SlipperyBrick

Ah very interesting, it looks like WPF is used for Windows, and an old post says Objective-C was used for Mac (never developed natively for Mac, have no experience with it). Two code bases for the front-end, that is surprising. I've started using Qt6 and wanted to have a similar type of window as the Affinity products have (a frameless window) but realised that making a window frameless then relies on you as a developer to implement the OS window handling events to get the look and feel of the OS back; this is for the animations such has snapping the window and expanding it, minimizing it, etc. I think my approach will now be to have separate implementations for each OS window and aggregate my other widget classes that make up my GUI, this way I can have a single code base for my GUI that looks the same across platforms. Cheers for the response though! Have a good New Year!

Hi, This is mainly a question aimed at the developers. I am very interested in knowing what GUI framework was used to develop the Affinity line of products. Was it Qt? Or WPF? Were the modules of Affinity programmed in C# or C++ (I imagine it was C++ considering the rendering operations for drawing) This is very off topic from questions pertained to Affinity products but I am a C/C++ developer and have been looking for a good framework that enables rendering of both 2D and 3D graphics without the need for implementing a rendering engine with graphics API's such as OpenGL or Vulkan, etc. I like the look and reponsiveness of the Affinity products and was hoping a developer could share some insights into the front and back-end technologies used to develop the Affinity line of products. Cheers!

I'd also like to chime in on the fact that you do have macro's (as said earlier) in Photo. So if you aren't happy with the workflow of channel packing, why not make a macro that does it for you? In regards to everything else that was previously discussed, I've also explained the available options you have for working with multiple channels in Photo (one of my previous posts in here). I'd highly recommend (as I said before) to continue tweaking your current workflow within Photo to best suit you, use the macro system and the available tools they have, as it really is far more superior than Photoshop.

If you are copying and pasting RGB values from one channel to another channel independently then your results will differ as pixel values aren't constant throughout this process. I personally would change the way you work (to progress and get better results). I'm going to stop here, either way I hope the information I've provided has given some insight (despite my own opinions, which don't really matter). Cheers!

I'd say the workflow is far more superior in Photo. The fact that you can create multiple spare channels as buffers for your data is way better than Photoshop (you can't hold multiple copies and then paste them individually in Photoshop, unless you use layers; which at that point is the exact same way as doing things in Photo). You have the visibility flag (the eye icon) and the editable flag (the pencil icon) for every channel in your document when working with multiple channels in Photo (right in the Channel tab), allowing you to toggle the visibility of each individual channel independently. IdleJohn even mentioned a neat workflow above on how you can work with the alpha channel too (sure it isn't "directly" but what is the difference? You are still working on some layer in your document to put into the alpha channel, it just requires a couple more clicks). Like I say though, I do agree with you, there is room for improvement in terms of usability. My point though is that functionality is there, you can work with individual channels of an image in Photo it just takes a little change in your workflow. Why would Serif developers make Affinity Photo work the same as Photoshop, that would be completely pointless as Photo wouldn't be unique in any way at that point, it would just be a clone of Photoshop.

I have absolutely no clue what you are talking about in regards to Photoshop "handling alphas perfectly", what is the context? Handling them perfectly in what way? I'd love to get to the bottom of this because I've been subscribed to this thread since I asked the original question a few years back. All I've seen is people have some confusion surrounding alpha, the workflow of manipulating channels in Photo, and in general the overall functionality of handling image data through multiple channels within Photo. I do agree that a copy/paste approach would be great (similar to Photoshop), but other than that the feature works, it works completely as expected, for both creative approaches and traditional approaches.

In regards to alpha ... just by you packing some arbitrary data into the alpha channel means that the alpha has a sole purpose of storing data for "something" (this something highly depends on your intentions of how you use alpha). Typically, the use of the alpha channel for game development is completely driven by the shaders/materials employed/designed/programmed by the game engine itself. For instance, I am involved in the development of a commercial 3D game engine and we have shaders in our engine that use the alpha channel for all sorts of things; blending between material layers, masking parts of an image, fresnel factor, etc; alpha is just another channel you can store image data in. Within Affinity Designer though, yes alpha explicitly refers and acts as transparency, if this is what you are talking about then I can see the confusion, but of course this can be ignored as after you export your image from Photo and use it within your game engine alpha will be potentially used for something other than transparency (which seems to be the case as you are explaining that you are using alpha for something other than transparency).

I'm not too sure what the confusion is about. When I originally posted this topic I had no idea how to copy image data into separate channels (a very popular thing to do in game development). This feature has been around for a long time now in Photo, sure its a few more clicks but there is absolutely nothing complicated about it. You can isolate individual channels, create spare channels and paste those into individual channels, mask individual channels, etc. You have every operation you need to manipulate each individual channel of an image. Here is a video showing how it is done in Photo. I'm slightly confused as the feature is completely functional. It works and does what is required. Sure there can be usability improvements, but like I said above, there is nothing complicated about this. I hope the video tutorial helps people who are looking to apply this to their workflow.

Ok I answered my own question. Its an Affinity Designer thing called Constraints. I knew this was a thing! Very cool designing how responsive websites should work. I use Bootstrap Studio for programming my websites functionality and Affinity Designer for creating all the assets for the website. So this tool is something I will be using a heck of a lot more 😎

Hey! I remember seeing a video of an Affinity product that allowed responsive design and I just can't remember where I saw it or even how it worked. I swear it may have been a Publisher thing but, in essence I saw a video where some guy had a design and he could move the sides of the canvas and on screen the entire design was conforming to the size of the canvas, dynamically. Is this a thing or just a dream I had?

MattyWS hit the nail on the head there in terms of usage, manipulating each channels content is what makes this workflow so useful, you can pack 4 different images into one file along with TGA having RLE compression (that's lossless) is what makes this so popular and still strong in the games industry. I am beginning to wonder if most of the community on here use Photo just for touching up images and maybe Serif didn't expect their application to become a potential alternative for customers in other areas (areas other than photography). I really hope that Serif take this opportunity and consider that Photo may well become an application for more than what they intended the more potential customers that get to see it and hear about it. I've recommended it to my whole University class, my wife (who actually does photography) and friends I know who do game development as a hobby and nearly everyone who got back to me to say thanks said that the application wow'ed them and they were thinking of switching, it's the price point and non subscription model you guys have along with the professional grade tools that make it such an attractive application. Please consider the rest of your user base other than the guys who use it for what you intended because that is what's gonna make your application really shine and your company image, it shows you are acknowledging your user base and supporting it, people will love that. I'm not saying that Serif already aren't a well known and popular company (I'm not out to hurt anyone's feelings.) I really hope people stop flaming posts in here and stop asking why we want TGA export, or why we are still using it, or why this is such a big deal, and also taking opinions out of context thinking we are bad mouthing the developers because it's getting pretty lame now. If you don't need TGA support why are you even commenting on this thread, also it's not even constructive. I just want to know in this thread if TGA export is a possibility and if it will get implemented, not to talk about development methodologies or where people used to work and what other games studio workflows there are. TGA export as a feature I feel has been fully justified and there is enough demand for it.

I understand that some people are happy with getting by and using alternatives to fill in the gaps but the Affinity products aren't exactly your average image editing/creation applications, they have all the bells and whistles and there is even some features that enhance the workflow making really difficult techniques incredibly easy. We can't shy away from the fact that both Affinity products even in there current state are big threats and massive contenders with Photoshop and Illustrator (and now InDesign!) For such a small feature (that is TGA export) to simplify a workflow for a massive multi million dollar industry, you are opening the flood gates for a big amount of people who would be attracted to the idea of finally owning their own software for an incredibly modest price, most software in games is either very expensive or subscription based. Allegorithmic are a fine example, they allow their customers to outright buy their products (Substance Designer, Substance Painter) and have put ridiculous amounts of effort into supporting nearly every workflow for every other application in the games industry and these guys are huge (they are taking over the industry), and why? Because they show they are willing to support their customers and enhance the usability of their products, before people start to verbally assault me on my previous statement I'm not saying Serif don't care about their customers but I as a sole individual get the feeling that they just don't think that a small feature like this has any impact for their average user base when in fact it does, I've seen countless forums on here asking for TGA support mostly from game developers so why don't they tap into that market and who knows they may become the next Allegorithmic

I should rephrase what I said above about how not having TGA export stops me from using Affinity products, it doesn't. But ... For the ease of use and also having the ability to speed up the workflow of dealing with exporting to a particular format should justify TGA export being implemented into both Affinity products. I saw a thread where you had a member of staff who works as a director at EA asking for this feature (see first post by a guy called Max) and he was ignored! Seems like you guys were given a golden opportunity there and missed it. Surely you guys realise that games development is a highly iterative line of work and having to export to one file format and then use some free (or maybe even paid) solutions to converting into other formats is just not viable when dealing with massive projects and stressful deadlines, even automating that task just adds time (and time is money in the case of big games studios). I'm not just talking from an industry stand point, I'm a student studying for my degree in computer games development and I just can't keep forking out the money for an Adobe subscription but this is the one thing that is stopping me from letting go and moving away from Photoshop (there are tons of other potential customers in my situation too, not counting hobbyists). You guys have two fantastic products (three when you consider Publisher) why not step up your game and support your customers wants and needs by adding something that to me seems so trivial. I think the rewards would pay off guys, I know you would have an army of games developers coming your way to throw money at the one off non subscription model you are getting known for, who knows greater things may come along and you might get other people interested (I'm looking at you Quixel ;D). So come on guys, lets make this happen! *play epic battle music*

It is getting so old and annoying to see everyone on this forum ask "Why do you need TGA?", "What game engines use TGA?", "Why exactly do you need to export TGA?", "Just curious, but why would you want or need to export to the TGA format?". I check daily on here in the hopes that Affinity will add TGA support to Photo and Designer and I'm yet to see it. This is pretty much one of the fundamental features both applications are missing to have that complete edge over Adobe's product line and it frustrates me when I constantly see people on here getting so confused and wanting to justify its implementation, there is ton's of other programs and workflows that rely on the use of TGA file format. Serif please add TGA support for exporting, it is absolutely crazy why you don't have this, yet you have pretty much every other file format under the sun available to export to. Is there some kind of problem as to why you can't support it? There are so many other threads asking for it, you can't deny it is a much needed feature. This is one of the main reasons I can't use both applications in my current workflow and have to rely on Photoshop.

Is creating big icons and scaling them down better? This isn't for a game by the way its for actual software (a game engine). The icons need to be dds format but I can export as png and then convert them. I'm just wondering how should I create the icons, I looked at a workflow called pixel perfect where every pixel is snapped to a grid realistically its impossible to do that especially when your icons have curves. What methods are used when graphic designers create UI elements as this is what I am creating.

There is probably not a clear or straight answer to my question but I'm hoping to learn as much as I can. I'm a programmer and in no way a professional graphic designer. I am looking to create a bunch of icons for a desktop application (specifically icons for buttons, etc, for a game engine). I am wondering at what resolution should I design my icons at? Or doesn't this matter? I'm considering the fact that these icons need to look good on all monitors and I want them looking as clean and crisp as they can possibly be. Is there some sort of secret to this? I look at the icons on websites and other applications and they look so high resolution and clean but everytime I export my icons they look like a blobby mess. Is there any information or terminology I need to know about in order to learn and solve this problem? Thanks!

Ah I'm an idiot lol. Thank you very much this is brilliant!

This way exports the file but then I can't open it as it says unsupported file (I'm using IrfanViewer to view my files but any other image viewer can't open the file either). I'm running Windows, when I type 0.5 into the dialog box it just goes back to 2x. It's as if it won't let me change it.

Just tried this to see if it would work and it didn't Is this kind of thing even a feature in Affinity Designer?

When in export persona I know that you can choose a slice and add as many versions of the same slice to upscale the original for a bigger size even though your slice maybe say 16x16 px. I was wondering is it possible to do the reverse as well? So if you had a 32x32 px slice can you downscale it as well?

Ok this has helped me greatly, I had no idea you could do this. Thank you very much for the help!

I'm getting slightly frustrated with Affinity Designer, I have dropped Illustrator to learn this software and whilst I was impressed at the start of using it and found it very easy to move from Illustrator to Designer I'm starting to notice a lot of things that are missing or that just make certain things impossible to do in Affinity Designer. The grid settings are fantastic and the zoom is great, these tools really help design icons perfectly but one thing that completely ruins this is the stroke. You have to be careful with the numbers you put in the stroke because Designer doesn't seem to like numbers that go to two decimal places such as 0.75, or 0.25, etc, numbers like this get changed to 0.8 or 0.2. This breaks any kind of workflow where you want to design pixel perfect icons at a very small scale. Will this be changed at some point? Also a recent update came out for Designer and I can't seem to find any kind of blog or change log showing what was included in the update.

Here is one of my icons with the grid turned on in Affinity Designer. Here is outline mode turned on so you can see more clearly where the lines are on the grid. Is this the right way to make sure pixels are aligned? Each stroke on every icon is 1 pt. I'm not to sure if that equates to a whole pixel or not, would I need to go as far as making sure the stroke is also a whole pixel?

How can I ensure they are pixel aligned? I did activate a grid that I set to 32px and the subdivisions to 32px aswell when making these icons. I made sure that each node I placed down sat at a coordinate which was a whole number giving me the impression that the pixels are whole pixels. If this isn't the right way to make sure the icons are pixel perfect please let me know, I do consider myself a newbie to graphic design so I'm always learning new things

Maybe it's my eyes or I'm just expecting them to be super sharp, my monitor doesn't help I know that much haha (crappy resolution lol) I think I'll just stick to designing them on my Surface Book instead as the resolution and screen is a lot better. It's good to hear though that you think they look sharp, it's always good to get someone else's opinion