gdenby

I've just noticed something similar in a file I've been working on the past week or so. As far as I know, I have never saved with history. The file is a grid of jigsaw shapes. I grouped them, and filled the group w. a bitmap. Then ungrouped the shapes, so that I could shift the pieces w. the portions of bit map assigned to them. My supposition is that what happened was that the bitmap was replicated 70 times, which boosted the file size from about 140 K to more than 25 M. I have since deleted all the bit map fills. The shapes are now just strokes, no fill. I have "saved" and "saved as" several times, and the file size has remained over 20 M. I have copied out 10 of the 70 puzzle pieces, and pasted them into a new file, which is just 20 K, as I expected. Any idea why the emptied copies remain so large? Its not a big deal to replicate the file a few pieces at a time, but I'm perplexed at what might have happened.

Hi, Xenol, Nice work. 1 of your techniques, using layers w. different layers of opacity to give shading bands was quite nicely done. I spent quite some time yesterday working thru the various layers and groups. As above, it would probably make things easier if there were more names. I find that when I'm using lots of blend modes, or doing boolean operations, it helps to have references like bottom, middle, top, and so forth. I thought the vector camo texture was crazy awesome. How did you come up w. that? But it seemed to me it might become problematic if the character was presented in different back grounds. That is, what if instead of a white back ground, the character was surrounded by a different color, like tan? Would the camo actually make the character less obvious. That is, fail to be a visual focus. How would you tweak the camo colors? I spent some time w. one camo vector group, and started combining areas of the same color. It was fairly difficult, and I didn't get very far. But It did allow easy color changes.

Hello, alicambell_68, Your problem is already solved. AD has both round and rounded rectangle "callout" shapes as members. of the built in shape tools But if you want to make similar things, you need to start w. 2 (at least) overlapping shapes. With all selected, use the boolean "add" button on the right of the top bar. You could also use the node tool on a rounded rectangle, create 3 new nodes and pull 1 out, making sure the new nodes are a "sharp."

Strange. Using Mac version, the rectangle color updates as the sliders are moved. If doing numeric entry, any time a box is filled and exited, by clicking on another entry box, hitting return, or tabbing to the next, the change happens immediately. I also tried it in a document started in CMYK, and made modifications w. the RGB slides, and the updates also happened immediately. Can you repeat the problem in new documents? If so, may be a bug

Asking out of curiosity, have you tried exporting as .svg? Any different results?

I used Corel intensely for a number of years, ending about 2003, when Draw was no longer supported on a Mac. I was quite unhappy, and shifted to AI. When I got AD a few months ago, the habits were still so strong that I kept trying to use CD/AI shortcuts, etc. Fortunately, AD is well laid out enough, and consistent that I've mostly stopped using the wrong keys.

I don't have AP, but I've encountered something similar in AD. A few days ago I was working w. a large grid of vector circles. The vectors took up 12 Mb of file space. Not certain about the number but I think it was around 1296 circles/sq". I was using them as a layer mask for a photo. When I tried to move them around the canvas, there would be 1st a very blurred grid, followed by one better defined, followed by one that was accurate. Each level of redraw took more than a few seconds to do. If I zoomed in, it was a little quicker. It appear that the screen rendering starts at a square near the center of the view, and proceeds outwards. My recollection is that I was using a 1 px grid on an 8.5" x 11" canvas, and that performance did not approach usual speed until I was zoomed to about a 2" square. Conceivably, if you are zoomed in to where the screen is only showing layers within the view that are affected while dragging, the screen redraw might not try to update the whole image.

Nice work. If this is your 1 set of works using a vector app, you are picking things up really quickly. And I can how you've used the added pixel painting capabilities.

I can't tell enough from your pics to say anything definite. There is an option when using the export persona to not export items hidden while in export. Maybe thats whats going

Are you wanting to use things you have already written, or drawn? Or do you just prefer to work that way on a tablet? There are several handwriting recognition apps that do a pretty good job on a demo iPad I tried. Didn't think to see if graphic shapes were converted, altho I've read there are some that will do simple shapes, squares, triangles, etc. It's been years since I tried converting scanned handwriting to text. My recollection was that even as a 2 finger typist, it was faster and more accurate to just type. If you have a Mac, and a graphics tablet, there is a built in handwriting system feature called "Ink." I just tried it w. AD, and it worked OK. Again, not any quicker or easier than just typing.

Let me offer a different pricing analogy. I want to take 6 people out for a fine dinner. 2 are strict vegans, and will not sit at the same table as meat eaters. I, an omnivore, don't really care as long as the food is good. Do I demand that the restaurant give me 2 tables at the same price as 1? I am their patron, why should I have to bear the extra expense? Not that I care. I have plenty of money. Its just that Chef "X" is the best in town, and I'd rather have chef's here than anything offered elsewhere. Still, if the restaurant wants my patronage, shouldn't it, erm, accommodate me?

If the snap tool setting has "snap to object geometry" selected, dragging a node will snap to another node. May need to zoom in if there are lots of snapping points. Assuming you are drawing in polygon mode. It works in curve mode too, but the outlines will not match.

Hi, Prima, What you are trying to do is actually fairly complex. Xcode helps makes it easier to put together executable code, and I suppose somewhere there is an option to load the graphics you have designed. But you will at least have to learn the Xcode environment, which is extensive. And you probably would benefit greatly from learning something about the code it generates. I think everything needed is free w. the Xcode download. You might need to pay a developer fee to load the resulting app onto a device.

When the styles panel is open, there is a menu pop up at the top right. There are options for importing styles, creating a category to store your own. etc. You can also create a new style from a selected object, and the rename it.

Hi, Curious, AD is not designed for image resizing, much less batch processing. Can be done 1 image at a time, very slow. A free-ware cross platform application, GIMP, will do the job.

AD allows bitmaps to fill a vector, and then if the vector is broken into parts, the portions of the bitmap in the pieces remains attached. The OP's sample suggested that he wanted the Mass. map to be surrounded by transparency. I suspected, and found that if a bitmap was brought into a vector as a nested child instead of a fill, geometric operations of the parent vector also applied to the child. Here's a 1-2-3... Open a transparent background document. Create an unfilled rectangle. Drag in image onto the document window, and nest the image layer in the rectangle. Make the "bars." I made a long thin rounded rectangle, rotated it, duplicated it enough times, and used combine to put them all together. Position over the rectangle, both in the workspace and in the layer palette. Select the layers, and subtract. The image is now broken by thin white stripes.

Hi, Robotbenjy, It seems there are quite a number of people who show up on the forum expecting the Affinity apps to be a replacement for other, more mature, and generally much more expensive software. And often they are disappointed. I think its more a matter of expectations being let down (I too have read the PS-killer stories) rather than the software being flawed. As MEB noted, the apps are quite young. Give them a few more years.

Here's a method that will work, tho' w. a caveat. Make an unfilled rectangle that will enclose the map. Bring the map in as an image, and nest the image within the rectangle as a "child." Combine all the strokes into 1 object. With the combination layer above the rectangle-image layer, use the subtraction boolean. The caveat is that the image, being a bitmap, will pixelate if scaled up too much. If you can find a vector map, perhaps an .svg, the vectors forming the state and the associated islands can also be subject to the subtraction routine, and then scaled to whatever size w/o loss of definition.

When drawing w. the pen tool, the handles can be constrained. After that, no.

AFAIK, that is the way power duplication works, scaling by a proportion, not a specific amount. The only option I've come up with is to set a grid with the interval I want, and manually scale a series of duplicates.

Very charming, and delicate. Care to share a shot of the wireframe?

From using Designer, I don't think so. While some of the .svg filter elements appear to be similar to AD's features, it seems to me AD can do many things not supported by the .svg standard unless the image is converted to a bitmap. For instance, while a gaussian blur fx might be translated to an .svg gaussian blur filter, what good would that do if there was something like a vibrance adjustment layer sitting over the blurred item?

Hi, mattjenn, I've been using AD for about 9 months, and I'm still learning. My answers are not definitive. Drawing constraints for lines are vertical, horizontal, and 45 degrees. If you want 30 degrees, set up an isometric grid, and have snapping to grid enabled. The transform panel lets one scale in both x & y by any percentage, or proportion such as pi. At present, AD requires adding a node to break a line. This is something still in development. AD does not have AI-like actions. There has been mention of a scripting language in the future. By default, each new object is its own layer. But it is easy to set the program so that new objects are nested in an existing layer. The term "layer" in AD is different than in AI. A lot of what AI does can be done in AD, but the program works differently. Learning different methods will be a bit of a hurdle. I think you will find AD quite capable, but there are many features that are still being implemented. It is not, IMO, a replacement for AI but a viable alternative in many respects.

I am speaking in a mostly technical sense. From what I recall of the discussions we had w. lawyers, the term "profit" is the crucial element. One may not profit from another's work, and fair use only goes as far as not reducing the profit of the creator, or right holder. "Claiming credit" does perhaps impinge on the creator's goods. But claiming something is one's own work is simple intellectual dishonesty, and that almost always is uncovered, and penalized at least in terms of reputation. Current law, tho', is very extensive on what can be claimed as a property. The facade of a building, for instance. The place I worked allowed people to take pictures of the outsides of the buildings, but would sue anyone who printed those pictures in anything.

One cannot claim to have been plagiarized if one discloses a method, either freely or for pay. So if you see it on a tute, or just an blog demonstration, its pretty much OK to use. Concepts, something like a description for a plot line, can be copyrighted, and assuming the owner protects the right, if someone appropriates it for commercial use, then there is a problem. There are many uses for the term "idea." but the most important one is referred to in the old phrase "You can't stop an idea whose time has come." There are certainly historic records of people w. no relation to each other, working in different places w. no communication, who have discovered or created nearly the same thing. Or as is often said, "there are no new stories." My view is that basic ideas are not the property of any 1 person. The actual expression deriving from the idea is what can be plagiarized, i.e. copied for profit by someone who does not own it. Picasso was once accused of stealing someone's technique. His reply was something like "Everybody steals. The mark of genius is knowing who to steal from." I thought about that "Everbody steals" for years. (I worked in an art museum, and topics like this were part of day to day operation.) "Steal" might be to strong a term, but pretty much everybody borrows from everybody else. People who are honest will admit to being influenced by other peoples' works. In some cultures and schools, deviating from traditional standards is in fact discouraged or forbidden. As a for instance, a big problem with attributing works to Rembrandt is that he had many pupils, all of whom were encouraged to paint like their master. It wasn't a problem, until a few hundred years later when the real things and the students' works got mixed up and were all being sold as a Rembrandt. This is a huge topic, and many facetted. But "replicating a style seperate from the subject matter/composition etc, transforming old art into something new etc all can fall under plagiarism as well..." is not plagiarism. A style is just a set of conventions, and those are used to help formulate a particular item. Its like a set of words, phrases, syntax. Everyone who wants to can use them.