TonyO

I just ran across a workaround for messy expand stroke output. (first video attached) The amount of superfluous extra nodes is affected by miter limit settings. (regardless of joining, the miter limit affects all 3 - rounded, bevel and miter alike) The higher the miter limit the fewer junk nodes, the lower the limit the more you get. This isn't a fix for what I'm dubbing the "sawtooth overlap bug" (second video attached), that is the major problem I'm running into with nodes. When a large stroke overlaps itself it renders a sawtooth that vectorizes that way and looks very strange. This sawtooth is unaffected by any of the stroke settings, it just happens in tight corners with large strokes. Miter Limit and Junk Nodes.mov Sawtooth_Bug.mov

On the Deskop app, you can hold SHIFT and press Delete while editing nodes with the node tool and the shape of the line will be maintained as best possible. I don't believe this function exists on ipad (unless im too stupid to find it, but i tried modifiers, haha). Maybe adding it to the bottom context bar as a switchable function button (similar to the small snap buttons on the move tool) or add to node tool options as a checkbox for default behaviour (even better, i would never turn it off, haha). This would help correct the extra nodes that happen when expand stroke freaks out, haha.

It would be nice to have some sort of on-screen nudge option. Perhaps a video game D-Pad on the bottom context bar while the move tool is selected. That would be really nice to tap with the pencil. Something like this would be great!

Currently you can only set Bleed in the document setup. When you export, you can choose "include bleed" but you can't set or override bleed settings. I suggest removing bleed from document setup and moving it to the export options dialog under the checkbox for inclusion, you wouldn't miss it here since the option has to be enabled by the checkbox regardless. A plus side to this, is you could save custom profiles with custom bleed parameters. It would be nice to make a PDF export profile called "PDF for Print (marks + bleed)" that would automatically add and remember bleed and crop settings. It just seems to be in an odd and easy to overlook place at this point. (it's also missing from iPad but you guys already know that, haha).

Hello! I have a suggestion for the stroke slider. Currently, no matter the size of your document, the stroke slider goes from 0 to 100 pts. I tend to work on smaller sized documents and use precise lines for illustration. The steps between .5, 1, 1.5 points etc are a little tight for me. I would suggest being able to input a number in points, inches or mm next to the stroke slider that would define it's maximum value. For example i could put 1 inch into the slider max box, and the full draggable range of the slider would be from 0 to 1 inch with the same amount of steps in between. Making for ultra precise line width. OR i could put 8 inches into the stroke slider max range, so when im working at billboard size, i could still work with really big outlines and wouldnt be limited to 100pts (which equals out to about 1.38 inches). Thoughts?

I agree! Undo, Redo, Expand Stroke, (view) Clip to Canvas, as well as one click buttons for each studio (so you could toggle them on and off quickly) would be great additions to the selectable tool bar buttons when you choose to customize it.

Yeah, i kinda felt the same way about blob when i started a thread on it a while back. I figured to keep the toolset tight, it could be combo add/erase kind of tool, but have since thought it may integrate better into the pencil/pen tools as a setting that can be turned on and off. Eraser may be better on it's own since it's a function that cant really be replicated by any other tool.

The developers are already integrating some scaling functions to the node tool. I'm not sure if this was the kind of effect you were trying to achieve. scaling node selections.mov

It would probably be more useful to add some of these scaling methods as improvements to the current move and node tools as optional settings or modifiers. Illustrator has become bloated and a sheer pain to use lately pretty much due to the huge amount of redundant tools. The perfect example is plotting, moving and editing nodes... Illustrator has these tools: Selection Tool Direct Selection Tool Pen Tool Add Anchor Tool Delete Anchor Tool Anchor Point Convert Tool Curvature Tool Line Segment Tool Affinity has: Move Tool Node Tool Pen Tool The 3 tools in Affinty can accomplish everything the 9 Illustrator tools above can AND do more AND do it faster and more efficiently. There's no need for the the add and delete anchor point tools. Node tool click on a line to add a node, delete key to remove it. Simple. There's no need for an anchor point converter tool, click the node and click the type of curve on the properties bar. Simple. There's no need for a line tool. Hold shift to constrain and plot 2 points with the pen tool to make a line. SIMPLE! There's no need for a curvature tool. Grab a segment with the node tool and bend it to shape. SIMPLE! The white arrow is so half baked that it can't decide if it's a node tool or a move tool, and it doesn't do either job well. Illustrator's toolset is looking like a kitchen full of single use cooking items from blue-screen-1-800-commercials on daytime tv... like bread makers, egg steamers, banana slicers, pizza scissors, electric spaghetti twirling spoons, hot dog and bun toasters, quesadilla irons, corn de-kernelers, avocado slicers and all of the other redundant clutter tools with one single use that could ALL be replaced by a really nice set of cutlery, pans and an oven. I'm sorry this set me off on a tangent, haha. Affinity is awesome because it's as simple as it is powerful. They make their limited toolset as robust as possible and cut out the bloat.

Yes on desktop, I don’t believe you can on iPad.

I would like to get rid of certain pallets i never use (navigator, fx, styles, etc.), as well as move tools on the left toolbar that i dont use much (rounded corner tool, transparency) or hide ones i dont use at all (vector brush, crop). A customizable UI would be awesome!

Kind of neat! I can see where, with a little practice, it may be faster than just using the selection tool and boolean functions (which is essentially all this tool is doing). This makes me giggle at adobe a bit though, it's a perfect example of Adobe creating functions for the sole sake of "new in this update" features instead of fixing glaring issues like the 30+ years we haven't been able to add a gradient fill to text, haha.

I can relate to this. I wouldn't accept PDF for vinyl cutting either. PDF files when converted out to AI or Corel Draw are always awful. Hundreds of repetitive clipping masks, unnecessary rasterized fills, split lines of type (even down to the letter) - it makes technical print setup (especially for vinyl cutting which needs precisely made shapes with no layering) really, really difficult. PDF is just the worst!

From the way they market AD, its seems they are geared more toward visual artists and not cutting or screening shops. When i worked in that industry, the defacto format was CorelDraw (how i miss those days, LOVED corel draw). Affinity files can be exported between apps if you use the SVG format, just make a custom profile under the AD SVG output to disable all rasterization, save it and use it every time, and the svg will output fully vectorized with no masked fills or raster elements. That's how i output my microstock images to open in AI for Eps conversion. Microstock agencies are almost as anal as cutting machines when it comes to format (AI8 Eps 3.0 ONLY, no effects, no strokes, no open curves, no rasterization - makes for a HIGHLY compatible file) As for the bad nodes on outline expansion, I find it's usually easy enough to fix with the node tool before finishing. Takes a few extra minutes to fix everything up, but it would take double that time to design the same image in Illustrator with it's 15 janky bezier editing tools.

I've been lurking on this forum for years now, and i've noticed the developers are very responsive to customer input. I wouldn't post here if they just ignored everybody like Adobe. Just remember they are actively developing the third part of the Affinity Trinity (publisher) and that is probably taking much of their manpower to get that application ready for launch. The affinity apps are only in the 1.xx version range, the amount of polish and the nearly complete feature set in such an early release of a full design suite is amazing. I find it's worth being patient. I'm confident they will iron out the quirks eventually.

It would be great to have an option down on the context sensitive bar to automatically expand a stroke after drawing a stroke with the pencil tool. In the Adobe Stock/Shutterstock world, you can't have strokes on your vectors, all strokes must be expanded before you can upload an image, so my workflow includes me pressing Expand Stroke after every line i draw. On the desktop i just set expand to a single keypress so it's quick and easy, but on ipad it involves 2 extra pencil taps to the menu then the option. It's mildly inconvenient. It would be great to either add an expand button to the context bar of node, pen and pencil tools OR just have an option to turn on auto-expand which would just expand after the line is drawn. This could replace the need for a blob brush if you combined an auto-expand option with a sclupt mode. One less tool, same functionality.

I use expand stroke a lot in my illustration with apple pencil pressure curves (i have to expand all of my outlines for microstock). Expand stroke is an issue i run into constantly. This is the problem i usually have, curved lines will create areas that have huge amounts of superfluous nodes upon expansion. My fix is to just select them all, delete them and reshape the points to redo the shape, but it gets annoying having to reshape 1 out of every 3 objects you draw after expansion because they look like the attached, it definitely muddles the fluid experience of drawing with the pencil in vector.

I posted this issue to the desktop version a while back, same issue on ipad too. When multiple nodes are selected, the default action when grabbing and pulling should be to drag all the nodes, not grab any control handles.

I agree, the new flat look but triangular would be amazing!

The new pencil sclupt mode is amazing and super useful, but when you loop back to the beginning of the line, you should be able to overlap the first node to close the curve instead of leaving an awkward gap that needs to be closed by the node tool. designer.mov

I disagree, square feels too much like Adobe, i miss the triangles, they were unique and different and didnt make my Mac's dock look chunky... and the Triangles looked like an A, which was fitting. If we're stuck on squares, maybe decrease their size by about 5%ish, so they dont feel crowded.

The Netflix video posted above is a proper envelope distort, which i think most of us are asking for. Im not sure what the binary example is, but i like it! I'm sure an affinity designed tool could do both.

Oh don’t get me started on Corel’s awful decision to go windows only, I’ve been livid about this for over a decade! Hahaha. Affinity is a worthy replacement, and the developers are rocking it with the whole suite so far. Give them time, they’re probably reinventing the warp tool and it will be miles ahead of any thing Corel and adobe could possibly offer!

I was just playing with Adobe Illustrator Sketch on iPad, the whole app is basically one giant blob brush. Every shape drawn gets exported as an outlined shape and not a line with an outline. It works so well with a pointing device and the output file is so easy to work with after the fact. It makes coloring in areas in vector feel so natural versus using a pencil to trace out a shape to fill later. After actually trying it out, this feature would be a game changer for Affinity on the iPad.

Even illustrator can’t read a PDF correctly haha. Most of the time when you import a pdf back into illustrator it just rasterizes all the gradients anyway... but you’d never know until you release about 9000 clipping masks... Uhg!