Frozen Death Knight

Works well on my end, including the ability to create a keyboard shortcut for it. There are times when there aren't enough nodes to support the curved shape (still produces different results from the default behaviour), but when I tried adding new nodes in-between the primary ones and deleted them the curved shapes remained completely intact. Good job!

I noticed that changing the Transform Origin in any way while using this feature throws me out of the pop-up panel. Would be nice if it was possible to change the origin while doing these transforms.

After having worked with these new shortcuts for some time, I now have some feedback to give. First off, the implementation works pretty well and is very convenient, so good job on that front. However, I noticed that the time for which I have to actually type something is very short. For instance, typing something like "91" on the keyboard requires me to quite rapidly press "9" and "1" in the span of a few milliseconds, but because of the distance between keys it can get a bit tricky to time it. Have to resort to hover multiple fingers over the number keys to be fast and precise. My suggestion is to at least double the time needed for pressing keys in succession so it doesn't require super rapid presses.

It's already an option for the lasso tool that exists in Photo. Check the upper toolbar when the tool is active and there will be a setting for it. You can also activate it using keyboard modifiers while using the default settings.

A lot of software really don't support backwards compatibility, which is why people export to other formats instead and then re-import. I can only think of Blender that reliably supports backwards compatibility, but even there stuff break at some point. I heavily doubt that Serif will take the time to create backwards compatible file formats any time soon if at all when development is so focused on the future of the software. That said, you can actually copy+paste objects from V2 to V1 and vice versa. As long as the feature exists there won't be any crashes going on. Done it a few times when noticing stuff breaking in some Betas and needed to use the retail versions.

Glad to see more transparency regarding development. A blend tool would be great for sure.

This tool could really use a rotation parameter. For instance, I wanted to create a shape where the second arrow is rotated 90 degrees around the centre, but there's no option for that. I think sheering values could be added in as well so it matches the options from the Transform panel.

Would be nice to have a Duplicate Linked option as well, so that the copies can actually change alongside the original object.

I like the menu change for the R click menu on the canvas, but the option is missing in the Layers panel. Should be added alongside Group and Ungroup. This option has more in common with those than rasterizing.

It's in V2 retail as well. Noticed it some time after I made my original report. Only noticed the bug very recently, however. Not possible with those brushes. You need brushes with some form of pen pressure settings and the Basic category lacks those. Here are my brushes. You can try my "Taper Thin Round" brush which I used in my original report. Brushing using shift+L click for straight lines with a tablet and switching back and forth between that and a mouse should over time activate the bug during longer sessions. 1 - FDK 2023.afbrushes

The reason I bring it up again is because of the second issue that I recently noticed when I had to use a mouse to create straight lines. Instead of using maximum brush width it's creating lines with a minimum size, which is not how drawing with mice works. I believe they may be related to each other (switching between tablet and mouse constantly may be the culprit), so I bring up my old report to help pinpoint the newer issue. I added a GIF to that link showing both bugs in action. "Mouse" shows the newer bug I found and "Tablet" is the older one. Also, I went back to 2.1 to double check if I could replicate the issue and it just so happens that it exists there too. Having brush settings that affect brush width and/or opacity/flow are all affected on my end.

Frames around each asset would be nice as well just to see where things are.

There are multiple bugs related to brushing in the latest version. Sometimes drawing with a mouse does not brush at the full size of the brush, only the minimum. Also, on Windows tablet pressure does not function correctly when using shift+L click to create straight lines. It is an old bug, but I think it is important to point out since it is a really big issue for creating good line work when I have to switch between pen tablet and mouse to get the full drawing experience. With the latest Beta I can't even rely on the mouse method, so these really need some attention. Also, for some reason I can't post GIFs on the site. Just getting the error -200 message.

I was using Publisher where I switched to Photo to preview the canvas file format. Of some reason the preview works in the other Personas besides the Designer Persona, you just can't toggle the activation when using the others.

Yep. It doesn't work on 32-bit canvases on my end, hence why I reported it.

Ah, got it. Yeah, the bug is pretty hard to activate on a whim. Sometimes I am able to use the feature no problem for a while, then all of a sudden modifiers start behaving weirdly. I think it may be related to change brush sizes when having press hold activated, but it may be something else entirely as well.

Not sure where I find that kind of data. Is Affinity actually logging button presses somewhere?

I figured out what is causing it. When using both shift and B in combination (Preferences option), both keys need to be pressed fast simultaneously. If I hold down shift for a long time, but quickly press B in succession, that still counts as me doing a hold command. Long press should only occur if I activate the main key, not any of the modifer keys. It does not feel natural to quickly press both simultaneously when I want to keep holding down shift to toggle between all the tools on the main key. Press hold when using the Paint Mixer Brush combined with the Colour Picker Tool still does not work though. Just pressing any modifier keys in general causes the tools to be switched as well.

Noticed something that was a bit finicky with the new controls. I tried fast tapping the same key to switch to the other tools sharing the same shortcut. Most of the time it works as it used to, but from time to time it registers as me holding down the key longer, so it only temporarily switches to another tool before reverting back. If the controls could be tightened up a bit so rapid presses do not accidentally activate the new feature, it would be nice. Edit: The Paint Mixer Brush is really hard to keep activated with button presses with even more testing. It just keeps reverting back to other tools on the same shortcut. Also, trying to colour picker by holding down the tool shortcut instead of alt will revert it to either the Paint Brush Tool or the Pixel Tool. It completely forgets that the Paint Mixer Brush was selected last. Also, the issue of keeping the tool selected by switching fast is more apparent in this GIF below. It refuses to keep still, even when the last button press was a fast one using shift+B.

After trying it a bit more, I noticed that if you keep brushing with a tool while you stop holding down the keyboard shortcut, it will just stay on that tool instead of switching back. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but just something I noticed that stops it from working. Edit: Seems like changing brush size breaks the feature as well. Was able to change the size of the other tools, but I must press the button again to go back and use it.

Really good features. I do hope however that these will be implemented into Publisher/Photo as well. As a painter I want to be able to preview my art in greyscale/without FX to better understand my colour values and layers. Not relying on an adjustment layer for greyscale especially would be great.

Agreed. Love this change!

Yeah, that could work. Would help users to create more advanced macros that would fill the gap of missing features/tools until you over at Serif add something equivalent/better to the base package. Thanks for the information!

My first suggestion would be to make Photo selection tools fill in colours as a vector shape as an alternative to regular fill tools. If we can convert vectors to raster selections I think it should be possible the other way around. The other suggestion would be to make the Vector Fill Tool fill in colours based on raster images as well. My current workflow is using vectors as colour fills for my raster line art. Being able to just fill directly without the need for the lines to be made in vector would be a very nice quality of life feature.