cut a text-shape out of bezier curve, problem!

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi!

I want to have a closed bezier curve shape (circle, for example), and the cut a text-shape out of it. The problem is: Only the first letter gets cut out of the surrounding bezier shape.

I already found out that I can cut a hole into a bezier curve simply by adding another bezier shape to the object and putting it inside the first shape (a circle within a circle will result in a circle with a hole in it). So I thought I do this for my text problem: First, create the surrounding curve object (bezier circle in the example). Then create the text using the text-object, and convert that to a curve object. Join the two curve objects, and move the text-curve inside the surrounding bezier-curve. It should now show the surrounding bezier curve with the text-curve cut out of it. Well, that was my idea, it sounded good for me.

But when I try that way, I only get the first letter cut out of the bezier curve, not the other letters. I show two screenshots to illustrate my problem: The first shows the bezier circle and the text (already converted to curve object and joined with the circle) before I move it inside the circle, and the second image is the text moved inside the circle. You can see that the 2nd, 3rd and 4th letter are NOT cut out of the circle.



  • Why is it not cutting out the shapes of the other letters?
  • How do I make it cut out the shapes of the other letters?

The problem does not depend on the shape of the letters, it’s always just the first letter that is correctly processed, no matter what that first letter looks like.

I could do it single letter by single letter, creating a text-curve for each letter separate, but that is very tiresome for many such objects and long texts, of course. There must be an easier way to get this?

Sorry for my english, I hope you understand what I ask.

2

No worries, your English is perfect.

For it to behave like you want, you must extrude the curve some. The smallest allowable amount is enough, but you must do this.

So, extrude the object 0.0001 - this will not show up afterwards, the button will show as Extrude: 0.000 but your text will do what you expect.

3

Thank you very much, extrusion solved my problem! :slight_smile:

But anyway, I find this a strange behaviour of Blender: If overlapping curves are a problem if not extruded, I would expect to have this problem on all letters, not just the second onwards… but maybe the developers have a good reason for this, I don’t know.

4

Shh! We do not question such things. We just accept it. :stuck_out_tongue:

Devs have limited time - when the workaround is so simple, I fully appreciate that no one bothers with it. Blender has many of these 800 lb gorilla type things. They’re friendly, though. Usually. Just keep moving. :smiley:

5

I also occassionally come up with this unexpected behavior. What solves it for me is to select the nodes of the offending part(s) then Wkey, switch direction. Or sometimes my some of my curves are not closed, or have overlapping nodes…
But I didn’t know about the extrude 0.0001 trick. Now I don’t have to do it the hard way. Thanks from me, too…