Ugly diagonal strokes in interpolated variable font

Hi guys.
I need your help :raised_hand_with_fingers_splayed:
I work on a varaiable font with a width axis. The idea is to enlarge the width of the characters keeping a consistent stroke thickness.
I have 2 masters : one for the regular style and another one for the extra-large width.
As you can see in the video, the intermediate version between the 2 masters is ugly.
The inktraps are awful and the diagonal strokes are too large.

What can I do to avoid that thing ?

You need to add internal overlap. This makes it very tricky with the ink-traps

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Thanks a lot @GeorgSeifert but even with internal overlap the intermediate shape is not good.…


I was thinking about a method like this :
Alternating glyph shapes with multiple axes in Glyphs 2 | Glyphs

But I can’t manage to make it work.
Could it be the right choice ?

The internal overlaps only work without the ink-traps. At least it is much more complicate with them.

In the extended master, try moving the green nodes on the diagonal more to the middle of the line, making the ink-trap much bigger.

You’re right, @GeorgSeifert the diagonal stroke is better indeed, but the inktraps are not !:upside_down_face:
What do you think about the method with the seperate glyphs for an alternate glyph shape ?

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I told you it is difficult :wink: What you are seeing are kinks. Normally those show up on round shapes but are caused when the angle and the proportions change.

Now play with the positions of the ofhcurve nodes. That might help with the diagonals.

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Hey there. I spent a lot of time trying to handle those nodes/kinks but I couldn’t find a way to get rid of the ugly strokes…
I’m thinking about 2 other ideas, please tell me wht you guys think about them :
• Trying again with that solution : Alternating Glyph Shapes with Multiple Axes | Glyphs
• Create an intermediate master so I could design exactly the shape I want ?

Don’t do option one. That is not helping at all.
You might mitigate the problem with this: Additional Masters for Individual Glyphs: The Brace Trick | Glyphs But it is more a band-aid (a good one, but still).

Thanks @GeorgSeifert I’m on it !
Just to be sure : this solution work with a variable font with 2 axis ?

I read the article, and there’s something I can’t find :
The text & example only talk about 2 possible values for the brace tick : weight and width.
But my 2 axis are width & height, so how can I tell the brace layer to affect those axis ?

The tutorial is still not updated for Glyphs 3 (@mekkablue :wink: )
You don’t change the name of the layer but right click it and choose “intermediate” from the context menu. Then you double click the layer title to edit it.

What a marvelous new fonction !
THANKS !!!

Hey everybody.
So @GeorgSeifert I tried this little “intermediate” layer trick, and it helped me a lot !
I use it with all my characters with diagonal strokes (A, K, M, …) and it works really fine, except for some of them who strangely behave when I use the axis slider. Here is an example in illustrator (the problem is the same in InDesign or Photoshop)

I stretch the font from 200 to 1000 on the width axis. Please look at the “2” number. As you can see, it doesn’t change until 600, and then it starts growing…
I don’t undesrtand why this is happening with this glyph : does someone knows what is going on here ?

Can you post a screenshot of some of the twos masters?

Here are the screnshots !

Make sure the ratio of the diagonal line and the handles is the same in all masters. what you see are ordinary kinks.

I have to say I quite don’t understand what you mean, @GeorgSeifert…
You’re talking about the kinks, but this problem is been solved since I’ve created intermediate layers with modified paths.
Kinks are not my problem anymore. What I’m dealing with is related to variable width :
Some characters doesn’t strech until the axis value of 600. Please take a look at the video above.

Seems like your designspace is not rectangular. Try adding {200, 600} and {600, 200}

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Wow @alexs ! Idon’t know what is a rectangular designspace but it works !
THANKS !

Could you please explain this designspace thing ?

This should be helpful: Designspace Theory