I don't understand what you mean Lyle. Aren't you supposed to merge or turn off the paths after stroking?

After stroking the paths are still visible and hide the result. Merging them is a way to make it simpler to hide them (only one path to hide afterwards). But you can also use shift-click to hide them all.

Not if you use ofnuts stroke all visible paths' Molly. It appears to give a different result then merging all paths before stroking.

Yes but if you merge the layers before you stroke, then you only have one layer to "stroke all visible layers" How can that work. Ofnuts said you have to have at least more than one layer or the plug-in won't work.

I didn't merge when I stroked Molly.

By the way, at least w.r.t. piped brushes, there's no difference in stroking merged paths then stroking visible paths so long as the brush is sized as is, so I was wrong Molly.

Even more fun w/ pipe cleaners. lol

http://imageshack.com/a/img661/498/Ua9Gth.png

I knew you were Lyle. There is no way you can stroke visible paths if there are none to stroke.

@Ofnuts - re my question re stroking. I replicated the sequence this morning and have listed it below.

Test 1 - simple path
1.Draw enclosed path using path tool
2.Select brush = #2 hardness 50, size = 20, spacing =100, dynamics = colour from gradient
3.Select blend, mode = normal
4.Blend enclosed path with selected gradient
5.Select different gradient, change mode to multiply
6.Use GIMP stroke path tool - choose ‘stroke with paint tool’, select ‘paintbrush’, turn on ‘emulate brush dynamics’

Result = filled path object with dark stroked edging

Test 2 - mutiple paths
7.Draw enclosed path using path tool
8.Duplicate path, move path, resize path
9.Use 'Generate Intermediate Paths' tool on duplicated path, 50 paths created (all visible)
10.No change to brush = #2 hardness 50, size = 20, spacing =100, dynamics = colour from gradient
11.Select blend, mode = normal
12.Use ‘stroke/fill visible paths script’ = fill paths with selected gradient (OK)
13.Select different gradient, change mode to multiply
14.Use ‘Stroke/fill visible paths script’ = stroke paths selecting options ‘from gradient’, ‘stroke’, ‘single’, background fill “transparent’
15.Script executes, GUI closes
16.N.B. - all required paths visible, no error messages


Result - filled path object but NO STROKED paths. I then tried several different brush spacing sizes but that seemed to make no difference to the result.

I am probably misunderstanding something somewhere and for that I apologise - but seniors are allowed to have their moments!!

Not talking about that. Paths were visible that I stroked previously using ofnuts's python plugin. What I'm talking here is if you merge all visable paths and stroke, you get an equivalent result as stroking all visible paths using ofnut's plugin as long as the brush size is identical.

If you merge the paths you can stroke the result with Edit>Stroke path. But the whole point of stroke-visible-paths is that it can do something different for each path (have its own layer/color).

Foreword: stroke-visible-paths use the piece of code to stroke path available to scripts, which is in practice quite different from the stroke-path dialog (no emulation of brush dynamics, use the paint brush instead of chosen tool... )

11: blend more for what? (although I think its irrelevant here)
12: you are asking for fill there, so that's coherent....
13: mode of what?
14: what is the opacity? Is the color different from the ones in the gradient?

OK - I am making an assumption that what I did in test1 on a single path (not using scripts) will be emulated on multiple paths in test2 using the scripts. I am making another assumption that 'blend modes' for gradient function will work with stroking and filling, both for standard GIMP and in scripted functions.

In each test, for the stroking function I changed the 'blend mode' to 'multiply', in all cases 'opacity' was 100%.

In each test the gradient used for 'fill' was the same, in each test the gradient used for 'stroke' was the same but that gradient was different colours from the fill gradient.

Hopefully the above is coherent. EDIT EDIT EDIT .... I am down on my knees right now and at my age that is not so easy! I think I have found MY problem, in that typically using the path tool to commence the workflow, I ended up with a current selection, which among many, many eventual paths was not eminently visible or I was just too eager and not seeing it. So the path of that selection was probably stroked but I was looking at the big picture expecting all paths to be stroked and did not see it.

Anyway Ofnuts, I apologise profusely for taking up your time; thankyou for your assistance. I will slow down and try a few more gradient strokes now just to practice!!

Can anyone please tell me what this error means. I had it a couple of times before. How do I make it right?
I am using the path inbetween generator with two layers

Delete path #2 and then duplicate path #1 to replace it.

okay... OOOPS, it didn't work.'So I deleted both paths and started over and tried it again and I get that error again. whats up with that, I wonder

It didn't work?
I think you have to compare the paths and remove the extra nodes that are showing up in the 2nd path.
Or maybe remove 4 nodes from the 2nd path.

Thanks,I got it now Wallace. BTW, I noticed on the videos you made, yours showed the nodes but mine never do. I can't understand why.

Path-inbetweener creates the intermediate path by computing point between two corresponding points in the start and end path. This is done stroke for stroke, and between strokes, point by point. Which implies that both paths have the same number of strokes, and that the strokes at the same order/place in both path have the same number of points. If not, you get the message above. The message tells you which strokes to look at by giving you the coordinates of the first point.

In practice, unless you are working with simple paths, it is hard to make sure that the second path has the same number of strokes/points as the first, unless its a deformation of a copy of the first. You cannot, for instance, use text produced with two different fonts because the fonts will likely not use the same number of points for given character.

Thanks ofnuts. As I said to Wallace, why does his points show when he is in the path mode? I never see the points. I know I used to see them all the time doing other projects and I could get rid of them by just choosing another tool.