Keep Stroke on top of shape

[SkidMarc25]

Sorry if this is a simple question, I'm still pretty noobish with drawing in Moho...

I work in Moho 12 and 14 (depending on which PC I'm working on).

When I'm drawing a shape and I want to draw on darker areas or patterns that connect to the stroke I get this:

https://imgur.com/gallery/stroke-error-r3TRPjC

Sometimes I can fix this by selecting the stroke lines and apply a stroke to them again (to put the stroke on top). This does not always work however.

Is there a way to make it so the stroke is always on top of a shape?

I figure I could make the stroke, base color, and shade all separate layers, but that feels like it will clutter up the animation really quickly and make smart bone adjustments a pain in the rear (having to adjust 3 layers at ones hoping they all play nice together for the whole movement).

I guess I could also build my shapes by doing fill first then strokes last?

Any input would be appreciated.

[Greenlaw]

If I’m working with Regular Moho points, I add a point to the unstroked area and pull it inward. This hides the part of the fill that overlaps the underlying fill. When I’m working with Bezier points, I do the same by pulling the handle upward. If this is art that will be deformed by bones, I recommend doing this with Regular points.

[SkidMarc25]

If I’m working with Regular Moho points, I add a point to the unstroked area and pull it inward. This hides the part of the fill that overlaps the underlying fill. When I’m working with Bezier points, I do the same by pulling the handle upward. If this is art that will be deformed by bones, I recommend doing this with Regular points.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. If there's no strokes in the area why would you need to pull it inward?

[hayasidist]

Look at the point you've indicated. It has three segments that come from it. Each of those segments has a Bezier handle that controls the direction of the segment's path away from that point. There are also two shapes.

The first factor at play is the order of the shapes - and the indentation that you point out will show the fill colour of the shape that is on top. Now, if you grab the bezier handle for the segment that separates the dark shape from the light shape you can set it so that the dividing segment path leaves the other path heading into the shape that is on top -- and the indentation will disappear.

Or, add another point on the dividing line to force it to head in the right direction.

(and that's exactly what Greenlaw said in slightly different words.)

[Greenlaw]

My apologies! I was in a hurry to leave the house yesterday, and I misread your example. I'm not sure what I suggested will work in this case, but here's another solution, and this should work:

Make a separate shape for the stroke that goes on top of the two other shapes. They can all share the same points. For example:



(Note: I'm using Rai's Shape Window to show how the three shapes are stacked.)

Hope this helps.

[Greenlaw]

To clarify: what I originally suggested does work, and it's a technique I use all the time, but I think my situation is not exactly what you're showing. (An explanation of my situation is at the end of this post.) I only realized this after trying to recreate the image you posted, but I can't be sure what I recreated is exactly what you have.

Here's what my example looks like with the top 'stroke-only' Line shape hidden, which does resemble your example...



Note: Normally, I would Hide the strokes on the two underlying shapes because they might affect the antialiasing for the visible stroke on top. I've kept them visible in the above example to recreate your example.

Here's the same setup with the Line shape hidden, AND the strokes of the two Fill shapes deactivated.



Adding a third stroke-only shape that uses all of the points along the edge, will cover the edges of both fill shapes. I think this will work best for your situation, but It would help if you could upload an example file so I can be sure.

FYI, I typically see a similar problem when I'm creating poseable hands, and I have fingers and thumbs with 'open' segments that have to line up with the stroked hand edge. When the unstroked edge of a finger or thumb lies over the hand's stroked edge, it can look like the example you showed, and in this situation, my solution of adding and pulling a point into the finger/thumb shape works. But these are disconnected shapes and I'm not sure this is the same as your situation.

(Guess I should add another tutorial to the list.)

[Greenlaw]

Here’s one more tip: If you need to create stacked shapes that share the same points often, check out Synthsin75’s Create Shape tool. This is a tool mod that alllows me to do exactly that, and I use it often. This mod is installed as a separate Create Shape tool and doesn’t replace the native one.

Here’s the link to the tool: viewtopic.php?p=184390#p184390

Note: There are two tools in the download, and the Create Shape mod is one of the tools.