Xara X. Chapter 4 The Blend Tool

Creating a blend in Xara is easy. Click on the beginning blend object and drag to the end blend object.

By default Xara creates a 5-step blend (total of 7 shapes). You can increase or decrease this number by changing the number of blend steps on the Infobar.

Blends are dynamic meaning that they can be changed at any time, (number of steps, color blend effect, profiles, and so forth) even after saving a the blend in a file and reopening it. If the size or shape of a beginning or ending blend shape is altered, the entire blend redraws to reflect this change.

To make a blend un-dynamic, so that the shapes become simple, independent, editable objects, the blend must be converted to editable shapes (Arrange > Convert to Editable Shapes) and then ungrouped (Arrange > Ungroup).

When you first create a blend, Xara keys the blend on one point of each object. Most of the time this is fine, but with irregular shaped objects, sometimes re-mapping the points can make quite a difference.

Once the blend is created, control points (small black boxes) appear on the first and last blend shape. Now you can drag from any point on the first shape to any point on the end shape with varying results as you can see.

Xara does not limit you to two blend shapes. You can blend as many shapes as you wish. The process is the same. Click and drag, click and drag, etc. The number of blend steps between the first and second shapes will automatically be applied to all other shapes.

In addition to Fade (the default setting), there are two alternative Color Blend Effects  available in a drop down list on the Infobar at the top of the screen: Rainbow and Alt Rainbow. The tiny color wheels illustrate these three color modes. Fade directly blends the start and end colors. Rainbow includes the colors on the color wheel found in the shortest arc between the two colors, while Alt Rainbow encompasses the colors found in the long way around the color wheel.

In the examples shown above. the blend colors are red and violet, which are found in close proximity to one another on the color wheel. So Rainbow only includes a few intermediate colors. Alt Rainbow, going in the opposite direction, takes in most of the colors of the color wheel producing a more complete selection of rainbow colors.

TIP: To make a perfect rainbow, the starting and end colors should be the same and preferably full intensity, such as red. To make a pale rainbow, use two very pastel colors, such as very pale yellow.

In addition to Number of Steps, there are several other controls available on the Infobar. Distance between Steps is grayed out and only applies to blends on a path (covered later on). The stair step icon is highlighted by default. Remove removes a blend leaving only the starting and ending shapes. Fade, Rainbow and Alt Rainbow are covered in the previous paragraph.

New blend features found in Xara X (and covered in detail below) are the Position and Attribute Profile controls, and the Blend Along a Curve features.

1:1 mapping and Anti-alias Blend have been available in previous versions and will also be covered in detail later on.

The new Profile settings affect the way blended objects, and blend colors, are distributed. There are five preset profiles in the drop down list. The effects of each are shown on the left of the dialog.

The Position profiles determine the spacing between objects. In addition to the presets, you can use the sliders to modify the existing positions.

The Attribute profiles determine the distribution of blend colors. The effect is similar to the Position profiles except instead of the objects being spaced differently, the blend colors are redistributed as shown to the left of the dialog.

1:1 Node Mapping only produces a positive result when the two blend objects have the exact same number of nodes (points).

When 1:1 Node Mapping is disabled, Xara creates or deletes control points as it feels necessary to create a smooth transition.

When 1:1 Node Mapping is enabled, Xara uses the same number of points for each blend object as exist on the start and end objects.