[ADe] Is there any line smoothing? (implemented)

[Jowday]

4 hours ago, sambader said:

I can't get on with the stablizer. Just seems like drawing with a big lag whereas I've been used to using a pencil or brush in illustrator to draw out a rough sketch and then using the smoothing pencil to smooth out lines. I know I can adjust individual nodes but that's a very lengthy process.

This is a well known workflow among Ilustrator professionals; the smoothing you make with this tool saves time and is efficient. And no matter why you need to smoothen something the feature is there and it works! Fx Imagine you traced something into vector (Oh my! Affinity can’t do that either!!) then simplify and smoothen tools are priceless. If you have a disability or just play with the curves these features are great!

Drawing with the stabilizer is clumsy, slow and artificial. It is like running in water.

[Jowday]

On 5/24/2017 at 11:41 PM, JDW said:

Obviously, there are some that you simply don't understand what this discussion is about. Thankfully MEB does understand, as per his previous post.

This discussion is about how to add a feature that is missing in Affinity Designer but which does exist in Adobe Illustrator for good reason. It's absolutely silly to say we only need certain tools when designing while implying we don't need comparable tools at all when repurposing art.

Indeed. And yes, the feature is in Adobe Illustrator for good reason. 

[SrPx]

It works quite fine for me, but I only use the feature in Photo, I don't really do brush work with Designer. Indeed, I have not been able to get AD's line work under control, or to the point I would like. But Photo's works great. Every stabilizer in any tool, raster or vector has its best usage. If one doesn't reach it (and often is not the app's fault), then would be useless to stick with it. Yes, too much stabilizer value means lag (not exactly, but so to speak), in every app. The key is to be able to use it at the lowest possible value. But actually this with any software. This happens as well in such a king for line art as it is Clip Studio.

I've seen some colleagues not needing ever a stabilizer, not even in long, perfect curves/straight lines on a full  big canvas, both digitally and in traditional media.  Of course, that's trained skill. I'm currently able to ink without stabilizers in most apps (except so very long, "perfect" curves), but needed to re-train that. As I was already able in traditional inking (on paper). But all tablets do introduce this inaccuracy, they amplify these wobble issues (related with the magnetic grid and more stuff). So, it gets its time to learn to compensate it... in most apps. Indeed, doing it in a non accurate way, but then trusting it on post-averaging/simplify features, is far from having got that desired real accuracy (reason why whoever is fully accurate in raster will be with anything). In my experience, currently I got quite the hang of Clip Studio stabilizer, Photoshop line Smoothing, Krita's,  and Affinity Photo's. I couldn't bring it to a practical level with Lazy Nezumi (external app that acts as an stabilizer for whatever app) but I'm sure it was just me not dedicating a pair of weeks of training with it.

[Dave Vector]

@SrPx Have you tried the rotate canvas functions in Affinity Designer to "spin the  paper" so to speak, and take advantage of the natural arc of your drawing arm?  It can really help one get a nice smooth arc with those long, perfect curves, without the need for the stabiliser, just like drawing on a sheet of paper in the analog world.

The three rotate functions are located in the View menu, just under the Zoom functions. 

If you set up some convenient hot keys for the rotate functions, it can be quite a pleasure to use  Even better, map those hotkeys to a Microsoft Surface Dial and it's a really slick experience!  I ended up purchasing a Dial to try it (yes, a Dial trial) and I love it.  It snaps angles, 6 steps in 90 degrees.  Seems good enough to get those long, perfect curves we yearn for  :-)

[Guyon]

Five years later and we still do not have oil paint smoothing for Affinity Photo for pre-drawn lines?

I have been hoping every year for Oil Paint Filter.

[DavidMalcolm]

So I gotta say, in 2023 I'm kinda sad Designer's default pressure sensitivity for Wacom tablets is still kinda terrible  I love the program for most things (I only do design work sometimes.) For most things I love it way more than I ever did Illustrator, but moving from Illustrator or Procreate to actually drawing with a stylus is just... really bad. I'm literally having to remind myself that I'm not shit at drawing because the way that the default settings render lines drawn from my Wacom make it look like I have some sort of hand tremor. The ends of lines end up being big small big small and have weird sharp corners, generally the stroke in between the start and end points look fine, but... I just don't see why even if this is an accurate impression of what the wacom is giving Designer whoever actually programmed it wouldn't just realize that within the first 5 and last 5 percent of a stroke, nobody is going to want to have their pressure fluctuate up and down by significant amounts? 

Like if you connect a Wacom to Illustrator, set pressure as the variable  and give yourself a moderately sized brush it just feels elegant. Procreate too. But Affinity Designer? I feel like it's not even worth trying to use my Wacom with it.