As I understand it, that decomposes all the way down to the paths. Won’t that give me incompatible masters in a font (like this) in which the pixels overlap in some masters and not in others?
No, it works fine. Overlaps are not removed in a VF.
Seems to have worked, thanks for your help!
I’m revisiting the topic a bit, because I’m setting up a parametric slant, and I have to say it works perfectly if I need to generate a static italic (or slanted) font.
The problems arise with a VF. Despite everything, the components, some of which are nested, don’t behave as they should.
I tried using UnnestedComponents, but it seems to be incompatible with the slant filter: it prevents the upright from being slanted.
Any suggestions? Is it possible to decompose and flatten the outlines before slanting? I’ve tried everything, but to no avail. Glyphs slants first and then decomposes.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Did you try PreFilter parameters?
I thought about it, but then I read this: “same as Filter, but applied before decomposition. Only applies to static fonts.”
But my instance is variable. And in any case, it’s not very clear how and when the prefilter is invoked: it states that the prefilter acts before decomposition. Interpreted correctly, this means that the decomposition occurs before the transformation, which is found in the filter.
So, in theory, the decomposition has already occurred when the font is slanted.
But that’s not the case for me. In my opinion, it doesn’t happen. And to confirm my idea, I tried manually decomposing some critical glyphs. Well, the variable slant works well, at least for the decomposed glyphs.
Anyway, out of curiosity, given your suggestion, I tried and inserted UnnestComponents into the prefilter, but unfortunately, it had no effect. The problematic glyphs remained as they were, with their display glitches.
It looks like there was recently an update to the Unnest Components filter to apply to variable fonts (thank you for that!). But it doesn’t seem to apply to virtual masters, only the primary masters so I’m still getting export errors with VFs that need unnesting+have virtual masters.