Constrain paint brush tool affinity photo ipad

[alj]

Hello, I've been using affinity photo on my PC with a wacom tablet and pen. I am able to draw really nice sketchy straight lines with this setup by holding down shift and drawing with the paintbrush tool using a pencil brush. I now have an ipad pro with apple pencil and want to do the same on the affinity photo ipad app but can't find a way to do it. I've tried holding one finger down while clicking two points with a variety of brushes this really doesn't give a nice sketchy straight line at all, the results are horrid. 

I effectively want to find a way to simulate drawing a line with a pencil and a ruler. My PC affinity photo does this beautifully just by holding the shift key with the paintbrush tool set to a pencil brush. Without the function on the ipad/apple pencil set up, affinity photo is useless to me. I'm really desperate to find a resolution to this. Many thanks. 

[Dan C]

Hi @alj,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

I can confirm that this can be done within Affinity Photo by holding down a finger on screen whilst using the Paint Brush tool, to constrain it to straight lines only.

Tap once on the canvas where you want the stroke to start, then using your other hand press and hold one finger anywhere on the canvas to enable the constraint feature.

Now, with this finger held down, click anywhere else on the canvas and you should find the strokes begin at the first 'point' selected, in straight lines only -

Alternatively, you can enable a UI option that adds a 'Constrain' modifier to the Context Toolbar for these tools. To do this, please open the Affinity app and navigate to Settings in the top right, then select Interface. Within this category, please enable 'On-screen modifier keys', then return to your document. You should now find when using this tool, you have the Constraint option available on the Context Toolbar -

I hope this helps!

[alj]

Dan you absolute legend, that constrain button is exactly what I was looking for thank you!

[BMorearty]

Hi @Dan C, thanks for the excellent explanation and videos. Are you able to get the brush constraint to work in the current version of Affinity Designer for iPad (1.10.3)?

I’ve tried both methods you demonstrated in your videos but neither one works for me. 

[walt.farrell]

5 hours ago, BMirearty said:

Hi @Dan C, thanks for the excellent explanation and videos. Are you able to get the brush constraint to work in the current version of Affinity Designer for iPad (1.10.3)?

I’ve tried both methods you demonstrated in your videos but neither one works for me. 

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Both approaches work for me in the Pixel Persona. But neither seems to work for the Vector Brush Tool in the Designer Persona.

[BMorearty]

6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Both approaches work for me in the Pixel Persona. But neither seems to work for the Vector Brush Tool in the Designer Persona.

You're right, Walt, I see the same behavior. Works in Pixel Persona but not in Designer Persona.

[Dan C]

Hi @BMorearty,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

On 2/13/2022 at 5:48 PM, BMorearty said:

You're right, Walt, I see the same behavior. Works in Pixel Persona but not in Designer Persona.

I can confirm this is expected behaviour, in both the desktop and iPad apps the Vector Brush tool does not support 'constraints' - my apologies.

If you require straight lines in the Designer Persona, I'd recommend using the Pen Tool, then you can change the stroke to use any 'brush' that was selected for the Vector Brush Tool.

I hope this clears things up!