Variable type grid problems

Hi!

First post, very inexperienced. I’m having two issues with a variable font that I think are related, both having to do with the grid.

I’m using two masters where the characters have a different number of “essential” nodes, and to connect the masters I added superfluous nodes to the master with less and tried to hide them in the lines.

Like this:
Screenshot 2023-06-14 at 6.22.58 PM

Screenshot 2023-06-14 at 6.22.16 PM

With extra nodes:
Screenshot 2023-06-14 at 6.22.32 PM

This obviously is janky but works fine with the grid subdivision set to 0, but the impression I’m getting is the minimum grid subdivision for variable font files has to be 1. I tested the typeface in Illustrator exporting it with a grid subdivision of 0 and it works more or less but loses some precision in the lines predictably, as if it’s setting it to a grid of 1. However there’s some more inexplicable kind of errors that seem to pop up that I’m not seeing when I set the grid to 1 in glyphs.

Areas like this:

In glyphs:

Screenshot 2023-06-14 at 5.53.18 PM

Any idea what could be causing them, and if it’s related to an incompatible grid or superfluous points?

And is there any workaround that people may use to “hide” superfluous nodes in a master to be used for interpolating with another master?

Any help is obviously very appreciated!!!

There’s no finer grid possible in TTFs. Two tips:

  • make sure that the ‘normal’ master is the origin master
  • consider retracting all the extra nodes in fewer nodes
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