Save HOURS with this UNKNOWN shortcut for node editing
How to save tons of time node editing to make straight lines with one simple button click. This tip applies to Vectric VCarve, Aspire, and Cut2D.
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Video Transcript:
Hello everyone. In this quick tip, I'm going to show you how to take lines that are not straight and make them nice and straight, either horizontally or vertically. And I drew this super simple shape as an example. I exaggerated the lines a little bit, but when you draw something or trace it, or even import an object, sometimes the lines are not going to be as straight as you may want them to be.
And it's actually really easy to fix that. And that's by using the node edit mode. So you're going to select your object and the keyboard shortcut to get into your node editing is the letter N. You can also right click on the object and then go to node edit mode. Now you're going to see the end points to all of these lines.
Which are called the nodes and you'll see how these are not a perfectly aligned straight this whole line up here So if you just draw a selection box around all four of those nodes that you want to be in a nice straight line They will now turn red Representing that they are selected now.
There's two keyboard keys, you need to use to straighten these up. And that is either the letter X to line them up in the X direction, which is left to right, or the letter Y to line them up in the Y direction, which is top to bottom. In this case, we want to align these left to right. So we're just going to type the letter X on our keyboard, and you'll see all those points are now in a nice straight vertical line.
And with one click of a button, that saves you a lot of time trying to manually drag these and move them around to get them lined up. And also if you want them to align to a specific point, you have to select that point first. So let's say we wanted this horizontal line to line up with this point right here.
So you would first click on that point to select it, and it will turn red. And then hold your shift key and select all the other points that you want to align to that point. So we'll select that whole row there. And now we want to align it top to bottom, so we're going to click the letter Y. And you'll see all three of those points we selected last, aligned up to that very first point we selected.
So that's how you can choose which point you want them to align to. And now you can see, you can do this super quick too. You can select all these with the selection box, click the letter Y to align those. Select these down here. Click the letter Y up here. Click the letter Y. So that fixed all of our Y directions.
Now we'll do the X directions. So let's start over here, select these two. Click the letter X. We already did that row. Let's do this one. And we got to select all four of those, and click the letter X. And then select these ones. Click the letter X. And there you go. Now all of your shapes are perfectly straight.
And you can even grab one of these lines. and move it up or down if you want to change anything about these shapes. But that's it for this tip. Hopefully that speeds up your designing process. And if you enjoy this video, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
And it's actually really easy to fix that. And that's by using the node edit mode. So you're going to select your object and the keyboard shortcut to get into your node editing is the letter N. You can also right click on the object and then go to node edit mode. Now you're going to see the end points to all of these lines.
Which are called the nodes and you'll see how these are not a perfectly aligned straight this whole line up here So if you just draw a selection box around all four of those nodes that you want to be in a nice straight line They will now turn red Representing that they are selected now.
There's two keyboard keys, you need to use to straighten these up. And that is either the letter X to line them up in the X direction, which is left to right, or the letter Y to line them up in the Y direction, which is top to bottom. In this case, we want to align these left to right. So we're just going to type the letter X on our keyboard, and you'll see all those points are now in a nice straight vertical line.
And with one click of a button, that saves you a lot of time trying to manually drag these and move them around to get them lined up. And also if you want them to align to a specific point, you have to select that point first. So let's say we wanted this horizontal line to line up with this point right here.
So you would first click on that point to select it, and it will turn red. And then hold your shift key and select all the other points that you want to align to that point. So we'll select that whole row there. And now we want to align it top to bottom, so we're going to click the letter Y. And you'll see all three of those points we selected last, aligned up to that very first point we selected.
So that's how you can choose which point you want them to align to. And now you can see, you can do this super quick too. You can select all these with the selection box, click the letter Y to align those. Select these down here. Click the letter Y up here. Click the letter Y. So that fixed all of our Y directions.
Now we'll do the X directions. So let's start over here, select these two. Click the letter X. We already did that row. Let's do this one. And we got to select all four of those, and click the letter X. And then select these ones. Click the letter X. And there you go. Now all of your shapes are perfectly straight.
And you can even grab one of these lines. and move it up or down if you want to change anything about these shapes. But that's it for this tip. Hopefully that speeds up your designing process. And if you enjoy this video, make sure you like and subscribe for more.
