Free Transform, Perspective & Warp Tools

[Patrick Connor]

@NoSi

I feel I agree with you, but you have gone into much more detail where ajPearceUK has not yet explained him/herself, so creating an account to say "I'm out" is quite the effort to have made. It would be more helpful to the community you describe well to explain what they didn't like, though posting in this thread the answer may be self evident.

@ajpearceUK

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  

Would you care to share anything more about your experience? 

19 hours ago, ajpearceUK said:

Then after just a week of working with it I find this.

Was it the solely that the features mentioned as missing in this thread or some other aspect of the application that made you not buy? (If you would rather not say that is fine, but sometimes people mention something that Affinity has another way of achieving that they missed while trying it out).

[NoSi]

2 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

Would you care to share anything more about your experience? 

Unlike @ajpearceUK, I used my own computers for testing. I was driven by pure curiosity, because a few weeks ago the Affinity products were unknown to me.

The "Affinity Publisher" aroused special interest in me, because it promised an added value compared to a product I am using usually. That is the case - that is why I bought it.

However, I have been wavering with AP and AD. With the "Designer" it was very quickly clear that it was not interesting for me. There I miss especially the title-giving tools of this thread. In the end, the "Designer" - for me - offers too little vector functionality to make itself interesting compared to the tools I am using. Therefore I refrained from buying it.

Nevertheless, after I worked with the "Publisher" for a few days, I decided to buy "Photo", which is much behind the product I am using normally. However, it offers some really handy functions that can be used to quickly improve and/or enhance images. To be clear: The only thing that was decisive for the purchase was the integration into the "Publisher" - this significantly shortens the distances for the pure editing of images, thus saving time.

For the direct editing of images I have tried it a few times, but honestly - for me - especially in the area of import and export "Photo" lacks functionality, which could qualify it for more than a "simple and fast accessible image editor for Publisher".

In any case, it is worth mentioning that all Affinity products can be easily installed and "cleanly" uninstalled under Windows. The working speed of the "Publisher" is very impressive, even on a slightly older laptop (with Windows 10x64) smooth working is possible. Very convincing. Here, "Photo" can also score points, as long as it's about the simple "one-click functions" - which (see above) are very practical and convenient in combination with the "Publisher". 

I will "stay tuned" expecting the things to come. I have learned over the years that things need their time to improve. Since I have no pressure because of alternatives, the Affinity products are definitely worth watching, if only to keep a back door open...

[Jowday]

6 hours ago, NoSi said:

Therefore, I can well understand the drive why people want to share their opinions. As you did.  In regard to the actual topic with a worthless contribution from my point of view.
It's only message seems to be that you can not believe others that are telling their impressions. For my taste this is disrespectful and border-crossing to general forum rules to treat each other with respect. 

Agreed and thank you for your contribution with valuable feedback for Serif and some forum users as well. Unfortunately we have been here before many, many, many times for the same reason and mostly because of the very same individual. Reminds me of this:

 

[Ammoniteii]

+1 Free transform is very very useful and time-saving.

[ajpearceUK]

On 7/10/2020 at 3:32 AM, AffinityMakesMeSmile said:

OK, so you started a new account here just to say just that?

And, why borrow someone elses computer when the whole Affinity Suite can be downloaded as a 10 days trial version without any restrictions?

Once in a while I can’t understand other people in this world...

Yes. I don't want to bother with all that. I have my reasons. 

 

There's more I've discovered. There doesn't seem to be any alternative software out there so I've got to adapt AFAIK. 

1) No rulers. Have to make an object and delete it again. Weird. 

2) When you copy and paste 'new from document' the vectors are resized and the default units are reset rather than inherited. 

3) Also I found that a transparency layer is converted to black using export but isn't using the OSX print dialogue

Sorry if I'm a bit short tempered but uncomfortable is price of feedback. It's just frustrating that there isn't anything out there to get the work done when you're losing money. I heard AI is a super weird and annoying program. Maybe some of this is inherited from that. The designers and printers that ask me for .AI files after I send them a PDF spec, SVG and EPS are similarly annoying. So far these and related issues might have cost me around $500 in delayed business. Business is delayed anyway due to COVID-19 but anyway... it's annoying. 

[Cara]

I would love to see warp tools for images and text. I found the feature useful in DrawPlus so I would like to see it in Designer too.

I have a solution for moving nodes apart at equal distances as mentioned in the link in the original post. This only works with shapes; it crops images and can't be achieved with text.

1. Convert your shape into curves.
2. Select the two nodes you want to transform.
3. Select the central square in the transform tool (see the screenshot below).
4. Increase the width to widen the nodes apart or decrease the width to bring the nodes closer together.

There's probably an easier method but hopefully this helps.

[Xzenor]

1 hour ago, ajpearceUK said:

Yes. I don't want to bother with all that. I have my reasons. 

 

There's more I've discovered. There doesn't seem to be any alternative software out there so I've got to adapt AFAIK. 

1) No rulers. Have to make an object and delete it again. Weird. 

2) When you copy and paste 'new from document' the vectors are resized and the default units are reset rather than inherited. 

3) Also I found that a transparency layer is converted to black using export but isn't using the OSX print dialogue

Sorry if I'm a bit short tempered but uncomfortable is price of feedback. It's just frustrating that there isn't anything out there to get the work done when you're losing money. I heard AI is a super weird and annoying program. Maybe some of this is inherited from that. The designers and printers that ask me for .AI files after I send them a PDF spec, SVG and EPS are similarly annoying. So far these and related issues might have cost me around $500 in delayed business. Business is delayed anyway due to COVID-19 but anyway... it's annoying. 

 

I get your frustration but, no offense, if you lose so much money over it, why not just use the software you are used to and work out the quirks of Affinity when you have the time?

[AffinityMakesMeSmile]

1 hour ago, ajpearceUK said:

Yes. I don't want to bother with all that. I have my reasons. 

 

There's more I've discovered. There doesn't seem to be any alternative software out there so I've got to adapt AFAIK. 

1) No rulers. Have to make an object and delete it again. Weird. 

2) When you copy and paste 'new from document' the vectors are resized and the default units are reset rather than inherited. 

3) Also I found that a transparency layer is converted to black using export but isn't using the OSX print dialogue

Sorry if I'm a bit short tempered but uncomfortable is price of feedback. It's just frustrating that there isn't anything out there to get the work done when you're losing money. I heard AI is a super weird and annoying program. Maybe some of this is inherited from that. The designers and printers that ask me for .AI files after I send them a PDF spec, SVG and EPS are similarly annoying. So far these and related issues might have cost me around $500 in delayed business. Business is delayed anyway due to COVID-19 but anyway... it's annoying. 

Still don’t get it...

Do you really mean that you’ve lost 500 bucks because you used Affinity Designer??

If so, perhaps not that smart to change from a expensive subscription app to a lowcost 50 bucks app, but still think that this 50 bucks app can do everything AI does... Hmmm...

[Mark Freeman]

On 6/27/2020 at 10:12 PM, MikeW said:

I'm not sure Serif would be "comfortable" with your "shoddy ..." statement either.

There are young persons whom inhabit the forums, too.

Noted, but If a young person can make sense of what I said, I think their parents are more to blame than I am frankly.

[Mark Freeman]

On 7/12/2020 at 2:16 PM, AffinityMakesMeSmile said:

Still don’t get it...

Do you really mean that you’ve lost 500 bucks because you used Affinity Designer??

If so, perhaps not that smart to change from a expensive subscription app to a lowcost 50 bucks app, but still think that this 50 bucks app can do everything AI does... Hmmm...

Sadly, as mentioned in the title of this thread....... perspective and warp tools..... are lacking

[Boldlinedesign]

It's absolutely frustrating that key basic tools have been lacking from Designer for years and instead of giving us information on them - the roadmap is removed and we're left in the dark on it.
 

[Xzenor]

7 hours ago, Boldlinedesign said:

It's absolutely frustrating that key basic tools have been lacking from Designer for years and instead of giving us information on them - the roadmap is removed and we're left in the dark on it.
 

A bit of information on this would indeed be nice..

[toth]

+1

Still need to weekly go back to my 11 year old copy of "Photoshop Elements"(the lite version of PS at the time) to put some perspective on text - it is, as mentioned many times, a pretty baffling lack in AD.

@MEB Can we expect any answer to these often asked questions? 

I can phrase it as yes/no questions just to get som clarification: 
1: Will perspective/envelope/distort/warp come in any form to AD?
2: If yes to the above, will it be within; A: 1 year.  B:  2-3 years  C; 3-5 years

[MEB]

Hi toth,
As far as i know yes, this is still planned for Designer, however i can't give you any eta for this, sorry. It's entirely up to the dev team.
We used to be a bit more open regarding roadmaps/plans but after we failed to meet a couple deadlines (due to dev delays/other issues) some users reacted negatively. Since then we just refer to the Betas and accompanying logs to learn about new features/changes coming to avoid causing false expectations. Thanks for understanding.

[Xzenor]

Thanks for explaining @MEB

[MEB]

You're welcome.

[Mark Freeman]

On 6/28/2020 at 4:05 AM, Fixx said:

I cannot resist... Free Transform, Perspective & Warp Tools would be nice but I could also pay some extra for them 🤣

Actually, I agree. I would happily pay. I love designer, I can’t abide photoshop’s creative cloud subscription policy and compared to that “service” affinity is a steal... would not see a reasonable payment for updates as exploitative at all..... especially if you could pick and choose... Essentially like plugins.

[NoSi]

Would you buy a car and pay an extra charge for the key? That's what it sounds like to me...

[Fixx]

45 minutes ago, NoSi said:

Would you buy a car and pay an extra charge for the key? That's what it sounds like to me...

If it were a very inexpensive but high quality car...

[Alfred]

52 minutes ago, NoSi said:

Would you buy a car and pay an extra charge for the key? That's what it sounds like to me...

To me it sounds more like choosing to pay extra for automatic transmission, or power-assisted steering, or air conditioning. However, I can understand that for some users the missing features under discussion in this thread are analogous to a missing steering wheel.

[Jowday]

Affinity Designer is perfect for this kind of work, I guess.

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/artist-and-animator-spartaco-margioni-its-always-been-about-art-and-what-i-can-make-today/

[NoSi]

Ok. May be. What of these argues against »Free Transform, Perspective & Warp Tools« ?

[vitaprimo]

So, no response, huh? That sucks, I asked years ago and got the same. I'm finishing reinstalling Illustrator and all the Adobe crap just now, it took forever and I don't know if it'll even run because it's too old now-I might have to reinstall High Sierra or search for OpenJDK or some hacking or emulation util on Homebrew.

I find it interesting though that Designer back when I got it was marketed right at Adobe Illustrator users, so much so that out of the box came prepared to import those files…not the other way around though, so now that I need to pass back and forth files I could-probably should-use SVG but both .afdesign and .ai files are more likely to maintain fidelity of the data, of those only .ai is supported by both tools--Serif might be inadvertently pushing the format. I don't know what's the hold up, the code seems to be already in Designer–take a look at the isometric tools:

I played a little with it and it turns it's even automated, they're kinda impressive; you just have to know how to use it which is not documented in the help. As some of you noted, it's in Photo too. What's up then? A patent maybe?

BTW, for  those doing basic grids, remember that individual nodes can be selected from many different objects at a time, then with the distribute tool they can be aligned so they match an opposite side.

I know it's not much but for the most basic things it might be able to help somebody. I'm attaching the file with history. Using the Constraints panel to constraint one shape into a box and then warping the box from its corner nodes. I haven't tried it but it might be worth the shot. Personally I stay away form the constraints because it's confusing and always brings unintended results when I group-resize things later. 😔

Good luck everyone! 🤓

grid-example.afdesign

[vitaprimo]

UPDATE

Illustrator did work on my version of macOS, and was wrong earlier, Designer can't export .ai only import. Actually no format it exports imports well on Illustrator. And, if I'm bad in Designer I suck in Illustrator. It makes no 🤬 sense, things get locked up with other things like if there's was a magic passphrase needed to be said out loud or something. I don't understand how people willingly pay monthly for that ****, it's like bondage without the fun.

To the Serif team: PLEASE HURRY UP WITH THIS. Whip up some artsy part-naked-woman-part-panorama-part-animal-with-horns-and-wings that nobody gets for the pretend shipping box to display on the online store, put in the warp tools and call it version 2 then charge for it, you can't maintain v1 forever--not that I'm complaining--but we need the tools, though. PLEASE!

[NoSi]

Can you see the difference between 1 and 2?

(1) is Affinity (from your picture). The object is rendered into the transformation the handles for object are always a rectangular box. That makes it impossible to deal exactly with the edges of the containing object.

(2) Is a screenshot of Photoline. The object is transformed with the handles and can be returned anytime into original. The handles in touch with the object allow a perfect transformation. You may pick a single edge and transform to any shape. The following picture is object (2) after moving two edges without any aditional tool (only pressing ALT for "move single handle"):

This is what I am talking about…