Expand Stroke For Other (Paid for) Brushes

[GraphicsByGreg]

From what I am seeing, "Expand Stroke" only works on vector brushes that come standard with Designer?   Ones I have paid for (or even free ones offered THROUGH Designer / Artifex Forge) DON'T expand??  Or am I  doing something wrong?   Thanks!!   

[Jowday]

2 hours ago, GraphicsByGreg said:

From what I am seeing, "Expand Stroke" only works on vector brushes that come standard with Designer?   Ones I have paid for (or even free ones offered THROUGH Designer / Artifex Forge) DON'T expand??  Or am I  doing something wrong?   Thanks!!   

The are... prepare yourself for the blow... 😤

Not. Vector.

[Jowday]

Depressing read:

Despite the hype and loud marketing efforts Affinity Designer is very basic in the vector department.

A vector brush in AD is a pixel brush that follows a vector path. With a few built in exceptions. Just wait until you are looking for vector tools in AD; they are not there. Just follow affinityspotlight.com - the examples speak for themselves.

[GraphicsByGreg]

Damn they certainly look crisp enough to BE vector brushes.. wow... 

[Alexmwalker]

This looks like the answer I was looking for, but also dreading. 

Those Artifex Fineliner brushes are quite beautiful and I really like the feel they give my work. I was quite excited when I started using them. But I have to give up file size, and resolution independence if I use them? 

A showstopper for me, unfortunately.

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, Alexmwalker said:

Those Artifex Fineliner brushes are quite beautiful and I really like the feel they give my work. I was quite excited when I started using them. But I have to give up file size, and resolution independence if I use them? 

No, that's not true.

Try it yourself. Zoom in as far as you want.

[Jowday]

15 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

No, that's not true.

Try it yourself. Zoom in as far as you want.

Are they vector brushes that can be exported as resolution independent vector graphics that will scale to any screen size on webpages - fx tiny smartphone screens - crisp? And will be tiny SVG files?

[walt.farrell]

48 minutes ago, Jowday said:

Are they vector brushes that can be exported as resolution independent vector graphics that will scale to any screen size on webpages - fx tiny smartphone screens - crisp? And will be tiny SVG files?

I haven't tried all that, but they are what Affinity calls vector brushes. The brushes are free via the Affinity Welcome Screen (or were, last I looked). Feel free to try those yourself.

[lepr]

32 minutes ago, Jowday said:

Are they vector brushes that can be exported as resolution independent vector graphics that will scale to any screen size on webpages - fx tiny smartphone screens - crisp? And will be tiny SVG files?

These brushes contain a raster image and an export to a vector file format will contain a rasterisation at a specified pixel density.

[Jowday]

26 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I haven't tried all that, but they are what Affinity calls vector brushes. The brushes are free via the Affinity Welcome Screen (or were, last I looked). Feel free to try those yourself.

Not a good foundation for advice. You were fooled as well. "Vector brushes" is what Serif call these brushes but they are bitmap/raster images on a vector path so they are not vector at all. They will be exported as pixels. Big files with no resolution independence. 

@GraphicsByGreg paid for "vector brushes" that are bitmap brushes. The name is misleading at best.

 

[lepr]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

No, that's not true.

Try it yourself. Zoom in as far as you want.

The pixels of the raster image contained in the brush do become visible when you zoom in as far as you want.

[walt.farrell]

39 minutes ago, anon2 said:

The pixels of the raster image contained in the brush do become visible when you zoom in as far as you want.

Not when you zoom into the Affinity document, though, which is what fooled me.

Thanks, @anon2 and @Jowday.

[lepr]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Not when you zoom into the Affinity document, though, which is what fooled me.

Yes when you zoom into the Affinity document!

 

[firstdefence]

They are bendy raster brushes.

[Jowday]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Not when you zoom into the Affinity document, though, which is what fooled me.

Thanks, @anon2 and @Jowday.

It is indeed not easy to detect - and what adds insult to injury is that if you select expand stroke on a "vector" brush (that is bitmap) there is no error message or feedback for the victim. Nothing happens. Expand stroke is not greyed out or informative.

The only feedback you get is when you try to export it as vector: "Some areas will be rasterized".

Have a nice Jowday 🙂

[GraphicsByGreg]

Yeah....   As someone else said, Designer isn't nearly as muscular a vector tool as Illustrator, but it is now my main software and Illustrator is like a support plugin for any vector stuff Design can't do (warping, arched text etc)  One thing I am fully sold on is how much faster I can get projects done in Designer.  MASKING!!!  Clipping!!  Just layers in the layer menu!   ILLUSTRATOR..you gotta click on the transparency menu, then that lil' white square to enter another world.....  Designer I can see all my masking right there.  

Using Designer since December 2019, I have quickly found many features that Adobe just would never do, and is even more baffling they don't do it.  The Rotate and Skew windows in the Transform menu is game changer, and yet so simple.  TRY rotating or skewing  (shear) something in Illustrator... it's permanent and you can't go back to zero.  you gotta create a backup in case you change your mind.  That's just one feature.... Anyway.....  yeah I guess a lot of those brushes I bought are raster.   I could always export a PNG and vector trace in illustrator......... but then I'm right back in Designer to finish the project. 

[Jowday]

Mhm - the core of Affinity is great - but a lot is missing - and that is why a lot of Serif customers are eagerly awaiting real vector tools and real vector brushes. Because CorelDRAW, Illustrator or whatever are expensive needed companions for Designer. And for those who cannot afford such companions - ouch.

[Alexmwalker]

6 hours ago, ErrkaPetti said:

But, if we count all replies here concering lack of features in Affinity, mr Jowday posting at least 90% of them...

Well, from where I'm sitting, Jowday seems to have a good handle on what he's talking about. I happily bought the tool and was quite enthusiastic about the prospects. It's not a huge risk at that price. When I came to this thread looking for answers I assumed my issues with exporting SVG were my own lack of familiarity with the tool. Turns out it wasn't that. 

I can see that people who simply like to draw with vector tools might get excellent results from AD. Those who really depend on getting high quality, thoughtfully constructed SVG files to use in web browsers and apps might generate more problems than they need. 

 

Cheers,

[Patrick Connor]

@Alexmwalker

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forum  

Sorry for the treatment you have received in posts I have now hidden (including the polite final one by Jowady which made no sense with the others problematic ones hidden). 

I hope it has not discouraged you from participating here where the vast majority of users are extremely helpful.

[Alexmwalker]

Thanks @Patrick Connor. I'm not discouraged at all. AD isn't quite what I need to replace Illustrator at this moment, but I'm very keen that it gets there.

Cheers!