Missing Color (Memory Problem?)

[samspectre]

I am an AI newbie and I think I'm doing something wrong. A little background: I am working on a very detailed file (a map to be exact) with thousands (maybe 10,000s) of anchor points. I was hoping to have more luck in Illustrator than I did in Fireworks (which resulted in HUGE files that weren't scalable and that my computer couldn't manipulate). The *.ai file is now 6,214 KB on my hard drive (which is ~1/8 the size it was in Fireworks).

Now that I'm well into this project, AI is having a fit with my picture. Any minor adjustment (i.e., moving one anchor point) I make to the largest object (a 5,653 anchor point "compound shape") causes the path's fill and stroke colors to disappear. The "Appearance" window still claims that the colors are present. I don't think it's a memory issue because I can edit other parts of the image without a problem and the file (as noted above) isn't that big. Is there a limit to the size of objects in AI?

I'm also confused by "compound shapes" in general. It seems that no matter what tool I choose, I cannot get two objects to become one (in Fireworks this was called Union). AI always wants to retain information about the contributing objects whether you're doing an Add, Subtract, or Merge. This ends up making an unwieldy list of sub-layers in the "compound shape" referenced above. I can't even begin to explain how many of these sub-layered "compound shapes" exist within the above object because they continue on for a LONG time.

Any advice is welcome!

 

[samspectre]

Since my initial post, I've been playing with this some more. The Merge feature (mostly) works like I expect it to. The tool I'm using most to fix my problem is "Minus Back". I disassembled the "compound shape" that was giving me problems and am now using "Minus Back" to excise shapes from the main object rather than just having sub-layers and sub-layers of "Subtract From Shape Area".

I'm still having some issues with subtracting shapes from the middle of the object without the colors disappearing, but I'll update this thread on my progress...

Thanks!

 

[samspectre]

Ok, things are working again. The first "Subtract From Shape Area" worked fine. The second one caused all the colors to disappear. When I clicked UNDO, the colors came back. Instead of using more of that tool, I just dragged the shapes I wanted to subtract from the main object into the "compound shape" (above the main object) and all the subtractions happened without a hitch.

Quirky, but it's working so I'm happy.