- "Pujie Black Design Tip #1 – Design to the Final Resolution"
- "Pujie Black Design Tip #2 – Reduce Opacity and Shadows"
- "Pujie Black Design Tip #3 – Reduce Vertices"
I’m not referring to grouping here… If you have a lot of layers with detailed shapes, consider merging multiple layer shapes into one… ie, expanding the one layer to be both (or many) shapes… connecting them by their nearest points.
Although this means that we are increasing the number of vertices by 2 for every connected shape, this increase is negated by the fact that you have reduced the number of layers requiring render and hopefully also found places to use tip #3 above to also remove vertices. In the screenshot above, the red shapes were three layers with 14 vertices… the green connected shape is a single layer, again using 14 vertices. It will look the same on the watch due to the resolution but we saved two layers from being rendered.
In the context of performance issues with designs involving many complex layers, this activity may be time consuming but it will have a positive impact. Below are the kind of complex cases I’m talking about.
Now, remember… You need to make sure the four vertices (two between each shape) making the connection align with each other so that there are no visible connected lines…
In the above example, it looks like it is OK when zoomed out but as you zoom in, you can see that the vertices are not in the same position. Simply set the X/Y coordinates manually or use the snap-to-grid feature on these connections… turning the grid slider to maximum will help.
Note: Radial gradients will be compromised if you join shapes together like this but you can instead use the inner shadow to achieve a similar effect.