Boldlinedesign

I am still having issues getting strokes to expand to fills and then the ability to merge them together - it freezes up the app or it creates strange results. Some of this might be solved by a blob brush alternative - so we can fill sections easier than using repeated strokes - or I could try to do more specific fills with the pen tool I usually use strokes to get my desired look, then expand it to a fill, divide the overlap and then erase the extras and then merge it all together again - that process is difficult right now in AD

This got resolved in the update that just came out after the Affinity live event! awesome!

Has anyone else noticed we can no longer quickly modify the brush tool size by swiping up or down with the apple pencil over the brush size number on the upper right hand side of the screen? It can be adjusted at the bottom when the brush tool is selected, but not on the fly on the right upper side anymore.... is it just me?

Thanks for helping us figure that out Patrick - we love Affinity! Thank you for all the awesome updates and amazing software

Awesome! I logged in to my account and I found the Publisher Beta I downloaded from August and December 2018 -not sure why I ended up getting it twice! lol Do I email the Affinity team as you suggested earlier and give them one of the order numbers from when I got Publisher in 2018?

I don't have that email (Affinity Publisher beta order number from the beta download confirmation email sent from affinitystore@serif.com) in my folders either - this whole thing is frustrating and irritating me more than it should. I know I downloaded it from the Affinity site and not the forums.

Yes I downloaded the Beta Publisher months back from the publisher page - not the forum - nothing in my emails yet.

I'm still waiting to get my Publisher email. I downloaded the Publisher beta back when it was first available.

I had someone trace a design with the pen tool in Affinity Designer and send me the file. I opened it in Affinity Designer and exported it as an EPS to import into Illustrator and found that some of the strokes (not all) had converted to fills in the process. I attached a sample of the design in Affinity (strokes) and when I opened it after exporting to EPS in Illy. Am I better off exporting as an SVG? Am I missing something?

So this was resolved when I found another post about the same topic on the forum by GabrielM. thank you!

Wow this really helped out a ton - thank you!

Is there a sure-fire way to export a file created in Affinity Designer to preserve strokes and not convert them to fills when opened in another vector app like Illustrator? Thanks

Are you designing for t-shirts?

Yeah its a shame Clip Studio does not allow for pure vector exportation. I follow a similar process to what you described when I export line work from CSP, though I use Vector Magic and typically color in Illustrator/Affinity. It's nice to be able to export high res images from CSP, so the trace function in the vector trace app doesn't have to work too hard. I saw you had warped text in your monkey design - are you doing that in another app besides Affinity Designer and CSP? I do all my text warping in Illustrator - anxious for it to be a true option in Affinity What did you use the blob tool for in illy? You mentioned it has round corners and I agree - it can be frustrating to not be able to alter the brush shape to get hard edges

I have been playing with the newest Designer Beta and love the progress that has been made. In my inking process I use to create my designs, I use a vector brush to ink and intentionally overlap corners and edges of a design to get the line thicknesses I am looking for. I then expand the strokes and divide them in their entirety, so the overlap parts can be easily selected and deleted. I hit the add function to merge the pieces together and the divide again before a final add together so I can easily delete the massive number of extra unused nodes. (hitting "add" to combine to overlapping fills results in a massive collection of extra nodes underneath) When I go to add the parts back together for the final merge and hit the "add" function, the app sucks up a tremendous amount of RAM and freezes. I understand my 12 GB of RAM is not a ton, but I can't tell if this is an Affinity Designer issue, or if I had twice the RAM, this would be fixed?

Red Devil Baby.afdesign

It's been interesting to read varying viewpoints of Affinity expectations; The Affinity team and their user base. I'd be curious to know how things were handled back in the day as Adobe was building Illustrator and how Macromedia built Freehand. It was a different time and era - no internet or limited at best. Today at least you have Affinity charting a course with a limited knowledge by the user base of their focus or timeframe. We have a general list of features to be added with the only timeframe listed as "before vs 2.0" (whenever that is). As a member of the user base, it's a bit frustrating not knowing more information because there is a hope that must spring eternal that one day, I can ditch Adobe completely. There are a number of features I deem "essential" to my workflow that without implementation, relegate Affinity as a side-app - something I can utilize for what it does offer but still resort to Illustrator to complete. Someone mentioned in this thread the fact that everyone has their own list of "essentials" and I agree - (I never saw the priority on arrow strokes, but hey!) I think there are several that are mentioned more than any others - text warp, offset-path, eraser tool, blob tool, vector trace feature. As an Affinity user and not a developer, its hard for me to understand why these "essentials" are missing after years in development. It helps when the team shares details about the process - such as when they decided to recode a section because it would offer greater use later, etc. I think there is a pressure on both sides - Affinity wants a perfect product released and the user base is anxious to ditch Adobe and use Affinity full time and neither getting everything they want.

Based on tweets released today - it looks like its coming in the next release!

I have the source image locked on a lower layer with the strokes and objects placed on a layer above. I am trying to grab the fills in order to edit them, but it grabs the photo instead, even though it's locked... I included a picture. You can see the photo is selecting. Also included screenshots of the layer settings for the photo Any ideas?

Leprechaun 2019 Initial inking This is the first in a series of videos detailing my process of vector inking my shirt design for the upcoming St Patrick's Day 5k. In these first two steps, I trace my approved sketch with a tapered vector brush in Affinity Designer, intentionally overlapping my lines so that in step two, I can divide them where they cross and delete away the excess portions. I've been making an effort to do more and more of my workflow in Affinity Designer instead of my standard Illustrator app so part of this process was exploration and trying out new tools and methods. I'm still hoping we get an eraser and a blob tool (amongst other features) to make this process a little easier. Also - the combine boolean leaves behind a TON of nodes in its wake... is that something being addressed?

This is my exact feeling on this right now. I'm more than ready to cast off Adobe (using CS6 so at least I'm not feeding the beast) and make Affinity my full time use trio of apps - I design t-shirt graphics for a living and depend DAILY on the ability to access warp text, offset path, blob tool and erase tool. I've been anxious for Affinity updates and while excited by all the new features coming in to 1.7, I keep hoping against hope for the features I mentioned above... because then I could completely cut the Adobe cord. I've read a number of posts from the past and found a few that were interesting (I'll try to go back and find them again to link here) - one from one of the developers in response to very strongly worded criticism that the features the customers wanted were not added fast enough - and they explained how the process is not as simple as many may think. There are often less-sexy and overlooked building blocks that need to be created, installed, improved upon first before the more noticeable surface level features can be added. Another post written by a user - gave an enlightening history of feature growth in Illustrator - how many who are used to Illustrator were not likely aware of how long the process took to get it to where it is today - and even now, there are features found in Freehand that have not made their way to Illustrator. It's possible I missed it, but I wish Affinity's developers and powers that be would share more of the behind the scenes process instead of leaving us in the dark. The post from one of the developers that enlightened me to the current behind the scenes work was in response to a critical posting. If there was more transparency by Affinity on these things, would that stave off the anxiety and impatience of their customers anxious to make Affinity products their full time apps of choice? I was reading through the product reviews for Designer on the Apple App Store and noticed a trend of people sharing a similar message: Affinity Designer is NOT Illustrator and that's a good thing! Many shared how they thought Designer was much improved over what Illustrator offers, despite not being as full-featured (yet). It made me want to go in to Affinity Designer and Photo with a new thought process - being open to the idea that there is a better way than Adobe, even if it lacks some of the critical features I use daily. I'm going to stop trying to force Affinity Designer to be Illustrator and let it be what the developers intended it to be, and then make Designer what I need it to be. For now I just to need to find as many work-around solutions to what I'm missing. Affinity is like a light in a dark tunnel; giving hope to a realistic alternative to slavery in the Adobe ecosystem. For the first time in years, I'm excited about the possibilities of design software again being effective, powerful and affordable. I'm excited to see a new way of thinking about vector and raster design. The idea that one day soon, I could design a complete shirt graphic on my ipad from anywhere and send it off to a client excites me. I'm holding on to hope that Affinity will hold to their goal of getting the main features (including the ones I wanted) before their 2.0 release and with the rate of updates so far, we're looking at seeing this come to fruition in the next year at most. Until then, I'm clinging to my copy of CS6 to have access to functions I still need.

I've been clamoring for this for over a year now! The more we can have a vector app that can work in an artistic mode and not just technical, the more we can accomplish. I use the blob tool constantly in illustrator... modifying things, closing in gaps, giving designs a human imperfect element at times... etc. I know Affinity has focused on a non-destructive creation process... and adding the eraser/blob shape tool function tools would alter that... but the artists that use Affinity designer also have multiple methods for how they create art... its not all with the pen tool or brush tool