Michael Sheaver

Searching for a doable workflow I am trying to develop a workflow in which I can create assets in AD (macOS or iOS), export them as SVG, and import them into Blender for animation. I have discovered, after quite a few failed attempts over the course of many months, that this is not as straight-forward as one would imagine. Breakthrough Yesterday, I stumbled across an old post that turned out to be a breakthrough for me. Apparently, while exporting the assets out of AD, a specific setting must be unchecked, as shared by @Dave Harris here: After playing around with the different settings, I settled upon the following combo that seems to work relatively well: This did indeed allow me to get them into Blender, colors and all. However, I did discover another problem. A New Challenge Here is an admittedly silly little project that I created in AD a while, just for fun: And this is what I got when I import it into Blender (after rearranging the layers for visibility): As soon as I saw this, my response was, "Ah yes, it did exactly what I told it to do, even if it was not what I had expected. Duhhh..." What I want to do What I would like to do is to get each of the letters of our names into Blender so I can extrude them into 3D objects and animate them - that is simple enough. But I also want the colors of each letter to go along with them - not so simple. Is there a way that this can be done? It seems that I will need to flatten out or convert the layer masks to something else before exporting them to SVG. This is where I am stumped. Finally... Kudos for the iPad app! I purchased the iPad app the very moment I received the email. The dev team really outdid themselves with this, big time! I truly enjoy using the Mac app for working, but I am actually LOVING it!

I have a photo that I am trying to do three things to: Crop an advertising poster out Fix the extreme perspective skew Fill in the missing part of one corner I know that AP can do all of these things, but I cannot seem to get past step 1. I did succeed in the first step using the selection brush. I know that the perspective tool is supposed to help in the second step, but I must be doing something wrong. The project file is attached; I hope someone can help. Thanks! Sign up.afphoto

WWDC is just around the corner (next week), and I wonder... Shhh..... If Designer for the iPad might be announced?

Hey everyone, if you didn't see it, take a look at what I posted in the Questions forum: This is really amazing news!

Spoiler: This is not a question, but something MUCH better! I was in the Mac App Store to check for updates, and I was very pleased to see which apps are ranked #3 and #9 top grossing apps: It is so good to see this, that I could not NOT share it here. Congratulations!

Spoiler: This is not in the least iota related to APub, so yes, it is unapologetically off-topic. But I, for one, and I will guess most of the folks who read these musings, enjoy them immensely. It is these side trips that add character and color to this forum. Speaking of assembly code, I recently learned that another incredible software project for artists, FL Studio by Image Line. uses assembly language and Delphi for most of their graphics processing (https://support.image-line.com/action/knowledgebase?ans=114). Having the ability to bypass the usual high-level APIs gives them the ability to precisely control the operation and feedback of even the tiniest user interactions. Because of that, the responsiveness and fluidity of the app is legendary in the DAW community; it also accounts for why their porting of FL Studio to Mac has taken an excruciatingly long time; does this sound familiar, anyone? The Affinity suite of products has the most fluid and responsive experiences I have ever seen, and this makes me wonder if they are using the same approach in their codebase. It would go a long way toward explaining both the level of performance, as well as the time it takes for development. EDIT: Here is another wonderful review of this software: https://machow2.com/fl-studio-for-mac-review/. It is SO refreshing to see companies like Serif and Image Line who actually care about the user experience of their masterpieces.

I just came across this wonderful article today, and could not keep it to myself! https://www.cultofmac.com/542177/the-best-apple-pencil-apps-that-arent-for-drawing/

Yes, yes, no, and YES!!! I searched for years for a suitable replacement for Illustrator and InDesign, as the whole CS6 suite became less and less usable on macOS, and when I finally stumbled upon Affinity Designer about a year ago, I honestly thought I had died and gone to heaven! I have used Designer for many multiple-page publications for print, and it is a powerhouse! The level of control it gives me is simply astounding, and the Export to PDF function helps you tailor it to exactly what your print shop needs for the final output, right down to the print marks and color samples. Other than the text flow handling, Designer has already got most of what you need for producing top-notch print documents. If you have any doubts about that, just buy the Affinity Designer Workbook, and you will see what it is capable of doing. But the best part about Designer is how intuitive and easy to use it is; it does not have many of those quirky "gotchas" that InDesign and Illustrator are infamously known for. In retrospect, it is ironically hilarious that there is a whole cottage industry built around discovering and mastering those quirks. As a poignant example, I remember how I absolutely hated using the Pen tool in the Adobe suite, but now, in Designer, it is one of my favorite go-to tools! The Affinity team really does care about making their applications work and work well, and they have restored for me the absolute joy of creativity. And when I first saw the video preview for Publisher, the way that the multipage text blocks fluidly adapted to the changes, well THAT blew me away! So once again, let me reiterate: yes, yes, no, and most assuredly YES

Now that’s odd; I will try to replicate this when I get home tonight. I will also make sure to do a video capture and show what is happening. I did do it twice on Sunday and got the same results both times.

Sure, no problem! I have uploaded the project file already.

I am using Designer 1.6.1 on macOS 10.13.4, and discovered a bit of strange behavior when exporting to PNG. It doesn't export some of the color or layers. However, if I export to JPG, everything exports as expected. Any ideas?

You don't know about Blackmagic's Fusion??? I just discovered it a while back, and it is simply amazIng! I especially love their node-based approach to adding elements and effects to the scenes! And, it is (in my opinion) an intuitive and easy to learn software, once you can wrap your mind around the concept of nodes. Go try it!

Twenty years is ancient history in technology, and yes, a LOT has changed since then. They built their system on Java, which, from a user experience perspective, is absolutely hideous. It is extensible and hackable, sure, but an awful pile of bolts to use. "Modern" alternatives like Chromium and Atom are following the same path, and it sucks. These platforms give dev teams the ability to quickly produce fancy systems with lots of bells and whistles, but just under the skin is a rat's nest of spaghetti code that nobody knows how they work. I use a major software built upon Chromium, and despite the devs best efforts to tweak it and fix bugs, is so bad that I cringe every time I open it.

Quote From the standpoint of a software engineer or developer, my proposal is really easy to implement. However, the stuff you are seeking, though it would be VERY NICE to have, it would be a rabbit hole to try and implement programmatically. There are just too many variables to track in order to pull this off gracefully, and when you look at every possible combination of those variables, well just thinking about this makes my head hurt. Sure, others may have made it work, but it was at a great expense, not only in terms of development time and troubleshooting, but also in terms of greatly reduced usability and performance of the software. There is a reason that Affinity is so much better than others, and that is they have learned the importance of saying "No", and have thus far been able to stay true to the principles of good software engineering. This is a very rare trait in today's world, and Serif has my greatest admiration for keeping on course.

This is one of those annoyances that all of us have encountered from time to time, and a quick way to convert just the text from artistic text to text frame and vice versa would be GREATLY appreciated. For just a few items, the copy-and-paste song and dance does work well. But for any number above what can be counted on one hand (that's five for most of us), it gets very tedious indeed. My thought would be to have a right-click -> convert to... option, where a new layer is created in the destination format, using just the default settings for that format, and the text dropped into it. Nothing more is needed. Then the user would be able delete or hide the the original layer as he/she sees fit, and format the new layer to their heart's desire.