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Quarian

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Everything posted by Quarian

  1. I'm actually using HitFilm and Motion, but I've been creating vector graphics in AD (or--when on the PC, DrawPlus or FreeHand) for easier editability and exporting them to PNGs in order to maintain the alpha channels. Then import the PNGs into the Motion Graphics editor of choice. If I need more definition--in after effects you can do "continuous rasterization"--then the graphics are either created or exported at a much larger size. Say, 200% or 300% or larger. You might be able to export graphics from AD as PDF as the data in AI files after version 8.0 is closely aligned with the PDF file format and import the resulting PDF into AE, but given that I'm currently trying to stay away from everything Adobe as much as possible (and I'd only be able to test on AE7 and CS3), I might not be the best test subject for that theory. Hope this helps.
  2. Great topic! I'm using Motion and Blender and have my head stuck into HitFilm, Natron, and AD. Was thinking that I'd just export PNGs from AD and bring them into Motion or HitFilm OR bring exported SVG files into Blender in order to make AD part of my burgeoning Motion Graphics/Animation workflow. If all else fails, I'm running Freehand MX in wine on one of my Macs and on my PC (using the Windows version to keep parity going back and forth)... Affinity, I know it's wishful thinking at this point with as much as you guys have in front of you, BUT in about 3 years down the line...I hope you might be thinking about a Motion Graphics tool. I know it's a lot to ask (and I've never used MoviePlus) but, looking at how well you've implemented Designer, I think you could knock it out of the park with a Motion Graphics tool that could directly import AD and APhoto files. Or maybe you could talk to FXHome (HitFilm) about devising an importer for AD files. Just a thought...
  3. Just noticed that it reads "This mechanics..." Should be "These mechanics". My apologies...I created this at 2am EDT in the states.
  4. Thanks, MattP. Granted, it's a bit time-consuming but it will get the job done. Figured it might take some of the heat off you guys.
  5. Figured something out...and, yes, I'm putting my age out here. Back when Illustrator was in it's infancy, it didn't have text on a path as a tool. In Washington, DC, with all the official circular seals, Government designers were going nuts. A lot of people were scanning seals in and using them that way. But I recall a method from one of the Adobe Illustrator "88" books that had been published at the time... ...to be continued on the face of the attached AD file. Hope this helps. TextOnACircle.afdesign
  6. @CartoonMike Glad to see that I'm not the only one who does that (bought a stand for the iPad JUST for that purpose) @ronniemcbride Go get 'em, man! I'm in! Thank you for this course...
  7. A couple of weeks? "It's beginning to look a lot like christmas..."
  8. Great! love the red lenses...
  9. I think that the mobile boom "killed" Skeuomorphism. If you index the colors on a Flat icon, you might get--at best--6-9 colors, which is a lot less than having to bring some Skeuomorphic icons/graphics (with possibly a much higher amount of colors and, therefore, larger files) down through a 3G pipeline. Even if your connection is 4G+, in this day and age, every byte not going toward graphic content is going towards analytics and back end. Having said that, I miss Skeuomorphism as well and agree that there should be room for both. And, Paolo, loving your Krita icon.
  10. It is a good idea to create web graphics in general in a vector software package; provided they can export their files in web-friendly bitmap formats. If they can do slicing and export in 2x (200%), even better. Affinity Designer goes one better by allowing the user to have not only a standard pixel preview of all vector files on its canvas, it will also show a retina pixel view. Affinity is an excellent choice for creating web graphics. In being fair, the only thing I find that sketch has on designer is sketch's ability to export css code with the bitmap export of a full page mockup. Other than that, I find designer's toolset to be superior to that of sketch.
  11. It's highly likely that Affinity Designer, by it's very nature as a Mac-only software by default, won't handle .emf files. If you have a copy of adobe illustrator, you would be best served by importing it into Illustrator and saving/exporting the file into a format that AD can handle. If you need to preserve the vectors, save it as an AI file (with the PDF compatibility turned on) or as a PDF file. Then open the AI/PDF file in Designer. Another option might be, if you don't have Illustrator but you DO have access to PowerPoint (on Windows), to import the .emf into PowerPoint and export that slide to a PDF (if your system has that capacity) and then attempt to open that PDF in Designer. The .emf file format stands for Enhanced Metafile Format and is, by default, a Windows-only file format although past versions of Adobe Illustrator on the Mac have been known to import them (don't remember if Freehand or Microsoft Office for the Mac could do it), but since AD has been created to work with Mac-native technologies, it is likely that it won't open .emf (or .wmf) files. This is just my hypothesis based on experiences with these types of files. The Devs might have a different solution.
  12. There appears to be a lot of confusion up here in the forum regarding what Affinity Designer can, will and/or should be able to do. Based on my observations and interpretations of replies from the programmers--granted, these are my personal observations and I invite any and every one to blow holes in them if I am wrong at their own leisure--these "limitations" are inherent because of the true functionality of the software. Understanding that things such as Spot Color, Exporting to different flavors of PDF/X, and Multiple artboards are options that are on the way...there are things that simply are best not to create in Designer as these functionalities will be inherent in Publisher and/or Photo. Text content controls: there is a certain level of control for text that will be available in Publisher that is not intended to be present in Designer. Designer is not meant to have the level of control that would be present in a dedicated Layout application. I know a lot of people will say "but it's in Freehand/CorelDraw/Illustrator," but this is not the point. Adobe has it's own type foundry, to not put full capability in Illustrator (which by the way is one of the ONLY products Adobe built from the ground up as many of Adobe's products were bought and rebranded) would be to not advertise the fonts available for purchase. CorelDraw and Freehand couldn't depend on a Layout package and had to evolve these capabilities within themselves to survive in the marketplace. Designer IS NOT Illustrator or FreeHand (YET!): Designer is still getting it's feet under it and, while I DO empathize with everyone who would wish for a fully mature program so they can stop supporting the Adobe engine on the Mac platform, Affinity is doing their best to give us a top-flight product but still has to go through some growing pains in the process. I know, as a designer myself, that there are "features X, Y and Z" that we all wish were already in AD so that we may effectively finish our projects. And they may be coming, but that is up to the devs and their timeline; remember, while they're working on Designer, they're also working on the beta for Photo and, probably, the pre-production for Publisher. Designer IS NOT InDesign: I know, this one's painful because we'd all like to kick InDesign to the curb. InDesign (and Acrobat for that matter) is one of those applications that has VERY little real competition in the marketplace, ESPECIALLY on the Mac platform. On any Mac running anything beyond Snow Leopard, other than Quark XPress, the only true options for Graphic Design and Layout that I've found are Scribus (more on this later), PagePlus (running on a VM or in BootCamp), and an app found in the Mac App Store called MultiAd Creator Express, which has no Spot Colors but DOES have full CMYK support. Where AD is concerned, I'm using Scribus until Affinity Publisher comes out because--as one of the devs pointed out recently--AD and Scribus are using the same Color engine, LittleCMS. Which brings us to the next point: Designer IS an Illustration Tool: And a damn good one. Affinity has rightfully focused on making Designer the best Illustration tool that it can be. Where else on the Mac is one going to find the capabilities of a Vector Editor, a Raster Editor, and a Drawing program with CMYK and Lab color management built in? Affinity Publisher will be the Layout tool that many of us want Designer to be right now. FreeHand evolved the way it did because it's partner layout tool was bought by Adobe (remember PageMaker?) and Macromedia had to keep giving it features to be more and more competitive with Illustrator. But Publisher will fill the void in the Layout/Typesetting toolset that isn't resident in AD. As I said before, these are my personal observations based things that have been stated in the forums and the way that the software seems to work. If I'm wrong, bring it...I've been in the business for 25+ years and can admit when I'm wrong. That invitation especially includes the devs. Thank You For Your Time.
  13. These are really cool...now I may be able to replace my copy of Sketchbook Pro with Affinity Designer as well (since Autodesk has jumped on the "pay forever to play" bandwagon)... Thanks for the share!
  14. Thanks for letting us know that Affinity is using littlecms, Andy. I was sitting here pondering if I could get much use out of Scribus as a multipage delivery system for graphics created in Designer (and how well it would work until Publisher is released) and, BOOM, you mention that both Scribus and Affinity use the same cms to begin with. How cool is that? Affinity ROCKS!
  15. Fast question... I'm a photographer as well as a designer, will Photo have the type of image management features common to tools like Aperture? It's already been stated that it will have the retouching and standard photo production tools. For example, right now I work in either Aperture or AfterShot Pro--depending on if I'm on a Mac or a PC at the time--and I'll do any retouch work in either Pixelmator or the GIMP.
  16. By the way, the above is not intended to be a comprehensive list of alternatives available; they're just what I'm comfortable using.
  17. @hifred, @KipV Which is essentially the reason we're all here...because we don't like the idea of being forced to design with a virtual gun to our collective head. By binding our potential intellectual property to their software which now must be paid for forever, Adobe is essentially robbing us and holding our work for hostage...IF you take the dip with them. I have to use CS6/CC at work but at home: In place of | Alternative Premiere Pro | Lightworks (PC/Mac), HitFilm (PC/Mac) AfterEffects | HitFilm (PC/Mac), Autodesk Composite (PC/Mac), Blender (PC/Mac) and Motion (Mac) Photoshop | GIMP (PC/Mac), Krita (PC), Pixelmator (Mac), Affinity Designer (Mac) Illustrator | Affinity Designer (Mac), Freehand MX (PC/Mac - w/VirtualBox or Snow Leopard), DrawPlus (PC/Mac - w/VirtualBox) InDesign | Freehand MX (PC/Mac - w/VirtualBox or Snow Leopard), Scribus (PC/Mac), PagePlus (PC) Acrobat | PagePlus (PC/Mac - w/VirtualBox), Scribus (PC/Mac) In the interest of full disclosure, it has to be admitted that I am still have InDesign CS5 and Acrobat 8 Pro (using Distiller 8 to distill my PDFs from PS files produced by Freehand and Affinity Designer when necessary). Mostly designing in PagePlus X6/X7 and exporting directly to PDF-X from there. Like everyone else...waiting for Publisher so I can finally cut the umbilical cord to the Big Red "A." While I do understand the necessity to have to know Adobe's software for anyone trying to get into the business--as they are the "industry standard"--it will be refreshing, if it ever happens, to see someone value the work itself more than what one used to do it.
  18. Illustrator hijacked Artboards from Freehand. If you'll notice, a lot of the "new" features--including InDesign outputting SWF--were a direct result of Adobe getting their hands on Freehand. IMHO, this is the real reason they buried it. Freehand was able to do things Illustrator couldn't...until after the buyout.
  19. Rik, glad I could help. Sorry for all the geekspeak. Andy, thank you--as always--for the timely translation. And for AD...when's the beta of Photo due out? :)
  20. The only way I was able to successfully retreive a PDF/X-3 file from AD was to do "Print > Save as Postscript" ("Save As" button, lower left corner of the "Print" dialog box on the Mac). I had a copy of Acrobat 8 Pro installed on OS X Lion, so I distilled the resultant .PS file in Distiller 8 with the output set for "PDF/X-3". You CAN also do it for free with GhostScript through the terminal/command line interface or "CLI" but you will need to study all of the commands and the syntax necessary to pull it off. This method still requires you to output a .PS file from AD first. Hope this helps.
  21. Running PagePlus X6 and DrawPlus x5 now in an XP service pack 2 shell in VirtualBox on OS X. Can't wait for Publisher. Counting the days until the beta for Photo comes out. If it helps, I am also very impatient for an InDesign replacement that's Mac resident BUT as good as Designer has turned out, I can definitely wait if some of the background digital imaging functionality will be improved in Publisher by releasing Photo first. Also, hoping that Publisher has something for the whole "ebook/interactive PDF/tablet document" export side of the house where InDesign seems to be making a bunch of their money right now. HTML5 widget export wouldn't be a bad thing..."Just Saying... :)"
  22. Rik, I'm not part of the Serif team that created/programmed AD, so you can take what I'm going to tell you with a grain of salt... The one thing that was recently found out is that all/most content purchased on the Mac App Store is "sandboxed," meaning that it's self-contained (everything needed to run the app is contained inside the app package). To this end, I have been able to copy older versions of Motion, Sketch and Pixelmator that were previously bought from the Mac App Store to DVD and copy them from the DVD to another Mac that I own. The key to this is that, once copied, the apps were--one at a time--"double-clicked" on and accessed. You HAVE to both be online and have opened and signed into your App Store app on the mac you're installing to; this allows the apps you've copied to re-serialize and authenticate with the Mac App Store so it will allow you use of the apps on the new mac. This was done last week in anticipation of Affinity Designer going live. I would not recommend to anyone to do this with someone else's apps; only do this with apps that were purchased under YOUR account with the Mac App Store. For the record, by doing this I was able to successfully move pre-Mavericks versions of Motion, Sketch, iDraw and Pixelmator to a second-hand mac I own that couldn't be upgraded past Lion. The current versions of Motion, Sketch and Pixelmator all require Mavericks, and--as we all know--the Mac App Store (as of this writing) doesn't do older versions. The added benefit is that all my older versions are now captured "in stone" on DVD. If anyone on the Affinity team has any heartburn with doing this with Designer, PLEASE speak out now. I have posted this information in the interest of trying to help a fellow designer, nothing more. I find that on the off chance that something goes wrong with a new/updated release (as has been my past experience with other apps), to be able to store an archived copy of an older version helps. Hope this helps.
  23. According to this Maya help page, it can import .eps data. http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2011help/index.html?url=./files/File_management_Supported_file_formats.htm,topicNumber=d0e78668 The confusing thing is that it says that, for OS X, it can't import .eps files as image files, so it may take a bit of trial and error. http://cameronbland.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/importing-from-illustrator-to-maya-2012/ The above link outlines a process wherein eps files are accepted by maya BUT only if the eps file is saved in Illustrator 8.0 compatibility format. Lightwave used to have the same stipulation. Can anyone say what the .eps files' compatibility is when exported from Designer?
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