Free Transform, Perspective & Warp Tools

[Dazmondo77]

On 3/12/2022 at 10:11 AM, 2ddpainter said:

Well i don't know that either, but I am glad for
this alternative and I think many others too.

My whole workflow has adapted to VectorStyler making the Affinity Trinity a Quadrinity - once you dig deep into the VS you realise you have almost every vector tool at your disposal, enabling you to just get stuff done + the VS roadmap shows it's pushing ahead into the future + the developer will answer personally on the VS forum and is open to suggested improvements, which in some cases, are implemented into the next commercial build which is usually weekly, and believe that this "Quadrinity" has enabled me to produce my best work, and for me the Adobe subscription model was a blessing, and embracing Designer nearly 8 years ago enabled me to move on from Illufrustrator, although Designer came with the frustrations of not having a 'taken for granted' toolset, and maybe will never be able to compete toe to toe with Illustrator whereas VS for me already goes beyond in many areas, and in a few years time will be a powerhouse, even though a simplified customisable, interface is planned in the roadmap, for me, it makes sense to put in the effort to tap into some 'under the hood' power now, as it's potentially a true alternative to Illufrustrator for pro's - hopefully, Designer 2 will be a shining light for some frustrated illustrator uses who have labeled V1 a toy, and for me, I'lI never give up Designer for basic vector stuff (via Game changing StudioLink) but can see VS only getting stronger and makes a great copy paste companion.     

[2ddpainter]

Well, I don't have high expectations for Affinity Designer v2.

What can I expect ? If we waiting for years for some basic features
like Blend, Envelope Deforming ?

And no, I  do not believe that it will take years to develop
and program something like this.

[Dazmondo77]

5 hours ago, 2ddpainter said:

What can I expect ? If we waiting for years for some basic features
like Blend, Envelope Deforming ?

It's a shame that the majority of marketing spiel is way off the mark:- "Affinity Designer is setting the new industry standard in the world of design." and "Serious business - No bloat, no gimmicks, just all the tools you need, implemented how you always dreamed. Affinity Designer is a stripped back, pro-end workhorse that will always get your job done." surely anyone reading this with a background in vector work would expect a complete toolset from a "pro-end workhorse" that has "all the tools you need", as I did back in 2014 - I think if version 2 can't live up-to the above spiel it should be amended to be more truthful of designers capabilities, really it should have been taken down years ago, I'm not saying it's currently not capable of producing pro work, I feel I've been able to produce my best work with Affinity, but only via using other software, in the first 4 or 5 years that was Illustrator cs5 and now Vectorstyler 

 

[DGee]

.

[DGee]

11 hours ago, Dazmondo77 said:

It's a shame that the majority of marketing spiel is way off the mark:- "Affinity Designer is setting the new industry standard in the world of design." and "Serious business - No bloat, no gimmicks, just all the tools you need, implemented how you always dreamed. Affinity Designer is a stripped back, pro-end workhorse that will always get your job done." surely anyone reading this with a background in vector work would expect a complete toolset from a "pro-end workhorse" that has "all the tools you need", as I did back in 2014 - I think if version 2 can't live up-to the above spiel it should be amended to be more truthful of designers capabilities, really it should have been taken down years ago, I'm not saying it's currently not capable of producing pro work, I feel I've been able to produce my best work with Affinity, but only via using other software, in the first 4 or 5 years that was Illustrator cs5 and now Vectorstyler 

 

Not only it has not set any standard but the whole community here is actually begging them on a daily basis to keep up with what was standard back in 2014. Much if not all the customer frustration in the forums is related to false expectations.

 

[Xzenor]

30 minutes ago, DGee said:

Much if not all the customer frustration in the forums is related to false expectations.

 

Excuse me?

There's nothing false about those expectations.

[2ddpainter]

28 minutes ago, Xzenor said:

Excuse me?

There's nothing false about those expectations.

 

maybe it is not false to have expectations, there is always hope

But a little bit strange. As i see it right, this promise is from 2018
is 4 years ago.

 

[Xzenor]

37 minutes ago, 2ddpainter said:

this promise is from 2018
is 4 years ago.

Nail on the head.

[Horseflesh]

As much as I like AD it does needs to be supplemented. Having worked in software for a long long time I have my suspicions as to why features are delayed but that kind of speculation won't help anything. I still like the Affinity suite and will keep supporting Serif, I just wish some things were different.

Tacky though it may be, when VectorStyler next goes on sale I hope someone will post a note here.  

[Alfred]

1 hour ago, Horseflesh said:

Tacky though it may be, when VectorStyler next goes on sale I hope someone will post a note here.  

VectorStyler was on sale nine months ago. I think it was a Black Friday offer, so you might like to look out for a similar deal in about three months’ time.

[AKSturb01]

I've given up on Affinity.  It seems clear to me they thought they'd be bought out and after four years haven't made the most desired change to the product.  I don't think they're working on it and they've basically given up.  These guys aren't in the game of writing cutting-edge software, they're playing for buyout money.  

Have fun, I'm done with the show.

People have been asking for one of the most important tools they can have and the response from Affinity has been, as far as I can tell, zero.  

Seen it a million times before.

 

[DGee]

4 hours ago, AKSturb01 said:

I've given up on Affinity.  It seems clear to me they thought they'd be bought out and after four years haven't made the most desired change to the product.  I don't think they're working on it and they've basically given up.  These guys aren't in the game of writing cutting-edge software, they're playing for buyout money.  

Have fun, I'm done with the show.

People have been asking for one of the most important tools they can have and the response from Affinity has been, as far as I can tell, zero.  

Seen it a million times before.

 

Same here, luckily I have Vectorstyler too but I will going back to illustrator in the near future.

it’s sad to see people here ( mostly people who just signed up I suppose) who are still requesting new features and s*** , like there’s someone on the other side taking notes.

 

[Boldlinedesign]

1 hour ago, DGee said:

luckily I have Vectorstyler too but I will going back to illustrator in the near future.

Why would you want to go back to illustrator, especially after experiencing vectorstyler?

[DGee]

2 hours ago, Boldlinedesign said:

Why would you want to go back to illustrator, especially after experiencing vectorstyler?

Vectorstyler is amazing for it’s toolset but the interface needs a lot of work and the workflow is quite different from affinity, illustrator etc… so working with Vectorstyler is not smooth for me and it may never be unless all the shortcuts match most common apps and the interface gets a complete redesign. It does not feel like an app for designers, it feels like an app made by a crazy genius who does not happen to know much about design.

[Boldlinedesign]

17 minutes ago, DGee said:

Vectorstyler is amazing for it’s toolset but the interface needs a lot of work and the workflow is quite different from affinity, illustrator etc… so working with Vectorstyler is not smooth for me and it may never be unless all the shortcuts match most common apps and the interface gets a complete redesign. It does not feel like an app for designers, it feels like an app made by a crazy genius who does not happen to know much about design.

Lol that's interesting. Vectorstyler reminds me a lot of illustrator based on its UI. It takes a little time to get used to the layout but once you understand the concept, it makes sense. Most of the shortcuts are the same as other design programs. Which ones bothered you? How would you make the UI more designer friendly?

[DGee]

3 hours ago, Boldlinedesign said:

Lol that's interesting. Vectorstyler reminds me a lot of illustrator based on its UI. It takes a little time to get used to the layout but once you understand the concept, it makes sense. Most of the shortcuts are the same as other design programs. Which ones bothered you? How would you make the UI more designer friendly?

The interface is not well though out in terms of design. Design is not a the centre of the Vectorstyler experience to me and I’ve been designing interfaces for many years. 
 

There’s too much on display, too much everywhere: menus, panels, etc it’s really distracting. It’s like hey look how much I’m capable of doing… but it looks amateurish. Everything should be grouped in a way that makes sense for a streamlined design experience and for that the designer of that interface needs to be a designer not a programmer. Plus the way you use any of those tools should be as simple as possible while reusing as many of the popular shortcuts and commands which it currently doesn’t.

 

[Boldlinedesign]

9 hours ago, DGee said:

The interface is not well though out in terms of design. Design is not a the centre of the Vectorstyler experience to me and I’ve been designing interfaces for many years. 
 

There’s too much on display, too much everywhere: menus, panels, etc it’s really distracting. It’s like hey look how much I’m capable of doing… but it looks amateurish. Everything should be grouped in a way that makes sense for a streamlined design experience and for that the designer of that interface needs to be a designer not a programmer. Plus the way you use any of those tools should be as simple as possible while reusing as many of the popular shortcuts and commands which it currently doesn’t.

 

Have you offered your ideas as an experienced interface designer on the VS forum? The developer of VS is very receptive to new ideas and options. I would think it more advantageous for you to share your ideas and see the UI improve rather than go back to paying adobe a ton of money annually instead. Not implying this is you, but many who make judgements on VS are not in the trenches helping improve the program with their ideas and experience. They choose to wait around for others to step up and make the suggestions and help. It makes no sense to me because we all should want multiple design programs to thrive. I use VS full time but I still support and use affinity at times. Those who use affinity primarily will always stand to benefit from having a feature rich program like VS in their toolset to accomplish tasks affinity cannot. 

I agree the UI can look busy. I don't see the interference being any more complex than what illustrator presents in the UI. The major difference to me is that illustrator allows panels docked on the side to be reduced to an icon. They also allow for custom panel arrangements that can be saved and recalled at will. Those are both upgrades in the works for VS in the near future. Also some of the icons at the top of the VS UI could be consolidated under a single button, such as the Boolean operations and that would save space and make it less crowded. 

What tools do you feel are wrong for being different than the industry standard? I can't think of many primary ones to be honest.

[DGee]

3 hours ago, Boldlinedesign said:

Have you offered your ideas as an experienced interface designer on the VS forum? The developer of VS is very receptive to new ideas and options. I would think it more advantageous for you to share your ideas and see the UI improve rather than go back to paying adobe a ton of money annually instead. Not implying this is you, but many who make judgements on VS are not in the trenches helping improve the program with their ideas and experience. They choose to wait around for others to step up and make the suggestions and help. It makes no sense to me because we all should want multiple design programs to thrive. I use VS full time but I still support and use affinity at times. Those who use affinity primarily will always stand to benefit from having a feature rich program like VS in their toolset to accomplish tasks affinity cannot. 

I agree the UI can look busy. I don't see the interference being any more complex than what illustrator presents in the UI. The major difference to me is that illustrator allows panels docked on the side to be reduced to an icon. They also allow for custom panel arrangements that can be saved and recalled at will. Those are both upgrades in the works for VS in the near future. Also some of the icons at the top of the VS UI could be consolidated under a single button, such as the Boolean operations and that would save space and make it less crowded. 

What tools do you feel are wrong for being different than the industry standard? I can't think of many primary ones to be honest.

Yea you’re right, I will definitely send him my ideas.

To sum it up, the thing with Vectorstyler is that it has a much steeper learning curve than Affinity when coming from Illustrator and we all come from Illustrator ( it’s the standard) . I felt immediately at home with AD. That did not happen with VS and that can put many people off.

I probably learnt 80 apps in my life from advanced VFX programs to video, design, web, photo, 3d apps etc… with VS sometimes you have to do things in a way that does not feel extremely intuitive or natural to me. I have encountered some apps in my career that work a bit different than what feels natural to most, and I felt this is one of those. I usually accept  that learning curve when they do something truly special (say 3d tracking back in the day for instance)  it’s like you just gotta deal with it if you want to achieve those results but VS should feel more natural to an illustrator user if it wants to succeed, or grow faster this is just my personal opinion of course…

it’s not about addressing the specifics ( yes you can hide panels ) but about having a clear plan for a streamlined workflow that puts the experience of designing at the core. That is why photoshop offers several modes ( photography, design, web etc) and it customises the experience accordingly. IMO it should launch with the most minimalistic and less obtrusive look possible and you can customise your experience to make more advanced as need. It needs to make people feel that it’s been thought by designers for designers,

if VS was as user friendly as Affinity I would no longer login here… but I still use both in conjunction. Affinity excels at that IMO.

[tudor]

Speaking of Vectorstyler... I've been trying to replicate a signage file I built in Designer for printing. In the AD file there are 13 artboards, 31.5"x79" each. On all artboards there is a big 300dpi bitmap file as a background. On top of it I have some text and other graphic elements. Two artboards contain 40 sponsor logos, other artboards have additional vector and bitmap graphics. Designer absolutely flies through it. It's a pleasure to work with it. Illustrator would've struggled on that file. I know, I've been using it for 20 years and its slowness is the reason I avoid using it, even though I've been an Adobe CC subscriber since the beginning and keep paying for it (and for the Astute plugins).

Well Vectorstyler with only ONE artboard became totally unusable the second I imported a hi-res bitmap.  Just trying to select/move/resize that bitmap made the application unresponsive. I guess it's made for pure vector operations, like illustrations and drawings, not for layout work.

[Rastupin]

Right. OK. So after reading this forum i'm actually becoming quite irritated now. I was just miffed before. I trialed the trio a couple of years ago and at the time still had full adobe suite subscription. I thought it was quite good and snappy, but I guess I didnt explore enough, as I was still using adobe. I guess its snappy because it has essentially no features ... its easy to run code quickly when there is hardly any load.

 

When my work moved away from compositing/graphic design and more into 3d imaging/cad and PCB design, I kept the subscription up for a while, but was only using it in the end for a few things, not at all worth the increasingly extortionate pricing (note I had been a paying customer since version 1.0). but this year I thought, cool, designer is the vector section of the affinity suite, designed to provide an alternative to illustrator, i'll just buy that module for the vector editing I still need to do to compliment the fully featured CAD workflow. I only discovered after i'd paid that it couldnt even be classed as a toy for people learning vector tools and active development doesnt appear to be happening at all, with absolutely no attention paid to the customers over the course of years and with what amounts to false advertising STILL on their page.

 

Sure, its cheap, but its not cheap for something that is essentially useless.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Rastupin

[tudor]

47 minutes ago, Rastupin said:

I only discovered after i'd paid that it couldnt even be classed as a toy for people learning vector tools

There is a trial version available. It only takes a few minutes of using it to figure out if it's the right app for you, before buying it.

You're most likely irritated because you realized that 2D design software with DWG/DXF support cost a lot more money than what you paid for Designer.  

[Rastupin]

You might want to look at what altium, diptrace unlimited and fusion360 (full feature) cost. 
 

I also mention being an adobe user since 1.0. Not CS1, 1.0. In the past and being an active adobe subscriber up until a few years ago. 
 

how does any of that even hint at me not realising how much adobe costs? I describe why I stopped paying adobe. Nearly 80aud a month for very sporadic and occasional use of a very limited feature set of the adobe suite, yet still having to pay for all of it just doesn’t make financial sense. 

 

actually I’m not sure you comprehended a single sentence in my post ..:

[tudor]

1 minute ago, Rastupin said:

actually I’m not sure you comprehended a single sentence in my post ..:

Let me rephrase that without the emoticon.

You said you're mad because you bought AD and discovered that it doesn't open your 3D files and has no features of use for you. I get that. You could've figured that out before paying for it, simply by using the trial for a few minutes. Now you're free to choose from any number of other 2D apps with proper support for DWG and DXF. And that probably means you'll have to start paying again for Illustrator. That's why you're mad, not because a cheap 2D graphic design app like Designer doesn't support some file formats used by the 3D industry.

[Patrick Connor]

Arguing about another users intent behind their reply will not get any feature implemented. Please stop now. Comment only on your requirements, as they are bound to differ from others.

@Rastupin

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

1 hour ago, Rastupin said:

Sure, its cheap, but its not cheap for something that is essentially useless.

The "Share your work" forum begs to differ. It may not suit your needs but it is not "essentially useless"

[carl123]

1 hour ago, Rastupin said:

and with what amounts to false advertising STILL on their page.

Intrigued.

What constitutes as false advertising on their page?