Converting brushes to curves

[waveman777]

I've been wondering, why there it no option to convert vector brushes to curves? I'm in Designer Persona, brushes supposed to be vector, but the only vector thing about them is that I can edit the trajectory of the brush. Yet, when I wanted to make a 100% vector file out of it, I realised that vector brushes are exported as bitmaps. So, even though the brush tool is labeled as "Vector Brush Tool " it actual isn't. This is all so mixed up - I would expect such behaviour only in Pixel Persona, not in the Designer Persona, where all should be 100% vector graphics.  

Any tip how to deal with it?

Thanks

[MEB]

Hi waveman777,
Currently most vector brushes (except the first two in the Pens category) do use a raster texture stretched or repeated along a vector path. These brushes cannot be expanded/converted to curves because their texture is based on raster data. We do hope to improve the vector brush tool later to also be able to deal with  pure vector brushes (based on vector objects). Currently there's really no way around it other than eventually tracing the painted strokes using a third party app if feasible/applicable.

[waveman777]

6 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi waveman777,
Currently most vector brushes (except the first two in the Pens category) do use a raster texture stretched or repeated along a vector path. These brushes cannot be expanded/converted to curves because their texture is based on raster data. We do hope to improve the vector brush tool later to also be able to deal with  pure vector brushes (based on vector objects). Currently there's really no way around it other than eventually tracing the painted strokes using a third party app if feasible/applicable.

I see. I'm a bit puzzled with it to be honest. I'd like to have a clear distinction in my mind about what's vector and what's not when I work on my projects. This is how I understood the Designer Persona and Pixel Persona. I though this is how you separated the two words from each other. The idea in my mind was that when I start a vector project, I simply stick to Designer Persona, but when I wanted to add some bitmap content to it, I'd switch to Pixel Persona for that reason. If it doesn't work like this - why do we need Personas? 

As for the brushes, it's just very confusing to have a Vector Brush Tool which draws bitmaps...

[MEB]

Using the Vector Persona doesn't mean you are restricting the tools/features to vector data only. There's some features that can't be easily translated to vectors (nor there are file formats which support them all). For example some blend modes are not supported in other apps/file formats other than our own and are rasterised on export; Layers effects are also rasterised on export etc. This is true for other vector based apps too - some of the effects provided are raster based.
The point is these effects can be scaled/edited as necessary in the app (up to some point in the case of the brushes) without losing quality which means you can output them to whatever size you need when you export the final file to deliver to the client unless you require a strictly vector output.

[Boldlinedesign]

@waveman777 - Having 100% vector brushes (beyond the top two in the "pens" category) along with the ability to edit and build our own 100% vector brushes is something that's been requested many times for several years now by the Affinity user community. I work in the screen print industry and most work I do requires 100% vector output. Many are hoping Serif hears our requests and implement it in an upcoming version soon. We love Affinity - we just need certain tools to properly do our work with it

[postmadesign]

17 hours ago, Boldlinedesign said:

@waveman777 - Having 100% vector brushes (beyond the top two in the "pens" category) along with the ability to edit and build our own 100% vector brushes is something that's been requested many times for several years now by the Affinity user community. I work in the screen print industry and most work I do requires 100% vector output. Many are hoping Serif hears our requests and implement it in an upcoming version soon. We love Affinity - we just need certain tools to properly do our work with it

If Serif would add true vector brushes, it would reduce the need to look for alternatives. As it stands, Affinity lacks some hard core vector options, like vector transformations, vector knife and eraser and true vector brushes. If your work requires the output of pure vector graphics, you might have to try another app. Vectorstyler is in beta right now and is a lot more like illustrator, so that might suit your needs better. However it is more difficult to work with than Affinity, and the UI is not as polished.

One thing I do appreciate about the vector brushes in Affinity, is the direct visual feedback you get, which makes it a lot easier to judge the drawing. Also these raster based brushes are a lot better for more complex brush strokes, which makes other apps quite laggy.

[Jowday]

True vector brushes, perspective, envelope distort and export preview are Linux only features.