re Lazur's tutorials on bending a gradient

[brynn]

Hi Friends,
Lazur has made us some advanced tutorials about faking a curved gradient using markers:

Bending a Chrome Rail
gradient bending with diffuse lighting filter

which are a follow up to one of mine:

Fake a Curved Gradient Using Markers

I'm getting stuck and need to show my problem, which can't do through shoutbox.

See attached, markers show where hidden nodes are.  The hidden nodes seem to be bunched up at the actual visible nodes and approx halfway between them.

But my main question, is why is this better than just adding regular nodes to the path?

[Lazur]

Because you have more control on the resulting node number and markers used.
The add new nodew extension may be good if length is set and not the number of divisions.
Instead of try and error or live preview, the lpe respons immediately.
Like in the attached svg, you can move one of the red path's nodes horizontally to change the density of the green markers.
Until you reach the necessary amount of them.

Which amount may not suit well all zoom levels --->then, change it later on.
Also, if it renders slowly for the editing, you can switch off the visibility of that path effect.

[brynn]

Oh, I didn't know you could change the pap by live editing the pattern.  Doesn't work in my file.  How did you make that happen?

OOhh....instead of paste, you use Link to Path (looks like the clone icon)?  Now it's starting to make sense.

I would probably be careful about spacing original nodes.  Then select all, and use Add Nodes button.  It adds the nodes very evenly, as long as the original nodes are spaced relatively evenly.

But in a situation where you aren't sure how many nodes you need, with the pap with clone/link, you can live edit, and adjust the number of nodes visually.

[Lazur]

Link to path, that was it.
Will keep that in mind, was just guessing the right naming from the translated interface.