How to convert a shape into pixel art on affinity designer iPad?

[Flowerratt]

Hi 
I have a trouble when I try to create pixel art on designer app. I want to create a pixelated circle, like those in vintage video games. When I draw a circle in designer persona, I get a perfect circle, and when I change to pixel persona, it is still a perfect circle. 
how can i get a shape in pixel without drawing it with pixel tool by myself?

[iconoclast]

Hi Flowerratt!

I'm afraid, I don't know any simple way to do that in Designer or even Photo. But in GIMP, there is a filter called "Pixelise" in the "Filter" menu under "Blur". As GIMP is free and open source, I use it as additional program for things Affinity doesn't offer. And it is verry good. If you want to try it, load the original installer from gimp.org. Some other sources spread malware.

Possibly you could also find a plugin that does pixelising, but I don't know a certain one. The free G'MIC plugin (570 additional filters, also available as 8bf-plugin for Affinity Photo and Photoshop, as standalone-software and as web-service) has a sort of pixelisation filter, but it creates an outline around the shape you pixelise.

[Flowerratt]

1 minute ago, iconoclast said:

Hi Flowerratr!

I'm afraid, I don't know any simple way to do that in Designer or even Photo. But in GIMP, there is a filter called "Pixelise" in the "Filter" menu under "Blur". As GIMP is free and open source, I use it as additional program for things Affinity doesn't offer. And it is verry good. If you want to try it, load the original installer from gimp.org. Some other sources spread malware.

Possibly you could also find a plugin that does pixelising, but I don't know a certain one. The free G'MIC plugin (570 additional filters, also available as 8bf-plugin for Affinity Photo and Photoshop) has a sort of pixelisation filter, but it creates an outline around the shape you pixelise.

Thank you iconoclast! Thanks for you suggestions. Unfortunately I don’t own a computer and iPad is all I can work on… 

 

[iconoclast]

Hm, you could of course create your shape in a verry small size and upscale it without Interpolation ("Resampling: Nearest Neighbour") in Photo. But that is not verry conveniant and may not look good enough.

I tested it, but it only seems to work if you export the image first, load the exported image (JPEG, PNG...) and upscale it then.

[Flowerratt]

Thanks iconoclast! It seems like not very feasible to work on pixel art with affinity!

[Dan C]

Hi @Flowerratt,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums 

Have you tried Rasterising the layer? This will convert the shape from Vector to Pixel and may be closer to what you're looking for?

Equally, you could create a new pixel layer, then use the elliptical selection tool to create a circular selection and then fill this selection using the fill tool?

I hope this helps!

[Alfred]

11 minutes ago, Dan C said:

create a new pixel layer, then use the elliptical selection tool to create a circular selection and then fill this selection using the fill tool

That works nicely!

[Flowerratt]

15 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Hi @Flowerratt,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums 

Have you tried Rasterising the layer? This will convert the shape from Vector to Pixel and may be closer to what you're looking for?

Equally, you could create a new pixel layer, then use the elliptical selection tool to create a circular selection and then fill this selection using the fill tool?

I hope this helps!

Thank you! It works pretty well! Fantastic!

[NotMyFault]

On 9/16/2021 at 9:42 AM, iconoclast said:

Hi Flowerratt!

I'm afraid, I don't know any simple way to do that in Designer or even Photo. But in GIMP, there is a filter called "Pixelise" in the "Filter" menu under "Blur". As GIMP is free and open source, I use it as additional program for things Affinity doesn't offer. And it is verry good. If you want to try it, load the original installer from gimp.org. Some other sources spread malware.

Possibly you could also find a plugin that does pixelising, but I don't know a certain one. The free G'MIC plugin (570 additional filters, also available as 8bf-plugin for Affinity Photo and Photoshop, as standalone-software and as web-service) has a sort of pixelisation filter, but it creates an outline around the shape you pixelise.

There are several ways to do this in Photo or Designer:

• Photo has a distortion filter called Pixelate
• If you create a pixel layer with lower DPI, you can use merge down to pixelate.This has the advantage that you may use several different DPI settings in the same document.
• You can use Resample, as Dan Pointed out
• You can use Selections, as Alfred pointed out.

How to create layers with specific DPI:

• create rectangle of 1x1px size
• no fill, no stroke
• rasterize layer
• use move tool and transform panel to increase x/y size. The number you enter defines the factor used to decrease the DPI
• put this layer below the layer to be pixelated
• merge down the layer to be pixelated