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Asymmetrical Transform; wishful thinking?


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Hi,

 In Affinity Designer I occasionally wish I could transform a vector Group of curves in an asymmetrical manner.

It is easy to make scale transform on the vertical axis, the horizontal axis, or both, but I have not found any way to grab the corner of a group and pull just that corner.

To be fair, I don't know of a vector editor that does it, but I would sure love to be able too.

I can transform a group of layers in this manner using a raster editor such as Photoshop, and I imagine that it may be an easier mathematical task to do this in the raster format, but it sure would be nice to be able to do this in vector.

 

Here is an example made in Photoshop:

Transform.jpg.84a974213c0f77150f0730307340a0fe.jpg

 

It can be a lot of work to pull on each curves' nodes and keep the edges aligned when I am working with multiple instances of a group and want to shift their shapes into a variety of postures.

I am not complaining, nor necessarily requesting a feature, but I would like to learn if I am I missing a function that I have not found?

 

Thank you!!!

 

Windows 7 x64 with Affinity Designer 1.8.5.703

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16 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

Does the fact that this was moved from general discussion to feedback indicate that there is no existing method of accomplishing the function in vector mode?

"Designer" is Nottingham-English for "draw everything vector yourself unassisted with the most basic tools", so yes.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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Otto,

In a 2D vector environment, the kind of distortion you depict is essentially an envelope distortion. It's not "wishful thinking"; it's quite common, there are other feature request threads about it, the developers have acknowledged it and stated that it is planned.

The fact that envelope distortion features are common in this software category does not make them all equal. It is a generic term, and implementations range from good to very poor. The interfaces of some are just a few lame handles that you use by 'eyeballing' the result; others are based on geometric principles of perspective projection.

Envelope distortion is the basis of many different interface features. For example, Illustrator's Free Transform Tool, Warp, Mesh, and Perspective Grid features all involve different implementations of envelope distortion. So what users have in mind when asking for it can be all over the place. What satisfies very basic enveloping like your example, will no doubt invoke criticism from others.

Personally, I have no use for more features rushed-out-the-door in 'me, too' fashion just because users are impatient. I want to see it done right and done well with some innovation and elegance in Affinity, not just rushed-out-the-door like Arrowheads.

JET

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On 10/30/2020 at 3:03 PM, Otto Manuel said:

but I have not found any way to grab the corner of a group and pull just that corner.

I found the same thing really confusing exactly 6 years ago with version 1 - turns out other users where having the same experience - really should have been a very very basic destructive vector distortion option pretty early on - cum-on Affinity boffins - 6 YEARS -

Like the worlds best cheese and onion crisps (as it states on the packet) tastes amazing (of cheese)  but it's still missing the onion - 6 years in development should bring a knockout REAL cheese and onion

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi,

 It was informative to read the replies.

 There were some comments that made me wonder; what options are available in other apps that make asymmetrical distortion of a group of vector curves possible?

 Is there a particular application that I should go look at?

 Disclosure; I am not a pro illustrator. I am not up to date on what is available in the soft ware market place. I have been using an old license for Adobe Illustrator CS2 for my occasional vector illustration use and slowly migrating to Affinity Designer.

 I like Designer very much, but might be willing to add another app to augment it if there is something that makes distortion styled transforms on groups.

 Thank you.

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Hi,

 So I back tracked a bit and learned that my Adobe Illustrator CS2 install has a feature known as Object > Envelope Distort > Make with Mesh function, which I think I remember using once many years ago.

 I exported a group of content from Affinity Designer and was able warp the entire group, just as I had hoped to learn I could do, but the content did not round trip from Affinity Designer to Adobe Illustrator CS 2 and back again without some issues.

 For example; I tried working with the EPS format. I was able to make the warp but lost all my layer name labels, the grouping, and the layers were divided into pairs representing the fills and the strokes, so on return I had approximately twice as many layers, without names or grouping. It seemed like the layer info was lost during the export from Designer, and I assume this is a condition that is related to the age and origins of the EPS format. 

 Furthermore with EPS I saw a color shift. No matter how I attempted to force sRGB as the color space, it kept getting converted in export or save.

 For example; I tried working with the SVG format by exporting from Affinity Designer, but could not open the version of the SVG file in Adobe Illustrator CS2. When I tried to place the SVG in Illustrator I got some invisible stroke data, which I could highlight, but it was not of any use. I would like to pursue using the SVG format because it appeared to preserve my layer names.

 For example; I tried working with the PDF format but the layers were affected just as with the EPS, while the colors seem to have been preserved OK.

 

 So, once again I am not asking for a feature request. This thread was moved to feature request without a request.

 

I did originally ask if this feature was available, but now I am asking if anyone has a better working flow to use than the examples I described.

My primary interest is learning if there is a more efficient way to warp distort a group of vector curves without having to buy an Illustrator CC subscription or one off month for the occasional amateur use.

Thank you!!!

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I copy and paste between Designer and Illustrator cs5, works well as long as the colour profiles match - not ideal but the most robust option - also tried inkscape which involves too much faff for me personally and is a little too laggy - there's also VectorStyler beta which has an incredible, super fast, non-destructive vector warp / distort engine but is a bit hit and miss getting complex Designer artwork to play ball, but for simple vector distortions it's ACE - shame the user interface is a little busy, but it's always improving as it moves closer to release - definitely one to watch as we may have to wait years before Designer gets anywhere close - we may never get it?

Daz1.png

Mac Pro Cheese-grater (Early 2009) 2.93 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon 48 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 ECC Ram, Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX 580 8GB GDDR5, Ugee 19" Graphics Tablet Monitor Triple boot via OCLP 1.2.1 - Mac OS Monterey 12.7.1, Sonoma 14.1.1 and Mojave 10.14.6

Affinity Publisher, Designer and Photo 1.10.5 - 2.2.1

www.bingercreative.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

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Thank you for the helpful tips.

I tried copy pasting between Designer 1.8.5 and my old Illustrator CS2 install and nothing happened. I can see that there is something on my Windows 7 clipboard but pressing Paste in Illustrator doesn't result in anything happening. I sure wish I had upgraded to CS6 but was doing less vector work at that time.

I have an install of Inkscape but have not figured out how to warp a group. My previous Google search didn't turn much up, so I will try searching again.

I had never heard of Vectorstyler until reading some of the threads here about warping text so was not sure if it works on a group, but I guess text is a sort of group. I will look in to it.

I saw reference to Xara, but the Xara website doesn't say much about warping.

I was also wondering if Corel Draw has a function equal to Illustrator mesh warp. If it did I might be able to buy a perpetual license to augment my Designer install.

 

I have to say that after years of fooling around with occasional vector illustration Affinity Designer has made "drawing" on a computer seem fun for me, so I am doing it more often, but it is just for rest and relaxation so I would feel foolish subscribing to a cloud for a couple hundred dollars each year.

 

In any event Thank you Affinity for making computer graphics seem so fun!

Thank you.

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Hi,

FWIW, for anyone who stumbles on this thread I found a tutorial for InkScape https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/warping-and-sculpting-fun-in-inkscape--cms-20709

That describes the Tweak Tool and the Push Parts of Paths option.

It is working on an SVG I exported from Designer although it seems prone to crash the program on my old Windows 7 laptop.

It is encouraging to think there may be an inexpensive work flow.

 

Edit to add: I just updated to InkScape 1.0.1 and the Tweak function worked well without crashing the program. The SVG round trip works excellent.

I have a solution that will be very helpful.

Thanks for listening while I rambled on about the details. 🙂

 

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Well, that did not last long.

Here is a quote straight from InkScape's Help File:  "The tool has several known problems."

I found several of them.

I went and read about Vectorstyler. It looks great, but it is Mac only. No Windows installs, and I use Windows.

So, I am still looking.

Corel Draw? Xara?

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6 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

Well, that did not last long.

Here is a quote straight from InkScape's Help File:  "The tool has several known problems."

I found several of them.

I went and read about Vectorstyler. It looks great, but it is Mac only. No Windows installs, and I use Windows.

So, I am still looking.

Corel Draw? Xara?

Hello @Otto Manuel,

Xara does it reasonably well. I've been using it for a long time but left it behind because I did not like the way it was developed. That's my personal opinion only.

You can use their trial and I think even one of the smaller packages includes it. Just make sure to look at the feature list closely.

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

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Hi,

 Thanks for adding some info.

 It looks like I will have to try a demo of Xara to find out how it works. The Photo and Graphic Designer web page doesn't mention warping as a feature. The Designer Pro web page does mention warping but just perspective and envelope rather than mesh dragging. Both of the Xara programs seem to be unduly preoccupied with Photo editing which seems unappealing because I am currently interested in tools optimized for Vector artwork.

 I found an old Corel Draw envelope warp tutorial and the process seems primitive. Does Corel Draw have a mesh drag system?

One of the challenges while searching for mesh distort features is the wide spread interest in gradient mesh tools. Search returns seem to trend towards gradient editing results despite the fact that I include words such as "transform" or "warp" or "distort".

 

 

 Vectorstyler has the only web page that presents a warping tool in an attractive and inciting way.

 

 I was hoping to find something similar to the features in my 15 year old Illustrator CS2 application.

 

 Thank you!

 

Affinity Designer 1.8.5+ on Windows 7 x64

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49 minutes ago, Otto Manuel said:

The Designer Pro web page does mention warping but just perspective and envelope rather than mesh dragging.

This is correct. As far as I know there is now mesh warp in Xara 'only' envelope and perspective. That's what I was referring to.

A gradient mesh tool is something completely different. It's something like a gradient but in multiple directions.

While I am not familiar with it you might look into Photoline. It was not mentioned yes and has a lot of capabilities. But I am not sure if it does what you are looking for. There are some users in the forum who might want to comment on that.

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
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6 minutes ago, fde101 said:

but sadly they plan on releasing for Windows also

Why do you call this sadly? Is there some irony or unknown fact that I a missing?

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
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20 minutes ago, fde101 said:

It means they are spending development time on an inferior platform instead of doing something more meaningful with that time...  for example, if they really want a second platform, they could be developing a Linux version instead.

Thanks for explaining.

d.

Affinity Designer 1 & 2   |   Affinity Photo 1 & 2   |   Affinity Publisher 1 & 2
Affinity Designer 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Photo 2 for iPad   |   Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

Windows 11 64-bit - Core i7 - 16GB - Intel HD Graphics 4600 & NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M
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On 11/12/2020 at 12:11 AM, Otto Manuel said:

Well, that did not last long.

Here is a quote straight from InkScape's Help File:  "The tool has several known problems."

I found several of them.

I went and read about Vectorstyler. It looks great, but it is Mac only. No Windows installs, and I use Windows.

So, I am still looking.

Corel Draw? Xara?

CorelDRAW or Illustrator. Or wait for 20 years with 3 programs to do one programs job... and wait for what? You don't know.

You get what you pay for - still true in 2020.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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Will you explain specifically if, and if so at what license level ("Standard" "Suite" etc.), Corel Draw offers a mesh distort feature that equals or exceeds the functionality of Illustrator CS2?

 

This page hasn't offered any details regarding my question:

https://www.coreldraw.com/static/cdgs/product_content/cdgs/essentials/2020/pdfs/cds2020-comparison-matrix-en.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Otto Manuel said:

Will you explain specifically if, and if so at what license level ("Standard" "Suite" etc.), Corel Draw offers a mesh distort feature that equals or exceeds the functionality of Illustrator CS2?

Graphics Suite 2020 edition.

  • Affinity Designer is - in comparison - a mix of essentials and standard. For hobbyists and small (!) businesses. At it will probably be like that for a long time. Not a shred of evidence points towards professional features are waiting for us. After 5 years of development of Affinity and after 25 year in the business they still didn't get the boolean operator working correctly. You just can't expect them to deliver more complex stuff that can actually work in a satisfying way or compete then.
  • CorelDRAW Professional is where most of the fun for professionals is. 

There is a trial of CorelDRAW available.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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2 hours ago, Otto Manuel said:

What is this mesh distort feature called in Corel Draw Graphics Suite 2020?

I would like to search out some tutorials for how to use the Corel features.

Knowing the terminology used within the Corel ecosystem would be helpful for searches of useful info.

Are there no CorelDRAW forums that will help with such questions?

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