Frozen Death Knight

I was trying to select a group in a project I was working on when I noticed that it got rasterized when using a brush. So I checked out the Assistant and got confused by the naming of the option that rasterized the group. It's called "vector layers" which confused me, since I associate vectors with well, vector shapes, not groups and stuff. The same could be said about erasing and applying filters to "vector layers". Desktop 2020.08.08 - 16.41.58.01.mp4 Maybe I am a bit picky, but some clearer names for non-pixel layers would be nice.

I agree. Was sitting the other day and doing some vector stuff when I noticed that I couldn't tell the difference between them from a distance when I was simply trying to select a bunch of nodes. Made me miss nodes I wanted to select constantly. Maybe if they were a different shape like a square or triangle it would be a bit simpler, no?

Do your tablet and OS support high precision Wintab support? If not, then try switching to the legacy Wintab option mentioned in the patch notes and see if that works.

Just grab a pen and paper and start then! Been practicing quite a bit over the years on how to quickly sketch down ideas from my head. Also, thanks! ^-^

Just me having some fun in the latest Photo Beta after all the shortcut and brush precision API improvements. Really looking forward to the official release and soon 1.9! 🥳

Yeah, you're right! My bad.

One feature that has been confirmed for 1.9 when creating brushes is the ability to create brush textures from your canvas selection. That to me I am very much looking forward to, since the current workflow for creating custom brushes is very tedious to say the least. Other than that, we don't know much else if there will be more changes coming with the next major release.

I like Designer and find it quite comfortable to use, but to me there are 3 features that I wish to see that would make it more feature complete for what I like to do with vectors: 1) A raster-to-vector converter. I am primarily a raster artist, so the way I like to work is drawing with pixels first. Being able to convert my Photo sketches into vectors for me to start working with vectors is a great time saver over having to retrace everything from scratch. Right now I am using Inkscape to compensate for this, but the value of Designer would greatly improve with this feature alone. 2) A shape builder tool. Really, it just makes things easier all around when working than just using regular boolean operations. 3) Persective transformation tools that don't rasterize the vectors like this thread mentions. Just makes perspective work a lot easier. Fix those 3 and I will be more than content for my type of projects. 🥳

Nice! One bit of criticism I have about the composition is that the shadowed sihouette of the woman isn't properly mirrored. The mirror image and the woman are facing the same way which is unrealistic since a mirror is supposed to flip them to be opposites, as in right is left and vice versa. It is especially noticeable with the hair and shoulders which are facing the same way as the mirror image.

@Chris B I just found another problem which is likely related to the same problem of the brush shortcut being recently changed. Right now in the Beta you can change your brush size and every time a new state is created in the History panel despite not actually having used the tool itself on the canvas. You will then get situations where certain history states don't really do anything since technically no other action was performed except for changing brush sizes.

@Mark Ingram Just tried the new shortcuts for the selection tools now and they work great! Thanks a lot for fixing them! 🥳 While we're still on the topic of shortcuts, I would like to ask if it would be possible to get these types of shortcuts for the Sponge Brush Tool as well for this Beta period? Currently you can only change brush size with ctrl+alt+L click like any other brush, but when you want to quickly switch between Saturate and Desaturate or toggle between HSL Saturation and Vibrance, you can't do that with modifier shortcuts and instead you have to manually click on them in the toolbar. Desktop 2020.07.30 - 16.29.35.01.mp4 I think adding these shortcuts would make the current push for improved workflow shortcuts feel a bit more feature complete.

The news we got on having this feature was that Affinity on Windows needs GPU acceleration before it is possible to create a similar tool like in Photoshop. GPU acceleration is in the works, so we'll see what kind of priority a rotation tool will have after that is implemented.

While I was experimenting in the Beta, I tried to use the Liquify Persona a bit. I found a bug where holding down alt and R click while liquifying your image with L click doesn't produce history states in the History panel. I was using a mouse to perform this bug. Desktop 2020.07.25 - 22.04.26.02.mp4

You mean the buttons on your pen? I use them a lot in fact. My standard for those buttons are R click and L click. L click I use to create brush strokes with 100% brush pressure, something which doesn't work in the Beta right now. Shift+L click is also very nice for creating perfectly straight lines with no line width variety. R click I also use a lot because of R click menus and stuff and luckily those seem to work right now. I hope that the issue of the L click button not working on the pen will be resolved. Really liking the improvements to the brush precision API, but I wish not to lose this nice feature in the process. : )

Okay, thanks! Follow up question, is there way to inverse your node selection when you have selected the small piece you want to keep? Feels a bit impractical to manually deselect everything you don't want to delete after selecting all the nodes. ^^

I have a vector image where there is a piece I want to cut out and paste on another layer based on the selection I have made with the Node Tool. Is there a way to do this in Designer?

Just saw the patch notes that alt+R click was changed to ctrl+alt, so I made a victory dance with my crab brethren. Thanks a lot!!! The entire Affinity Suite just became a lot more user friendly with that change alone. 🥳 P.S. It works on my PC, so I can now use the brush shortcuts without any issue. P.P.S. I just tried using the Lasso Tool and noticed that R click doesn't work when adding more to your selection. Anything that will be addressed before the launch of 1.8.4, @Mark Ingram?

I have now been able to test the latest tablet changes and the good news is that all the fixes in the patch notes work as expected! Drawing feels overall very good now. One issue that remains still is the non-functioning modifier shortcuts like alt+R click+L click and 100% brush size painting while using L click on your tablet pen using the side buttons. Lastly, and I can't stress this enough, Affinity does not remember brush pressure size from the last known drawn spot when you create straight lines using shift and clicking on the canvas. Desktop 2020.07.10 - 12.05.11.01.mp4 Fix those two problems and I will overall be very satisfied with the precision of the brushes while drawing. 🥳

It would not work for every tablet out there since you would need buttons on your tablet with customisable keybinds. However, it is a pretty standard feature for a lot of tablets with additional buttons to customise them to do complex button combinations. For instance, all my Wacom tablets are capable of alt-gr/right alt combinations with the other modifiers, so it would not be any issue at all to create a simple one button press to access alt-gr in some form along with combining it with other keys. The feature would very much be a welcome edition if it means not having to use alt+R click+L click with a tablet pen, since that keybind is very awkward to use.

Just wanted to have some fun and redesign an old animation icon from the 80s, so I decided to draw She-Ra. Had a lot of fun with this one. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/AqqaBz

Can confirm this as well. There are just too many bugs with it right now. Sometimes the pen stroke does not respond and you keep drawing without anything happening on the canvas. Then there are tons of broken shortcuts like alt+R click+L click where you are only able to make the UI for the shortcut to appear, but you can't confirm anything by dragging or clicking L click. When using the colour picker on alt+L click/L click drag you get locked into colour picking the canvas without being able to confirm which colour you want, thus locking the entire software to being stuck in colour picker mode. Finally you can't use the side buttons on your digital pen to create normal L clicks without pen pressure, so there are multiple levels stuff going wrong. Here's an example video showing what I mean. The times I do confirm shortcuts I use the mouse or reset the program using Esc to get back to normal mode. The only thing that actually works right now is drawing with pen pressure, but if some other bug appears, it eventually stops working until you manage to reset everything back to normal. Before you ask, yes, I changed my Wacom tablet settings by enabling/disabling Windows Ink and switching between Hover Click and Click & Tap. Makes absolutely no difference. Desktop 2020.06.27 - 04.59.01.01.mp4

Regarding the Colour Picker Tool, I think there a couple of things missing on that list. I know of at least two things that need to be added/fixed: 1) The Colour Picker Tool settings do not affect the colour picker for the Brush Tool when pressing alt. You can't set it to Current Layer or change the Radius for the Colour Picker Tool and then get that to work with the alt colour picker for the other tools. This is how Photoshop does it and I hope it gets added in Affinity. 2) The Flood Fill Tool lacks an alt colour picker. Why? The Gradient Tool has it, so why not this tool?

Anyway, it would be nice if you guys talked about the other things on that list that Windows are missing compared to Mac. Mouse shortcuts was just one area that I wanted to discuss. An important one, but just one point nonetheless. Have you found anything else I forgot to mention?

But that explanation doesn't hold water when it comes to ctrl, alt, and shift specific commands that are used on Mac, yet they are different on Windows. Both OS:s have those keys so they should be the same, yet they aren't. Heck, Photoshop has alt+R click for changing brush size/hardness on Windows which is pretty close to ctrl+alt+R click, so don't tell me it can't be done for Windows. Besides, the cmd key is barely used by any of the tools I have tried on Mac. It is primarily used for some menu shortcuts like undo/redo (cmd+z/cmd+shift+z), so the Mac version still isn't utilising all the available modifiers for the tools to warrant the differences between each OS.

A few days ago I downloaded the very generous 90-day trial (Thanks, Serif!) for Affinity on Mac, since I happened to own a Macbook Air and not a PC laptop. After trying it for a few days I can honestly say that I am a bit envious by what Mac users get to enjoy. I am not talking about the lack of GPU acceleration on Windows (although I really want it, my Mac doesn't support Metal so I can't try that as of now), but little annoyances that are present on the Windows version which are completely absent on Mac. Here's a list of stuff I have found thus far: - Mac remembers which brush category you had opened last session after closing Affinity. On Windows I have to scroll down to open my customised brush category every time I open Affinity, which is at the bottom of the pile because you can't change the order of your categories, thus wasting time for no reason. - Mac remembers what folders were opened and closed when you close down a project and open it up again. On Windows all folders are closed when I do the same, thus disorienting me when I have a larger project with tons of layers. - Mac has far better mouse shortcuts than Windows for changing stuff like brush size and more, which are easier to use with tablets. I.e. the Lasso tool allows you to add to your selection by holding down ctrl and L click, while on Windows you need to hold down R click and L click. Ctrl+alt+R click on Mac to change brush size is pretty comfortable and I just don't understand why Windows has to be different for the sake of it. - Mac remembers the pen pressure from the previous stroke when connecting dots for straight lines by pressing shift and your pen on the tablet. On Windows you always get 0% pen pressure at the beginning of each line regardless of how hard you press your pen on your tablet, leading to this: Desktop_2019_12.28_-_23_44_31_02.mp4 These issues are some that I have managed to find thus far after using the Mac version for a short while. Are there any other differences that Mac has that Windows hasn't which I haven't found yet? Please post them here so that the devs can hopefully address them! : )