How to change overlapping order of a brush in Illustrator?

Question

I have a rope brush Rodeo: Hand Drawn Rope Brush and I need to simulate a knot and I need to change the overlapping order of the brush itself.

Is there any way to bring a node from the back to the front on the same path without the need to break it?

in the above picture, I need the left rope end to be underneath in a simple way to make a knot like this.

Answer 1

Unfortunately there is no way to change the order of overlap directly while the brush is still active on its path. But it can be done easily enough using a fairly simple technique.

1. Create your knot without worrying about the overlaps for now

For example

2. Select the rope, and do Edit > Expand Appearance, then Edit > Ungroup. This will split up the rope into selectable sections. Note: This step is destructive, so if you want to keep your original path with its brush, make a copy before doing this step.

Example showing Expanded and Ungrouped sections of rope

3. Select the sections you want to move over or under another, and do Object > Arrange > Send to Back or Send to Front as required.

Example showing the two sections I have moved to the bottom (right) and to the top (left)

Answer 2

For your first example, you can swap around which part of the path is in front by using Reverse Path Direction from the Object menu.

Object > Path > Reverse Path Direction

For the more complex example, there is no way to have a single path where some sections pass in front and some sections pass behind. i.e. you can't actually tie the path in a knot.

Answer 3

As Westside says in his answer, you can't do this with a single path. But it may still be a huge challenge even to do this with multiple paths. Using the brush on a separate path that overlaps parts of the first, will give that top path the brush's ends, and that's not what you want.

Here's a workaround:

1. Draw your path fully as you'd like it and apply the brush, not paying attention to 'stacking';
2. Copy the path and paste it in front: Edit > Paste in Front or Ctrl/Cmd + F;
3. Use the Layers palette to lock the bottom instance so you don't inadvertently select or edit it;
4. Zoom in on the area where you want the rope to overlap where it now is below itself;
5. Remove anchor points from the top instance so only the part of the shape is left that overlaps the bottom instance, making sure there is quite some 'rope' left at both sides of the intersection;
6. Take the pen tool, with no stroke, no fill and no brush, and draw a loose shape around the area where the two ropes overlap. Make sure to close the shape by clicking the starting anchor at the end;
7. Select both your 'invisible' shape and the top instance of the rope;
8. Object > Clipping Mask > Make;
9. Unlock the bottom instance and group everything together;
10. Rinse and repeat for any area where you want the rope to overlap.