Rocketdrive

Maybe this is obvious, but I needed some time to figure it out. In Affinity Photo for iOS, You can - either save a native file to iCloud Drive (default) - export a different file format to a storage provider of Your choosing - OR use drag and drop to place a native file whereever You want. Why is this important? It speeds up my workflow. I use AP on an iPad to sketch illustrations. I then take them further on the Windows desktop, which has pCloud as main cloud storage. Using the files app I can drop a copy of any sketch file into pCloud on the iPad, and once it has synced I can open it directly in Windows. This should work with Dropbox or any other storage provider that is available on both platforms.

Thanks MEB. The outline probably seems good in theory but can be really disturbing for longer painting/illustration sessions. Looking forward to the point where this can be disabled. In the meantime I'll probably stick with the iPad version, which is generally more streamlined for painting (brush controls are easier to reach) and also does not have this issue

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. I don't mind the ghost, which shows the real brush with color. I mean the 1bit brush outline that appears on top of the ghost preview. I spacially separated them for clarity.

Is there a way to hide the outlined brush tip? I guess some people might like it, but for me it is totally disturbing, especially with complex brushes. The outline hides faint brushstrokes and makes it very hard to judge if they are correct, especially with large brushes, low opacity and short strokes. I prefer just a dot, or nothing, as I see the tip of the Wacom pen anyway.

Hey folks, I am currently testing AP for digital painting and illustration. I like a lot, but the outlined brush tips (desktop version) can be extremely disturbing: - they lag behind - some complex brushtips with large sizes hide subtle paintstrokes, so it is hard to see what I am painting under the cursor I didn't find a way to hide the brushtip completely. Is there one? If not please consider adding a user preference for that. On the plus side, I like the feature parity of desktop and ios versions. Being able to use the same brushes is also a huge advantage. Regards, Marin

Information would be interesting indeed, but I am by no means desperate about it. Adobe just updated LR, and the beast is actually kind of fast now. The syncing feature is pretty good, too. Don't get me wrong, I have many reasons to leave Adobe, but feature-wise LR is convincing enough to keep me around until something equal arrives. I'd be happy If it happens to be published by Serif.

You can create a rough clipping path around your object, known as a garbage matte. This eliminates most of the green, leaving you with hopefully less green background to take care of. The rest you can mask by carefully selecting the greens and refining the edge. If your object has a clean edge you can do the job with just a path. If you want to dip your toes into video keying (for free), get Fusion 8 (from Black Magic Design), read the manual and play around. I am talking about the kind of app hollywood is using for compositing and post production :)

I had a very similar experience. My original layout is built in Indedign. I created from scratch the same layout in Affinity Designer. Since the latter does not link to external files but rather embeds them, the layout files tend to be huge. And so are pdfs: Designer takes a lot longer, many elements get rasterised, and the resulting files are up to 10x larger than Indesign pdfs.

I guess the love is cooling off a bit, and Serif's path(s) chosen are steeper than they thought. The big success came with one (AD), then two (+ AP) products for one platform (macOS). Now there are three platforms (Mac, Win, iOS), two products up and running on two out of three platforms, two more apps in the pipeline. Ideally, to deliver as advertised, they have dedicated teams for: AD win, AD mac, AD iOS AP win, AP mac, AP iOS APu win, APu mac, APu iOS unnamed Asset management app win, mac, iOS I hope they are doing fine and would really love to see the whole suite up and running. Obviously, they were too optimistic, and so was I: by the end of 2015 I saw myself, half a year from then, doing most of the work for my clients on my iPad Pro with Designer and Photo. For the rest I'd use Publisher, even if still in beta. The reality is: the iPad Pro is perfect for drawing and digital illustrations, but work on designs for print and web I still do an a Macbook Pro. Where possible I use AD, but unfortunately it still has some shortcomings when it comes to print documents. So Indesign is still part of the equation, and it is here to stay for another year, because of the subscription. So I am not impatiently waiting for anything to arrive, but when it does, I'll be there and give it a try :)

I am slightly disappointed with the new timeframe, but knowing it I can perfectly deal with it. Speaking of Quark: from what I hear the latest version seems to be pretty good. MikeW, do You have it? Could You share Your impressions?

This is the source file of the above image. Make sure to enable grid visibility, everything makes more sense then. 2017-02 Affinity 2.5D.afdesign

This is a brief product presentation I did for a customer. I created the characters and all assets with Affinity Designer or Photo and animated them in Apple Motion. https://vimeo.com/201406316

I made a partial, rough version of the 3D scene. It is absolutely doable. The triangular grid and robust snapping will help a lot. Clever placing of gradients and gaussian blur can help with lighting effects.

I kind reader of Die Presse directed me towards this topic. I made the illustration with an app called MagicaVoxel (by @ephtracy). In Affinity Designer I would set up an isometric grid and devote some time to the many gradients for simulating the lighting ;)

I am moving away from Adobe and starting to rebuild Indesign layouts in AD. Linking to external files would be extremely useful. At the moment layout files are getting huge because all data is embedded. I hope, too that a placing option will eventually arrive :)

While waiting for Publisher I rebuilt one of my customer's Indesign files in Affinity Designer. I'd say it is almost pixel perfect, typography is fine, effects are fine, and I have something I couldn't even dream of in Indesign: a document grid that is rotated by 10 deg (because the whole layout is tilted by that amount). There are just two problems: the size of the layout file, and the size of the exported PDF. - The Indesign layout file is around 3 MB, but the Affinity Designer file is over 70 MB. - The PDF that Indesign exports (for print @ 300 dpi) is around 4 MB; the PDF that AD generates is around 12 MB. I guess AD doesn't link to but rather embeds external files. This is a real problem with larger layouts and many images. The file size of the exported PDF is less of a problem, but still inconvenient because transfer times (for feedback and production) are much longer. So I am holding my breath for two things: 1) linking to external files in Designer and 2) a truly interchangeable file format between Designer and Publisher. Rebuilding layouts from scratch is OK, but not too many times ;)

Andi, I am very much looking forward to using the iOS versions of AD and AP. Actually, as of now, I am very much looking forward to anything You guys will publish in the near future. Fine work so far :) RD

Hi, I perfectly understand what You are asking for – I've been there last summer, working with AD and Motion on 60 secs of an "infomercial". If I may suggest a solution that worked for me? If Your animated shapes do not scale too much: 1) You can obviously export single objects or selected groups as PNG files with doubled resolution. Worked for me up to a dozen of objects. 2) You can also export the composition as s layered PSD. Again make sure Your document has twice the final resolution. Choose the preset "PSD (Final Cut Pro X). You can then import the PSD into Motion with individual layers (=objects). This way I was able to import a simple character into Motion for rigging and animation. RD

I agree that 3D applications are, in terms of refinement and control, more advanced then most 2D drawing apps. It appears to me that Your proposals are not taking away complexity, but rather remixing it as to suit Your needs ;) Many "windows", or let's call them palettes: agree to some extent. Especially the C4D approach is good, because common properties (Location, visibility) are all in the same place, and additional tabs appear for specialised objects. However the total amount of what You call a "window" is not going to become less, "windows" rather will appear or disappear based on selection. Layers: I have no problem with them. An outliner window listing all objects, ideally with a search and filter functions, is necessary for complex compositions. Hidden, transparent and helper objects are notoriously hard to locate visually, hence an approach by name suits me perfectly fine. Current control over curves is OK for me. Weld and unweld functions are there, even if not perfect ;) . More control is welcome. Parametric objects are there (stars, donuts, triangles...). Parameters are changeable even after boolean operations. This may be not a full fledged modifier stack as in 3ds max or Houdini, but it's already very useful. Simulation... Sure some folks gonna make use of that. I trust that the developers will balance well functionality with complexity. My vote goes towards simple, robust and universal tools at the core, excellent exchange tools (for playing nice in a production pipeline) and a plugin API for those with specialised or exotic neeeds. I'd rather see the suite complete with Designer, Photo and Publisher running on three platforms (Mac, Windows and iOS) before asking for a built-in simulation engine. Guess we all have different priorities :)

+1 I am in the process of rebuilding the most recent marketing documents (Indesign) for a client in Affinity Designer. The designs heavily rely on linking, especially for the logo and images that are used in multiple instances. While I could live just fine with new _workflows_ involving embedded files, I will have a serious problem with file _sizes_. This is partly because I sync with a cloud service and have limited bandwidth. So instead of maybe one megabyte for a design file, I suddenly end up with 30 or 40 MB. This makes a huge difference with lots of designs. So I would love to see linking implemented. And of course publisher :)

I currently use Lightroom to add a dash of grain to all my photos. I really like the look, and it is one of the very few things that make LR unique. It is quite astonishing, but I have not found any other software that gives me all of the grain controls - and quality - that LR has. If You have an empty feature slot to fill in Affinity Photo (or that mysterious asset management app I heard about) - please fill it in with high quality grain. It is important to add controls for the size, the amount and the contrast. Yes, very small noise sizes make huge JPGs, but I don't care, storage is cheap these days :)

Have You had any luck with the iPad as a graphics tablet? I tried AstroPad on the iPadPro and it was ... working, but not usable at all for work. Too much lag. I used to work on a Wacom 13HD before. Then I sold it and bought an iPadPro. I use it almost exclusively for drawing with Adobe Sketch, Procreate and, yes, Notes. I do use Duet and hook up the iPad Pro to my MacBookAir. The screen sizes are almost identical and make a decent dual screen workstation on the go :)

The iPad Pro has obviously enough power and real estate to host something as sophisticated as Affinity Photo, Designer, or other desktop grade software. I would love to at least try how it works, so I will absolutely support Your continuos efforts by buying an iOS version - when it's there :) While natural that the iPad isn't working for everyone and everything, especially the Pro is almost perfect for me. I was looking for a sophisticated digital notepad for a long time, and there it is. Right now I can finish illustration projects to 95% on the iPad. With AP I wouldn't need to switch devices just to make a file ready for print. And with AD, I could edit and finish even more design projects. To which degree this is usable is of course open to debate until we can try for ourselves. Marin

OK, a couple of months left for my InDesign subscription. The exciting part will be the conversion INDD >>Affinity. It's doable, from what I hear. There is this company called LucidPress (makers of an impressive, browser-based (!sic) layout app) who claim that they pulled that off. Can't confirm, since it's a paid pro feature only (I think, just lazy checking right now ;). Having, at some point, an easy conversion path from InDesign will make transitions a lot easier for us. But honestly: I'm even willing to rebuild many of my client's layouts from scratch :P

Hey MEB, I should have thought of that – no sorry, I needed to go forward quickly and saved over the "bad" file. And one more thing – I'm on regular AD version 1.3.5, didn't see that this topic was for a beta version. I'll keep an eye open, if the problem occurs again I'll make sure You get a copy of the file.