Shouldn’t the Shade according to power setting on the Preview handled the “laser power” the same way for Layer’s Max power and Shape properties’ Power Scale?
Example:
1st square: layer 1, 100% max power (layer), 100% power scale (shape properties)
2nd square: layer 2, 40% max power (layer), 100% power scale (shape properties)
3rd square: layer 1, 100% max power (layer), 40% power scale (shape properties)
Shouldn’t the Shade according to power setting be more like:
shade preview = layer max power X shape power scale
examples:
shade1 = 100% x 40% = 40%
shade2 = 40% x 100% = 40%
shade3 = 50% x 50% = 25%
It does work the way it’s intended to, mostly because it’s intended only to show power scaling, gray scale, and ramps, not a representation of true” power. True power is also affected by speed, and at some point 8 bits of gray just doesn’t give you enough range.
In the example, speed is the same on all layers, so “true power” should be equal in the last 2 squares.
Personally, I think it’s easier and more intuitive to change the “laser power” on the layers and not on the shape properties tab.
Using multiple layers with different settings, it’s easier to see the different shapes by the layer’s colours than having to go to the Preview to check the differences or having to click on each shape to check the value.
And if we need to move a shape around of one type of shade is a constant select, ungroup, select specific shape, move to new place and group all the shapes of the same value of shade… it’s tiring and not very user friendly.
If we have 4 laser modes (image, line, fill and fill+line) why do we need so many layers?
It doesn’t make much sense to me, to put all fill shapes in a single fill layer, specially if the shapes are close to each other. It’s easy to mess up the shape’s value.
Layer’s colours make it easy to differentiate between shapes otherwise it’s just a big blob of colour (in filled mode) or some shapes without much meaning of contrast/shade, unless we check in the preview.
Unless the workspace can show shape’s max/shape power like an opacity, it’s not very user friendly to work with shapes of different power settings on the same layer.
True power is also affected by speed
Wouldn’t it be awesome if LB could show a super realistic preview…
Maybe “true shade” = speed X layer max power X shape power scale ?
I doubt you’ll find any disagreement here. That’s how nearly everyone works.
I don’t understand - why do you need to group them, and why would you do this at all? Power Scale is mainly for use in creating grids where you need more power values than you have layers. It’s not how I recommend people work normally.
Because you also have different power and speed settings, perforations, kerf, and a number of others. You generally don’t need that many layer settings, but some people do. In other software, the cut ordering tends to be less flexible, so cutting in layer order is used much more heavily.
