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

Rendering not matching project


Recommended Posts

I have a project in which I am creating knob frames. The shadow on every knob is identical, yet every time I render the project to a PNG that is 2x the original size the shadow of the 1st, 2nd, 67, 68, and 69th knob are all slightly lighter than the rest of the knobs. I have tried duplicating the knobs that appear fine and placing them in the same spot and rotating them to the proper rotation but it still comes out the same. I have tried different resampling algorithms but it still renders incorrectly. It's a bit hard to see after export. I've found that the best way to see the issue is to re-import the rendered file into a new project onto a white background to clearly see that the knob shadows are not rendering the actual way they are in the project for just those specific knobs. I have no idea why this is happening. This is within Affinity Designer on Windows (the most current version). I've attached the files.

Knobs test render.png

Knobs.afdesign

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you have a bitmap for the Gradient fill in the Rim 2 > Ellipse. I ask because it seems to be misaligned somehow.

401266248_ScreenShot2020-02-17at10_51_11AM.png.e5aa9b9e273826096157612f1c4a9ea8.png 

This is from a copy and paste to a new document, I also have to question why the shadow is on this shape, or rather the group called Rim 2.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

Hi abject39,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
The most likely reason for those issues is misalignments between the various knobs (X,Y) coordinates and/or width/height of the objects themselves. Check this reply i gave to another user running in similar issues. Although he was using artboards for each exported image which is not your case as you have created the knobs in several layers the same issues/advice applies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/17/2020 at 10:27 AM, Lagarto said:

I had another look on this and it seems that knobs with different shadows have actually a bit different sizes (many of the constituting parts differ 1-2 fractional pixels from the other). Once these are unified, the shadows seem to become uniform.

Check below a Photoshop file with layers of first four stages (first knob copied in layers over the other three), after the sizes have been unified.

Knobstest.psd 259.72 kB · 0 downloads

While I get what you're saying the issue isn't that the shadows are bigger or smaller. It's that they are completely different. They're lighter and seem to have less intensity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/17/2020 at 10:54 AM, Old Bruce said:

Do you have a bitmap for the Gradient fill in the Rim 2 > Ellipse. I ask because it seems to be misaligned somehow.

401266248_ScreenShot2020-02-17at10_51_11AM.png.e5aa9b9e273826096157612f1c4a9ea8.png 

This is from a copy and paste to a new document, I also have to question why the shadow is on this shape, or rather the group called Rim 2.

It is not misaligned. It aligned exactly the way I want it to be alighted, which is to the top of the object it is in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/17/2020 at 11:02 AM, MEB said:

Hi abject39,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
The most likely reason for those issues is misalignments between the various knobs (X,Y) coordinates and/or width/height of the objects themselves. Check this reply i gave to another user running in similar issues. Although he was using artboards for each exported image which is not your case as you have created the knobs in several layers the same issues/advice applies.

This does not seem to be this issue. Even with 4 values the center anchor point of X and Y is an integer every time. Each knob is exactly 40x40 rotated 2.7 degrees from each other.  Also the first and last knobs are essentially horizontally flipped from each other yet only one is affected. This seems to be a bug. Lastly, the shape is unaffected by the issue. It only affects the shadow. Here attached is the knobs stitched together so that you can see what I see in my final product. The issue seems to be with shadow opacity and intensity. Any idea how to get around this issue?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/20/2020 at 3:22 AM, Lagarto said:

I downloaded the original file again, and had yet another look on it, and I now aligned the tops of the first four knobs against white background, took screenshots of each "frame" and overlaid them in Photoshop and the shadows seem identical, so this does seem to be a rendering issue and not something explained by differences in object sizes and positions. Creating a PDF rendering at better DPI also seemed to fix the problem, but I am not sure I really looked close enough. Have you tried this? (It does not fix the problem, though, since shadows get flattened in the PDF.)

I am not sure whether I was fixing just something I had caused myself, but when I initially created a four-first knob version as a separate document and was checking the positions and sizes, I saw fractional pixel differences in sizes of objects and possibly also in center x coordinates, and the resulting PNG rendering did not seem to show anomalies in shadows. But the original file does not show these kinds of differences between the objects.

I just re-rendered it as a PNG (144px width):

knobstest_new.png.a8863e1fa38be42735dcf682e6bcfa05.png

Here's a Photoshop file where the above rendering is placed layered so that it is easy to compare the shadows:

Knobstest_new.psd 139.48 kB · 0 downloads

I think the bug could be related to the amount of knobs present or file dimensions but I'm not completely sure. I typically try to keep all of my projects lower than 1024x8000 px, which is not too big for the PNG file type. I use affinity designer to create GUI's for audio software. I've created frames of knobs in the past but not one exactly like this one before. This one is a little more detailed. I will try to increase the DPI to see if it fixes the final PNG export.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Lagarto said:

It certainly seems to, as I tested this now simply by just selecting ten or so first knobs and rendering just them (from your original art), without background (at 104px; double the original), and this produced identical shadows. 

Rendering as PDFs e.g. with 600dpi resolution also does not show the problem, but it is a bit different thing because the shadows (transparencies) get flattened. I tested this also by creating PNGs or TIFFs (that is, having shawows on transparent background) of all knobs at higher resolution (4 times the original). This method (supersampling and then downsampling to the final production size) can fix other problems like unwanted generation of artifacts between perfectly aligned segments (i.e. poor antialiasing of edges); a problem, that sometimes shows in rendering vector art at relatively low resolution, but unfortunately does not appear to fix this one.

But as partial selection of objects and rendering the knobs in parts seems to resolve this, I think there is a usable workaround. 

 

I need them all in one file. Wouldn't rendering them in parts and then putting them back together in one file degrade the quality of the final knobs?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok, so I have confirmed this is most definitely a bug in Affinity Designer for Windows. Using export persona I was able to render the file in 2 slices. One slice with the upper set of the knobs and the other with the bottom set of the knobs. I then put them back together in a single file and exported them again and the shadows are correct now. The issue only comes into play when the knobs are rendered with all 101 of them at the same time. No idea what causes it though. Also the issue only occurs at 2x the original size. It does not matter if you increase the size during the export or if you increase the size of document itself. And it only seems to happen with the PNG file format.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

UPDATE: I've expanded the document and added more knobs and suddenly the issue has gone away. It makes me believe the issue may be related to the document size specifically. The original file was 72x6060. My new document is 196x7474 and the issue has disappeared. I've changed none of the original knobs at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

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.