Difficulties making a clipping mask



  • I want to make the red clip inside the black shape. I have grouped the black parts and also used the combine boolean
    I tried Arrange- Inside Last, and I tried dragging the sublayer under the top layer... what am I missing?

    Here is my video



  • @Boldline Are the black shapes combined into one and also grouped?

    Anyway, pasting the red pattern object inside one shape should work (Edit > Paste Inside).

    If however you try to paste an object inside a group of objects, it will just become part of that group, and will not be masked inside those shapes in the group. It's a different behavior.

    So if the black objects are grouped…

    • ungroup them,
    • combine them into one shape with Union, then…
    • move the red pattern over the shape,
    • cut it,
    • select the black shape and…
    • use Paste Inside.

  • administrators

    @Boldline There are two ways to do this.

    One way: as @b77 said, ungroup all black shapes and them combine with Union to create a single clipping shape. Then paste inside, or drag&drop in the layers panel will do the trick.

    The other way: if you want to keep all the black part editable, leave it as a single group.

    • select the black group and select Object -> Object Options and given a name for the group, and then click on Role and select the Shape role and confirm with OK.
    • now we have a shape style that we can use for clipping the other group. And the shape is obtained ynamically by combined the shapes from the black group.
    • select the red group and in the context panel Shape drop down select the shape name given to the black group.
    • this selects the shape style as the clipping shape of the red group.

    BTW: these above steps are very VS specific, I send a basic example by email.