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ROYGBV

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Posts posted by ROYGBV

  1. Many graphics programs had blend tools about a decade ago. It is an important advantage to using a computer for design, over drawing. Without it a digital art tool seems crippled. They would blend both colors and vector shapes. This was useful for both creating palettes with a custom number of even steps, as well as al sorts of shape manipulation. This was followed by improving upon warp tools, with puppet warp in photoshop and a mesh tool or tools in illustrator. Without these tools a digital program remains a "lite" program. The fact that Affinities 3 programs work together is no substitute for lack of functionality especially when the whole package costs $150.00

  2. more here

    http://xahlee.info/math_software/tilings.html

    and going back to 1992

    http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/software/tilings/TilingSoftware.html

    so really not that exotic, some were even for kids as well as adults.

    and Kai's power tools did both some tiling as well as fractals, (without user needing math) & many other very cool effects.

    https://www.lifewire.com/kai-power-tools-and-kpt-vector-effects-1702842

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai's_Power_Tools

    it remains to be seen how imaginative Affinity will be once they have achieved their goal of being a serious contender.

    meanwhile Kai Krause continues to innovate

    http://www.fract.al/about

  3. Many graphics programs, have entire swatch libraries within  them. Surprisingly the best system for Artists seems never to be used. Pantone seems a common default, but it lacks true organization. The Munsell color space is the most useful for artists. Some swatches that correspond to its way of organizing color might be more useful than what is currently available.

    https://helloartsy.com/introduction-to-munsell-color/

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=munsell+color+chart&t=ffab&atb=v167-1&ia=web

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=munsell+color+space&t=ffab&atb=v167-1&ia=web

    https://duckduckgo.com/?q=munsell+color+space&t=ffab&atb=v167-1&iax=images&ia=images

    https://www.andrewwerth.com/aboutmunsell/

  4. Clearly the starting point for Affinity was to compete with the most popular existing graphics products, quickly. They have done a good job in many ways, and a better job in some ways. Whether they take time to catch their breath, and reconsider the basic elements of graphic design, & how to make them all customizable, in as many ways as possible, remains to be seen. To do so it will be necessary, to go beyond thinking of the software as a graphics design suite, and reconsider how design, geometry, math, & art all exist naturally in an interrelated way. The ability to create all sorts of wave forms and to make dotted lines are one obvious example. A. illustrator made the connection between images and brushes, thus fusing 2 previously separate categories. If Affinity were to create a function that enabled one freeform  line to 'magnetically' attract and repel other 'parallel' freeform lines with adjustable positive and negative pole 'magnetic' nodes, they would have a unique design tool, that conventional categorical thought will never arrive at.

    It remains to be seen how imaginative the Affinity team is now that the first competitive phase is over. I see that I am wrong, they are not quite there yet, still working on color issues, live trace, & gradient mesh for example.

    The point is not to compete with mathematics or CAD programs, but rather there are many good ideas already available and implemented, when one thinks cross platform.

  5. Radial symmetry, &  mirror symmetry are 2 of the simplest symmetries. A professional level design program should allow design work in all 17 wall paper groups. Even free java applets (for example  2 versions of "Escher Sketch") on the internet can do this. And long ago plugins for photoshop (Terazzo & Kai's Power Tools) had a filter that allowed this with images, with a live preview. So although it sounds complicated good programmers do such things just for kicks. Later an overpriced, clunky plug in was made for A illustrator, that did this called "Symmetry Works". And now there is a consumer level app on ipad, for play purposes that also works with all the symmetry groups. (  http://science-to-touch.com/en/iOrnament.html  )  ( https://eschersket.ch/ and  http://levskaya.github.io/eschersketch/   and  http://skuld.bmsc.washington.edu/~merritt/bc530/local_copies/escher/ )

    To make the program useful for whole other markets: textile designers, etc., this is an essential functionality. To differentiate Affinity designer from the rest of the pack, implementing this well, could easily  be another great step.

  6. Line length, line angle, & line position, should all be available together. To take a graphics program, from a consumer level toy for making birthday cards, to a professional level, such information and more (area) should be available for every polygon and geometric type shape. For example every polygon should have the option to display its center with crosshairs and to show its basic subdivisions. So a hexagon would be able to show its subdivisions into 6 similar triangles. There is nothing difficult, about this for a computer, or in terms of code. Drawing programs back in the 1990s could do this. There was one dialog box for creating multisided polygons till they became indistinguishable from circles, with or without subdivisions. Not a dumbed down display of 10-12 "favorites.

  7. Please introduce some more flexibility / customization options to this filter. It can be a very powerful filter, if all the parameters are controllable.

    Also if anyone remembers Kai's power tools, (A plug in for Photoshop from the late 1990s early 2000s) it had very interesting filters, some that were quite similar, namely polar vortex. Also the filters would update, a controllable live preview before committing to the result. This made them superior to the native filters at that time. Photoshop actually had a rather low standard, and set a low bar, as regards creativity. They were (& are?) primarily geared toward producing images for mass media consumption. It was (& may still be so) that the plug in creators made the program a more creative program, by bringing such things as fractals, and tiling with the 17 wall paper groups, into the picture. I will post some images soon. I hope you find these ideas helpful. The plug in designers were brilliant & creative people and a study of their work would seem to be a good source for further development, and surpassing much of what is currently available. Unfortunately as Operating systems & hardware platforms constantly changed, simply constantly updating existing plugins, was apparently not interesting enough, and some great work was, as of now lost.

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