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Nick Made
Nick Made
Inspiring
October 21, 2018
Answered

Overlap adjacent path lines poor output

  • October 21, 2018
  • 2 replies
  • 464 views

Hello,

I'm experiencing visual issues with path lines for overlapped/adjacent paths/shapes.

It can be reproduced by:

  1. setting 'Snap to pixel'  (to ensure decimal values on XY pixel values aren't the cause)
  2. creating two squares aligned perfectly next to each other
  3. changing opacity to 50%

It's not a GPU/video driver issue because the problem was found in After Effects, and any raster output (MP4, PNG) in AE/AI shows the jagged edge gaps. Upon SVG export, there are also jagged, problematic path lines.

I've tried typing in x/y values on simple, square shapes, and even with two Y values matched, it has the same issue.

I'm running AE CC 2019, 23.0 in OSX Mojave 10.14.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer Nick Made

The issue is more so related to vector rendering than Illustrator. The problem isn't related to GPU rendering, X/Y sub-pixel values (uncontrollable), etc.

The solution in Illustrator for those that may come across this is to:

  • position lighter objects behind darker objects when possible with Arrangement - Send to Back
  • overlap paths behind when necessary using the pen tool

This issue will persist until handling of anti-aliasing in vector elements is fundamentally changed. With SVG usage becoming the norm for web integrations, hopefully, it's sooner than later.

2 replies

Nick Made
Nick MadeAuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
October 22, 2018

The issue is more so related to vector rendering than Illustrator. The problem isn't related to GPU rendering, X/Y sub-pixel values (uncontrollable), etc.

The solution in Illustrator for those that may come across this is to:

  • position lighter objects behind darker objects when possible with Arrangement - Send to Back
  • overlap paths behind when necessary using the pen tool

This issue will persist until handling of anti-aliasing in vector elements is fundamentally changed. With SVG usage becoming the norm for web integrations, hopefully, it's sooner than later.

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
October 21, 2018

So you have issues with rendering in After Effects and you think the issue is in Illustrator? Can you please describe the issues?

ALso: "Align to pixel" is not about values, but about visual integrity. Align to pixel might introduce Decimal values into your artwork. If you want to insure there are no decimals, then turn it off.

Nick Made
Nick MadeAuthor
Inspiring
October 21, 2018

Hi, thanks for responding.

No, I was emphasizing that the output is the same whether it's rasterized from AI or integrated directly to AE and exported in a raster format such as an MP4. It also is seen in SVG.

The issue is the edges which are shared in the same parallel space are rendering improperly.

This is in After Effects:

Here is an SVG output in Chrome:

I recreated the vector w/the pen tool in AI to test if it was a shape builder related issue but you can see the overlap (but no gap) with opacity on:

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