Unite objects but keep different fills?

[Mark5C74]

I have quite some experience with Illustrator, but today I ran into a problem I can't seem to solve. I'm not sure if my brain is really letting me down, or if this is something I just never had to do before.

I made a compass rose pointer (for a GUI I'm working on) with 2 different fills, and I want to round the corners. However, in the lower and upper corner where the shapes come together, the corners of both shapes become round seperately. So I need to unite the shapes, but keep te different fills. How can this be done? 😐

 

[Ton Frederiks · Accepted solution]

You cannot unite the shapes and keep different fills.

What you could do is start with a single shape, round the top and bottom corners.

Draw a vertical line from above the top to below the bottom in the center of the shape, select it and choose Object > Path > Divide Objects Below. 

Color the 2 resulting shapes and group them.

[Mark5C74]

Thanks Ton!! Of course, why haven't I thought of that myself! Good to know it can't be done the other way though, that's valuable knowledge as well. Thanks for your help, much appreciated! ^_^

[Ton Frederiks]

Good to hear that helped, Mark.

But with Illustrator there are often ways to accomplish what you thought could not be done.

I found a way to fill one shape with 2 gradients. It looks more complicated than the solution I described above, but why make it easy if it can be done difficult?

Create a shape and round the top and bottom corner.

In the Appearance panel, add 2 fills with different gradients.

Convert the fills to a rectangle using the Convert to Shape > Rectangle Effect.

Move the fills to the left and right using the Transform Effect.

Add a Pathfinder > Crop Effect and move it below the other items in the Appearance panel.

[Ton Frederiks]

I realize that the second method is not very useful, the resulting object cannot be rotated, scaled horizontally or vertically without re-transforming the gradients.

[Mark5C74]

Whoa that's genius! I love making things complicated too haha! Simply for the purpose of finding new ways to do things and being awesome. 👌 Although this might not be the most useful method, I was not familiar with this option, and I really learned something new today! Thanks for taking the time to try things out, that is so kind! 😊

[d0nut247]

I'd just

select all

copy

paste in front

path finder > unite

select all

object > clipping mask > make

select the mask and then pull on the radius anchors as required.

[Ton Frederiks]

Or create 2 rectangles with the gradients, Cut.

Select the object, click the Draw inside icon and Paste.