Frozen Death Knight

I don't really agree that it's uglier since I prefer the high contrast colours for better readability of the shapes. The filter is pretty excellent for pixel art where readability is super important. Would find it a lot easier to design a character with the high contrast colour palette than the blurier one. That said, having any alternative pixelate algorithm certainly wouldn't be bad either.

Moving layers around in the latest build causes Affinity to freeze. Desktop_2020_03.07_-_16_47.16_03.mp4

One benefit would be that the layer would be completely locked from doing edits on since you can't draw or do any destructive editing until rasterising, something that the current layers system in Affinity lacks. That said, it would be more efficient to just add an edit lock button to solve that issue.

@Hilli Seems like the alt+R click+L click shortcut for mice has been fixed in the latest build. At least I have not experienced any freezes yet.

Did you try the latest Beta build? The patch notes mentioned the lag being solved now, so try that out and see if it works better.

@Mystical Try the latest Beta. I tried it last night and didn't experience any crashes with the alt+R click+L click command. Some extra confirmation that it is actually fixed would be appreciated! : 3

The difference is actually pretty big. This is an old test I did back in the 1.6 Beta: At very fast drawing speeds the old system broke down fast. Jagged transitions in curves, input lag at the start of the stroke causing the line to break sharply and then become smoother, and poor pen pressure quality at the ends of every line drawn. To avoid most of these issues you had to slow down your drawing speed to get reliable quality, which was quite unbearable for me who draws lines super quick. Here are the same actions taken in 1.8 when I tested the Beta: So yeah, a lot better.

Tried the Beta a bit and it seems like the latest patch solved an issue with the alt+R click+L click shortcut while using a mouse. I seem to be able to use the shortcut now without Affinity freezing. Still doesn't work with tablets, but it's a start. Thanks! : )

Sure, but what I would want from a potential Affinity Animate is more akin to After Effects styled animations of vector art, which I think would be quite useful to have supported. It's just very useful when creating prototypes of websites, user interfaces, video banners, and more. The collaborative power between Illustrator and After Effects makes it hard to find a good alternative in that department since After Effects has a lot of great tools for handling Illustrator files. Also, just having a proper timeline that can be supported in both Designer and Photo would leave open opportunities to do things like animating pixel art, cleaning and colouring of unfinished animations, and just general animation stuff. It doesn't have to be anything revolutionary, just a solid system that provides animation capability with all the tools that Designer and Photo provide. It would fill a solid niche for UI/UX designers and artists who rely on Photoshop when working in the animation industry.

Windows Ink produces better quality lines than the old method which allows you to draw faster, so it's a good idea to leave it on if you're an artist. It's why I keep using it over 1.7 despite the bugs. Had to resort to using the keyboard shortcut for changing brush size. It works for now, but the issues need to be solved asap as everyone else has said.

They haven't updated the Beta yet that addresses any of the Windows Ink bugs or the freezes when using the mouse. A dev mentioned one bug possibly being fixed in the next Beta build, but we'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully they fix these issues super soon, since it's hard enjoying 1.8 with them.

Okay, good to know! However, wouldn't it feel a bit better if changing the setting actually affected how numbers are rounded naturally? I.e. if you drag the slider value and it reaches 3,975 pixels, it will become 3,98 pixels with 2 decimals, 4,0 with 1 decimal, and 4 with no decimals. I think it makes more sense that if you don't want any decimals when changing brush pixel size, you can just change the value to zero and the program will naturally round off to whole numbers. Would also make the brush size shortcuts feel a bit more consistent.

The number is wrong when using the slider, but typing it in manually fixes the problem. Also seems to happen only when the number is 4 for some reason. Desktop 2020.03.04 - 14.33.55.04.mp4

Tried it in both Publisher and Designer and it happened in both softwares. Desktop 2020.03.04 - 14.20.26.02.mp4

I made a video showcasing the differences between the Lasso tools for Photoshop and Photo. As you will quickly notice, the edges that are drawn baseline in Photo are quite rough and the anti-aliasing is not nearly as effective at cleaning up the roughness as in Photoshop. Only when adding some feathering did I fix most of the issues with the selection, but it still doesn't get fully the same results. Desktop 2020.03.02 - 16.07.36.02.mp4 It would be much appreciated if you guys at Serif could take a look at this. : )

I agree. It would also help changing the colour of each highlight when dragging something onto a layer. Now everything is highlighted blue, which makes it harder to see if you are clipping or masking. On another note, I've noticed that it is not possible to manually sort the mask layers. Some more polish there would be appreciated.

The freeze we're talking about isn't really about the brushes being slow. The program can freeze at any random brush size, so it happens even at the lowest brush sizes possible. The program just simply stops responding altogether in the middle of using the shortcut and you have to go into the Task Manager to close the program there since you can't close it down any other way. I can try to record the freeze in action some day, but because of how random it is it is hard to make Affinity freeze on command.

@Mystical Are you using a mouse? I have the same problem when using a regular mouse using alt+R click+L click for any type of brush, not just the Erase brush. It doesn't happen every time, but it is basically inevitable when using the shortcut, so I have started relying on the keyboard shortcuts for brush size change instead which work fine. Tablets are another story, since they don't work at all there.

I reported this to the devs already in December last year during the Beta period. I am a bit surprised that 1.8 was released before fixing the Windows Ink bugs, since they are a serious hindrance to all tablet users on Windows. I would also like to mention that using alt+R click+L click with your mouse is not an option either. There is currently a bug that freezes all Affinity products when using the previously mentioned command. That and the issue of panning your canvas sometimes break so you can't move around in your project make 1.8 quite a hassle to work with at times.

Congratulations on the release! However, you still haven't documented the changes to the brush tools where you are now able to switch the functionality of your alt+R click+L click drag command by just pressing alt+R click+L click that I mentioned in this thread some time ago: I am also a bit surprised it got released before fixing the tablet bugs related to Windows Ink (Can't use any of the new shortcuts you added to the brushes yet.). Speaking of which, the support for Windows Ink was not documented either in the patch notes. It is a pretty significant feature improvement for tablet users, so it should be getting a mention at least. The improvements to Smart Objects/Embedded Documents are great by the way! I really hope you add the ability to create them directly in the Layers panel using R click like it's done in Photoshop to make it even better in Affinity. : )

The Colour panel already has a triangular HSV colour wheel. Just click the small icon next to the X mark on the upper right and choose "Wheel".

I hope they will add the ability to create embedded documents directly in the Layers panel as well to match the functionality of smart objects. Would make for a way more convenient workflow with this double click feature. : )

Personally I am more interested in news about features and bug fixes in individual patches rather than an official release date. Historically the Betas have been fairly stable on my end, so I've been using them over the official release more often than not. : )

PSD smart object import support? Does that also mean that you can create smart objects in Affinity as well? : D

Glad you liked it!