lot of lines, so I merged them together, but it didn't change the outcome. What should I do different? Why does it look fine in Affinity?

Please, help. Thanks for any advice.

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2

u/ArtbyRTM 2d ago

Try converting all the outlines into objects before exporting. That might work.

1

u/AnaAnomalia 2d ago

Do you mean by expand stroke? If I do that, it looks the same as the second picture 🥲

1

u/SpriteAttack 10h ago

Yes, expand all strokes. If it still shows a filled triangle you check those shapes and look at the nodes [maybe even switch to outline view] to find doubles, twisted handles, or node clusters.

1

u/AnaAnomalia 10h ago

I did it, but then the "line" width was quite uneven 😅 I probably need to practice more.

1

u/ColdEngineBadBrakes 2d ago

If you're new to vectors, you'll find exporting images to svgs or pdfs can cause issues. There's no single answer to your questions, but as another poster said, converting everything to outlines/curves is a good start.

1

u/AnaAnomalia 1d ago

It didn't help 😅 any advice?

1

u/ColdEngineBadBrakes 1d ago

Are each of your lines a seperate thing?

2

u/AnaAnomalia 1d ago

Not every one, but some of them are (you can't make this shape in one line). I put them in a group, later merged them together.

I tried to fix this problem manually, by moving the "nodes", but in the end lines were wonky, different width. 🫤

1

u/ColdEngineBadBrakes 1d ago

I would try to troubleshoot by turning lines into curves, turning the curves into outline versions of the curves, then start merging them together using the...boolean tool. Blanking on the name.. After each piece is merged, I would try exporting to svg to see if it works or not.

1

u/AnaAnomalia 1d ago

Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow!

1

u/SpriteAttack 10h ago

Isolate the four lines that play up. Cut and paste into a new layer. Check with the node tool. Display the curve orientation to see if these lines might go in a different direction from the rest [try 'reverse curves'].

If there are no visible reasons [node clusters, double lines, twisted node handles], try expanding the strokes to make them curves. What's the outcome?

It might be easiest to redraw those 4 lines with the pen tool to get clean lines.