Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

Designer brush performance inferior to Photo


Recommended Posts

As I've mentioned in this post, Affinity Designer's brush performance isn't all that great, but what's surprising me is that I've found out the issue is not present in Affinity Photo at all!

I've recently purchased Affinity Photo while it was on sale, and immediately the brush performance seemed better, but I've tested it and it's a very significant difference!

For this I've created an identical document on both Designer and Photo:

  • 2800 x 2800 pixels @ 300DPI
  • CMYK colour space
  • using the same brush on both apps
  • using the same colour, just in case
  • same zoom level
  • only one pixel layer
  • same iPad Pro 9.7" (2016) obviously
  • both apps running simultaneously

If you look at the attached video then no further explanation is needed, the brush paints smoothly and fast on Photo, while on Designer it's rendered slower and in blocks of pixels, as if it's struggling to keep up.

I think that covers it, but let me know if you need or want more information.

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

Hi @LCamachoDesign

This is kind of expected, because of the different rendering engine. In Photo, it would only render what's on-screen at that zoom level. So, if your image let's say it's made of 50tiles, when you're zoomed in 10x, it will only render that tiled portion, so 5 tiles.

 However, in designer, being a vector renderer by default, it redraws all the tiles regardless of the zoom level, when using the "Vector" View mode. Chaing the View mode to "Pixels" should give you a similar result to what you see in Photo. Give it a go and let us know how it goes. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Gabe said:

Hi @LCamachoDesign

This is kind of expected, because of the different rendering engine. In Photo, it would only render what's on-screen at that zoom level. So, if your image let's say it's made of 50tiles, when you're zoomed in 10x, it will only render that tiled portion, so 5 tiles.

 However, in designer, being a vector renderer by default, it redraws all the tiles regardless of the zoom level, when using the "Vector" View mode. Chaing the View mode to "Pixels" should give you a similar result to what you see in Photo. Give it a go and let us know how it goes. :)

You have to be kidding me... it does work! The performance goes back to Photo levels, and it also solves the first stroke delay after zooming I reported in the other topic. Thank you!

This solution would have never crossed my mind... this does happen frequently with Affinity applications though. More than once I come across "issues" for which the solutions are already on the app, they're just sort of hidden away. o.O

 

For this situation I think a UX tweak would help users a lot, especially in lower performance devices.

First there should be an application-wide option saying something like this: "Change view modes to match the Persona"

This option would work like this:

If in Designer Persona Then
	View Mode is Vector
Else If in Pixel Persona
	If Document Type is Devices (Retina) Then
		View Mode is Retina Pixel
	Else
		View Mode is Pixel
	End If
Else If in Export Persona
	I'm not quite sure? Perhaps Vector view mode again? Or Retina Pixel if the document is Devices (Retina)?
End If

Then, upon the first time a user switches to the Pixel Persona a popup or something should ask the user if they'd like to enable this option for a more accurate preview of the pixel artwork and enhanced performance.

 

Another alternative would be to have an option to make the view modes sticky in regards to the persona being used. So if I change the view mode on the Pixel Persona to Pixel, then it will always change to that whenever I return to that Persona on that document. If I set the view mode to Vector in the Designer Persona, then it will change to that mode whenever I return to it. This way you can seamlessly switch between high precision vectors and high performance pixel whenever needed.

I still think the performance difference is so large that by default Designer Persona should be Vector view, and Pixel Persona should be pixel view. Let the user change it if they want, but let this be the out of box experience so the optimal performance is not hidden away! You can say my iPad is old, which is very true, and on a brand new 3rd gen iPad Pro you can barely tell the difference (not sure if that's the case, but let's go with it). The thing is Apple keeps selling iPads with low processor power even right now, so this is not an issue that will go away on it's own anytime soon. Implementing something along this lines will help these people achieve maximum performance on their brand new, albeit slower, iPads.

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.