retrograde

Try this. Select the geometry and go to Layers > Geometry > Fill Holes

I can certainly vouch for Keyshape. I've used it on a few things and have no regrets. It's a very capable app for the price and I love the vector workflow. Regarding Spine, I haven't used it but I was able to do this very simple walk cycle in Keyshape using just nested groups and simple rotation and position keyframing. It was actually very simple and straight forward. All art was created in designer and exported out as individual svgs (upper arm, lower arm, etc.) I then opened each svg up as separate Keyshape files and copy and pasted them into a single Keyshape file that included all of the components to setup. Edit: It also has the ability to create and use symbols. https://www.instagram.com/p/C8DjWOHPBGi/?img_index=1 I wish it supported audio for explainer videos or more immersive motion or infographic work.

Did you end up getting Keyshape? I'd be interested in your take on it's capabilities. I'm still using it and am still pretty impressed with it.

Depending on the type of work you are doing in AE, if it's simple animation and you are on a mac you should checkout Keyshape. It's a lightweight, no nonsense vector animation app that is surprisingly capable for motion work, not so much for frame by frame although it is possible and it exports out in a bunch of formats including svg, webp, mp4, animated gif, sprite sheet and lottie. I use it with my designer files exported as svgs and then just simply opened in Keyshape, it comes in at the same document size as the original file. It has pen tool for further editing if needed, it has a bunch of easing curves including custom presets and all of the usual keyframe animatable options. The svgs don't export blend modes though but you can reapply them in Keyshape. Everything stays vector for additional. It's no AE and it's super stripped down but depending on what your needing it might fit the bill. I just tried exporting an svg with text intact and it worked and was still editable in Keyshape. It even has an outline or wireframe view mode. No support for audio unfortunately at this point. It's way under the radar and hard to find examples online of it being used. Here is a link to what I have been using it for. https://www.kevincreative.com/Animation.html

Yep. I just tried the second screen recording video exercise here and got the same result. It seems to kick in for me after 240 points. Goes from a nice smooth curve to a collection of facets around the circle.

I was one of the contributors to the Affinity Designer workbook. It's unfortunate that it's unavailable... but if you're interested, I wrote my own pretty comprehensive book (460 pages) on Affinity Designer for Packt Publishing. It covers up to Version 1.10 and it is still available on Amazon if that fits the bill for you. I cover all of the tools and interface in detail and there are 3 separate workshop chapters on creating 3 real world assignments, a logo and 2 types of illustration approaches. Here is a link. https://www.amazon.com/Running-Affinity-Designer-easy-follow/dp/1801079064/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1631772053&sr=8-5

This is top shelf stuff! @TY Graphics LLC

Hey @TY Graphics LLC nice work! It might be useful to show a before (greyscale) and an after (colour) option of each example to showcase the benefits, reasons and/or advantages of the process.

It's a great base start. Looks like you just need to start on some of the more detailed or sharper elements. Also it looks to my eye that the pearls are getting a little too tiny on the left side...

Still waiting for a light interface for the ipad version. Any progress on this?

Well, you would want to make sure that that box is definitely noticeable. Say what now? I didn't realize the term "Industry Standard" was so triggering. Oh boy. 🙂

Not totally sure what you are meaning there... but they (Serif) aren't using the industry standard currently... and I don't think that the (T) is confusing. T for text, T for type. That's confusing? Maybe not everyone. Not saying that. But many apps do use it and a ton of the new users coming over from Adobe will surely be looking for it. New users just starting out or people that have never used an Adobe app may not care either way. It was my opinion btw as I initially stated. Like it or not the Adobe apps are the design industry standard still, even despite recent events and anyone moving to Serifs lineup will be welcomed to seeing some familiar icons/workflow. I know Serif is marching to the beat of their own drum, I get that and I have been a professional user of Designer since 2014, I even wrote a book on Designer... just saying some hills are worth dying on and some aren't and as the OP of this post was saying he was confused on the different icons for artistic and framed text, I thought one way around that might be to adopt what has already been proven to work. 🙂

They both should be a "T" for text. The industry standard. One with a frame around it, one without. IMHO.

Yes it's not elegant but it is simple.

I'm not sure of the best way to do this but probably the easiest would by placing one text over the other so here the yellow overtop of the white text. Then simply drawing white shapes to cover up the yellow text. Of course square or non curved areas of the text will be easier to cover up. (Choosing a blocky font as the bottom font will be easier to create the shapes you need to hide the top font.) See attached. Another way to do this is to add a mask to the top or yellow text and then use black or white inside of the mask (pixel persona) to remove the text for the effect of it going in behind the bottom text. (it may be harder to get nice sharp edges though with this method) I'm sure there are most likely other ways to do this but these are probably the easiest and both are non destructive.