[terzdesign]

EDIT: I found a solution in a further down post.

I've got a design that has part of a line that needs to be in front of an object and behind. I'm looking for a method that does not cut the line in pathfinder.

Check out the attached image. The bottom design is exactly what I'm looking for, which I did use pathfinder to make, but I want to know if there is a way to mask that area off (where the swoosh goes behind the 'M') with an invisible object or something that will show the purple background. This is important because I might be changing the M to another letter. I hope this makes sense. I guess it is like an anti-clipping mask, lol?

 

[josephkrueger]

I would just copy the lower left part of the M and stack that on top of the swoosh.

 

[terzdesign]

I would just copy the lower left part of the M and stack that on top of the swoosh.

True, but If I want to keep the text editable then that would not work.

 

[josephkrueger]

You would just need to copy another portion on top of the new letter. The bottom text would still be your editable text. Even if you were to do a transparency mask, I don't know of a way to have it update with your live type.

 

[Ripcord]

If you're going to change letters you'll need to do some work each time because each new letter will require a different part of the swoosh to be either hidden or trimmed away. You might also want to drop a white circle behind the ball so the color doesn't show through the seams.

I have a couple of videos on YouTube about making objects look as though they are intertwined. (The first one is newer and quite a bit shorter...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiDfCvdtv5I

https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=QSR80aWR1Fg

 

[terzdesign]

So after exhaustive trial and error, I've answered my own question. The correct solution I was looking for is to use an Opacity mask, found in the transparency panel. I'll explain:

My goal is to hide part of an object whilst still having all objects, including text, be editable. So what I did was make a shape covering all of the parts of the object to be hidden using a 100% black fill - which is important if you want nothing to show through. I then selected the object that I wanted to have part of hidden. Under the transparency tab I clicked 'make mask' with 'clip' and 'invert mask' unchecked. That did the trick. Now if I need to change the big M to something else I can do that and adjust the shape of the opacity mask to suit.