RendCycle Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 Hi there! I'm planning to get Affinity Designer and thinking of retiring my old Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator CS5. But before I do so, I'm wondering what will be the advantages and workflow if I am going to use it with Cartoon Animator 4 Pipeline. My primary question: Is it possible to work with vector art and be able to import/export changes directly from Affinity Designer to Cartoon Animator 4 Pipeline and vice-versa? Just like how Cartoon Animator 4 Pipeline currently works and can launch Adobe Photoshop inside the software when a part of the image is modified... But this time, updates are done by editing vector art in Affinity Designer instead of a raster image. Has anyone ever tried this and have worked with Affinity Designer and Cartoon Animator 4 Pipeline? How is it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bruce Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 What is the Pipeline you have bolded? A quick look at the website for Cartoon Animator 4 makes me think it is a feature for that software that uses Photoshop, not just its files, in some fashion. If that is the case then I doubt Affinity Photo would work as there is no scripting available for it. Quote Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 Affinity Designer 2.4.1 | Affinity Photo 2.4.1 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.1 | Beta versions as they appear. I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 This is what Pipeline relates to: https://www.reallusion.com/cartoon-animator/2D-software-pipeline.html RendCycle 1 Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RendCycle Posted January 11, 2021 Author Share Posted January 11, 2021 4 minutes ago, Old Bruce said: What is the Pipeline you have bolded? A quick look at the website for Cartoon Animator 4 makes me think it is a feature for that software that uses Photoshop, not just its files, in some fashion. If that is the case then I doubt Affinity Photo would work as there is no scripting available for it. Hello there! It's actually a feature of CA4 Pipeline edition that can directly link it to supported external image editing software for easier updating of a PSD file. Basically, what it does is enable importing of a PSD file that can be a layered full character or prop. Then be able to connect and edit any layer by launching the image editing software inside CA4 Pipeline. Every time a save is done in the image editing software, it updates the artwork inside CA4 Pipeline too. That can save up a lot of time. It says here that Affinity Designer and Photo is supported. But I just couldn't find any official info that describes how to work directly with Vector art and whether that is possible or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Bruce Posted January 11, 2021 Share Posted January 11, 2021 Seems to me that it should work if all that is needed is proper layer naming. The manual states that it is compatible with Photoshop file Editors. Export your Designer or Photo documents as WhateverName.PSD files and it should be good to go. You may need to use the Final Cut Psd export version. RendCycle and Callum 2 Quote Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 Affinity Designer 2.4.1 | Affinity Photo 2.4.1 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.1 | Beta versions as they appear. I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RendCycle Posted January 12, 2021 Author Share Posted January 12, 2021 12 hours ago, Old Bruce said: Seems to me that it should work if all that is needed is proper layer naming. The manual states that it is compatible with Photoshop file Editors. Export your Designer or Photo documents as WhateverName.PSD files and it should be good to go. You may need to use the Final Cut Psd export version. You're right sir, it looks like it can work when connecting a PSD file... But I just discovered that Cartoon Animator 4 Pipeline only supports SWF for Vector files. That means, with Affinity Designer, I will still have to work with Raster image format when using it with CA4 Pipeline. I wish there were some way for Affinity Designer to be able to export to SWF or for CA4 Pipeline to support other Vector file formats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RendCycle Posted January 12, 2021 Author Share Posted January 12, 2021 Furthermore, I have tested the trial version of Affinity Designer and tried working with CA4 Pipeline. I encountered an error when launching a PSD in both Stage and Composer Mode. If editing, the only thing that worked is using the "Launch External Image Editor" when an object part is selected inside Composer Mode. Meaning, I was only able to edit one object or body part and cannot open the full PSD file for editing inside Affinity Designer. Creating a new Character in CA4 Pipeline by opening a PSD file generated by Affinity Designer using a layered template seems to have worked too. Kindly refer to image below. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RendCycle Posted January 15, 2021 Author Share Posted January 15, 2021 If anybody experienced this issue, here is the answer: I contacted Affinity tech support and we found out the problem was related to my Windows 10 operating system's User folder name. It was divided into two (2) words with a space in between and Affinity Designer has trouble with that. The program automatically truncates my User folder name and just recognizes one (1) word. In consequence, Affinity Designer couldn't find the PSD file in the correct directory. A temporary workaround would be to create a new User in Win 10 with a single word Username. Log in to that new account to use Affinity Designer with CA4 Pipeline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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