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


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I am just starting to play around with the pencil, pen, and brush and noticed that the lines are smoothing. Do you plan on having a smoothing control for those tools? For drawing, this would be important not to have my lines straighten-out. 

Also,while going through the help menu I hit the back arrow in the upper left corner and it does not take me back to the page I entered from. Example, after selecting "About lines and shapes," I hit the back arrow and I don't return to were I can select "About lines and Shapes." I return to "Visual References."

On the positive note, I love the ability to be able to use vector and raster in the same software. That is an all in one drawing program.

Gregg

OS X Version 10.14.6 iMac 27" 3.2 GHz i5- 32 GB  Huion Kamvas Pro 20

iPad Pro 12.9" IOS 13

AD = OS IOS, AP = OS IOS

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  • Staff

Hi Gregg,

 

The pencil and brush tools will automatically attempt to smooth your input to give you flowing curves. You should find that the brush tool smooths a bit more than the pencil tool as you tend to draw with larger nibs in the brush tool. DrawPlus used to have a slider that controlled how much smoothing would be applied, but I always found that no matter what I set it to, it was just never the result I was wanting. Instead, I've tried to make the smoothing better in Designer so that you just don't need a slider or anything - and I think it's really pretty good most of the time? If you want to make your curves look more like straight lines afterwards, then you could go to the Node Tool, select the nodes (drag a marquee rectangle over them in the Node Tool - I'll make 'select all' work in the future for the Node Tool to select all nodes) and from the context toolbar you can choose to convert to sharp points... is that maybe more like what you were after? If not, is there any chance you could show me an example of what you'd like to achieve?

 

Cheers,

Matt

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Hi Matt,

 

Thank you for the reply. If I import/copy a picture of a tree to one layer, then on the next layer outline the tree, I would like my lines to follow the outline of the tree. Not be smoothed-out. In other vector programs, (examples) one a mac only program, and the other an open source program called Inkscape, I have no problem adjusting the smoothing. Inkscape really carries from one extreme (no smoothing) to another extreme (all most straight line from a curved jagged line). It really allows more control while drawing. I will attach a couple of examples in another new topic since, it appears I can't attach a photo to this post.

 

Regards,

Gregg

Gregg

OS X Version 10.14.6 iMac 27" 3.2 GHz i5- 32 GB  Huion Kamvas Pro 20

iPad Pro 12.9" IOS 13

AD = OS IOS, AP = OS IOS

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...

I'm definitely missing my smooth tool from Illustrator right now.

 

I love the amount of control I have over the individual anchor points in Designer, but sometimes its very hard to get them exactly where they need be for a smooth shape!

 

Some sort of smoothing feature would be a great addition!

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  • 2 months later...

For drawing in an intuitive manner, the smooth tool is invaluable, it has been a deal breaker for a few people I know. if you draw a line using nodes and then can smooth it before fine adjustment it works really well, to not have that capability and to have to do each point individually...ouch!

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  • 1 month later...

I thought I would come back to this subject again because more and more I have seen the need for smoothing. I just can't understand why Affinity Designer does not have that ability. Other programs use it with great success. It is very useful when drawing freehand. It takes time to have to alway go back and correct a line. Please reconsider this. I think there are a lot of other people that would like to have the smoothing ability.

Gregg

OS X Version 10.14.6 iMac 27" 3.2 GHz i5- 32 GB  Huion Kamvas Pro 20

iPad Pro 12.9" IOS 13

AD = OS IOS, AP = OS IOS

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  • 3 weeks later...

I would like to request this too. This happened in affinity designer today. I had a shape with very few nodes and I used the "subtract" function to remove a completely different part of the object. For some reason affinity "re-drew" the entire object and added several hundred/maybe thousands of unnecessary nodes. If It'd had a simplify-function I could have fixed it, but this time I had to backtrack several steps and undo loads of work that took time to redo. I've wanted a simplify-function several times before, but today I would have really needed it. The picture shows a screen shot of before and after the issue occurred.

affinity-nodes-before.png

affinity-nodes.png

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Thanks for the reply. 

I'm sorry to say that I didn't keep the error saved so I've already fixed this and can't remember exactly how to reproduce it, however, should it occur again, I will repost and remember to save the misstake.

 

I found two ways to fix issues with too many nodes.

1 quickest - Export as svg to illustrator, use "simplify path" in illustrator and then reopen in Affinity.

2. Second option is to redraw the entire shape which might take forever =).

 

I would rather not need the use of Illustrator though to fix the issue of too many nodes which occur every now and then, like when turning fonts into outlines, sometimes there will be unnecessary nodes. I love the option of simplify with fonts in illustrator because you can even change the look of the font slightly if wanted.

 

So even if the issue I posted about now was a one time bug, I still really like the option of smoothing / simplify. 

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There is an option when you've got the path selected to hit a button in the tool bar that does smoothing. I use it all the time. (I found Affinity was often far less forgiving than AI was of my slightly shaky hand while drawing slowly. Part of me wishes I could have the button auto pressed every time I draw a shape. But I appreciate having the option to not do it if I so choose.

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There is an option when you've got the path selected to hit a button in the tool bar that does smoothing. I use it all the time. (I found Affinity was often far less forgiving than AI was of my slightly shaky hand while drawing slowly. Part of me wishes I could have the button auto pressed every time I draw a shape. But I appreciate having the option to not do it if I so choose.

Thank you for telling me about this! I'm unable to find the setting though, would you mind uploading a screenshot of this in the panel? I'm unable to find it. If this is true I'm going to dance!

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  • Staff

Hi luvis,

With the Pen or Node Tools selected go to the context toolbar and click Smooth Curve from the Action section. However i believe this is not exactly what you are asking for. Currently it's not possible to simplify paths using a slider or similar to remove more or less nodes while keeping the path intact.

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I find that when I have a bumpy line I select the nodes in the bumps and delete them. Then it's easier to smooth the lines afterwards.

But a real smooth line tool/action/menu would be very welcome!

- Affinity Photo 2.3.0
- Affinity Designer 2.3.0
-Affinity Publisher 2.3.0

 

MacBook Pro 16 GB
MacOS Sonoma 14.1.2

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  • 3 weeks later...

I agree. I was just examining the options for smoothing a curve in a specific case: I drew a line with a pressure contour; I expanded the line to produce an outline; then I chose Node Tool > Actions > Smooth. The results were not quite as good as I hoped. 

post-7619-0-43151100-1459090270_thumb.png

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  • 3 months later...

I am loving the beta, but in all honesty, having to work with many nodes per path does keep me from wanting to use Affinity for linework. I don't mind even if a smoothing feature is not added since I never used it in Illustrator. However, I find there needs to be more control over fidelity. Double clicking on the pencil tool in Illustrator will show a fidelity slider. After bringing it up to about 10, you can draw the shape you want without any smoothing or too much correction, and you will have very few nodes to work with. That's what I want in Designer. Fewer nodes but constrained shape is the win.

 

I find that when I have a bumpy line I select the nodes in the bumps and delete them. Then it's easier to smooth the lines afterwards.

But a real smooth line tool/action/menu would be very welcome!

 

Yeah, but using the pencil or brush tool more frequently than the pen tool results more frequent correction. I'm trying to just draw a frog character freehand, and to get the exact shape of just an eye delays my workflow. As DavidMalcom mentioned, drawing slowly causes the lines to be more jagged. That really makes it hard for illustrators and designers to work. I had to do the linework in Illustrator and bring it into Designer to finish my job on time.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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  • 3 weeks later...

It is hard to believe such an essential feature is not part of Affinity Designer.

 

Photoline has a simplify curve option (and it does not even focus on being a vector app). InkScape can do this. ClipStudio offers a really nice simplify vector line brush tool to simplify curves. And of course many other vector illustration packages such as Illustrator, CorelDraw, Xara... Animation software that works with vectors all offer it: Anime Studio, Toonboom, Flash...

 

Heck, even Freehand has an option to do this. And Freehand is positively ancient!

 

In short, I am afraid it is somewhat odd and slightly bewildering for a modern dedicated vector package NOT to offer it from the get-go.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree that line smoothing is an incredibly important tool to have.  I would also like to add that the ability to do the opposite is equally important for illustrations.

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/23355-roughen-curves/

 

It's really hard to draw a rough-looking curve within a reasonable amount of time, and I constantly wish I had a way to make curves look less uniform without wasting too much time on a single curve.

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I'm just going to add the Lazy Nezumi does not recognize the Affinity window

 

Lazy Nezumi Pro works fine in Affinity Designer. I used it to draw this.

 

You may not see a flashing red rectangle when you hook the AD window (I didn't) but you should see the message 'Window hooked!' in the LNP status bar.

 

(at least on Windows)

 

As far as I know, LNP is only available for Windows.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Alfred, I just read your post. I had no idea that Lazy Nezumi worked with Affinity Designer. Or if I did, I forgot because Designer was Mac only at the time. May I ask how Nezumi controls the nodes? And how do you actually use the stabilization? I used it before on Photoshop and Illustrator, and I got confused with the amount of options it carries. The stabilization is pretty much the only thing that tickles my interest.

 

I did get a lot of popups in the past, but I hope it was just a problem with my computer at the time.

The website is still a work in progress. The "Comics" and "Shop" sections are not yet ready. Feel free to connect with me and let me know what you like or what can be improved. You can contact me here, on my contact page, YouTube channel, or Twitter account. Thanks and have a great day!

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