Point of confusion about masters and instances

Could someone help me clarify the nomenclature and use of masters and instances?

Specifically, I want to make a very condensed font. I’ll do a family of light, regular, bold and associated obliques.

I thought I would make a bold and a light and then interpolate for the regular.

Under Masters do I make a “regular” version. Or, is the Master the place to define the font as Condensed. Subsequently, under instances, is that the proper place to make the Bold Condensed, Light Condensed versions?

Thanks,

dglen

The masters are what you draw, and the instances are what you export/interpolate. So you define Masters for the Light and Bold and an instance for the Regular (and the Light and the Bold, too). Have a look at the Manual on how to set things up (you find it on the website in Resources > Tutorials.

OK. I was reading the manual. I’ll check the tuts. Thanks.

For a follow up question. If I like the font and want to make a non-condensed version do I have to create a light and bold non-condensed as well. In other words is there anyway to interpolate a non-condensed from two condensed masters?

D

I think there’s no easy answer to that question. You might want to delve into Tim Ahrens’ Remix Tools, currently a free beta for Glyphs and see what Scaler and Tuner can do for you.

Yes, you need to create new, non condensed Masters (or one slightly extended).
The RMX tools from Tim Ahrens can help a lot with that.

To slow :wink:

Wow. Great. I got the beta but didn’t really know how to delve into it. Now that I have a goal it’ll be easier. Example: I always wanted to learn python but wasn’t really motivated. Between Glyphs and FLS I’m having a really easy time learning as I’m fooling around with example scripts for both. Lots of fun.

Tim has great tutorial videos on his website. The user interface looks different in the Glyphs version, but the principle is the same.

@Georg: gotcha! :slight_smile:

Noted. Thanks.