How do I warp text in Affinity Designer?

[TLeyva]

 I have an old copy of Adobe Illustrator CS2 from 2005 that does Envelope Distort with a mesh. I just checked to make sure. To be honest, I find it truly mind boggling that Designer lacks this 15 years later! I know that the program is pretty cheap, but that's not an excuse for a basic vector tool to be missing.

 Blender 3D software is open-source and rivals $4,000 software that they are up against. I work in 3ds Max every day for my job. Blender is probably better in some ways, and it's 100% free.

 Affinity could overtake Adobe, but they gotta take a look at the priority list.

[ziplock9000]

Any update on this? I need this ability for the work I'm doing now. I'd really not like to have to rasterise.

[madame fleur]

There is no update yet, but there is the new "Live Liquify" tool in the Affinity Photo beta. It will output raster (as it is a raster filter), but you will still retain that non-destructive aspect. It's the best workaround I can think of other than just editing the shape itself using the node tool (which is quite tedious, trust me).

[Anon-artist]

So Here we are in 2021...I've almost every post from 2015 onwards about the same Warp Text feature missing from Affinity Designer. Why does take so long to come up with this feature? 5 years guys, 5 years....what's the problem?

[TLeyva]

 Just updated to 1.9.1.979. And what do you know, still no warp feature. Quite honestly, I am beyond disappointed in this missing feature. I have a copy of Adobe Illustrator CS2 from 2005.....and IT HAS THIS FEATURE!!!! Object>Envelope Distort>Make with Mesh, DONE. Not sure what else to say.

[Tequejas]

Amazing this feature still wont come up... seems like a rough job to do for a vector software... XD

[MarkusB]

7 hours ago, Tequejas said:

Amazing this feature still wont come up... seems like a rough job to do for a vector software... XD

What bothers me more than the missing feature is the silence on Affinity’s part about it - are they working on it? Why is it so hard to implement? When can it be expected? No information, no roadmap, no feedback whatsoever, it is quite frustrating.

[Abra]

On 3/11/2021 at 7:08 AM, MarkusB said:

No information, no roadmap, no feedback whatsoever

I've just been searching for this, and six years ago it seemed to be on their radar, but the linked roadmap is no longer up

[Ron P.]

8 hours ago, Abra said:

I've just been searching for this, and six years ago it seemed to be on their radar, but the linked roadmap is no longer up

Yep, they removed the roadmap over a year ago.

Since they still have not added this feature which has been in most similar apps for well over 10 yrs, I'm thinking they may have planned on this being part of the 2.0 version. While Serif makes it a point not to reply in the Feedback/Features forums, they do look, so are well aware of this. Logically the only reason for them not to have implemented this is, to have 2.0 packed with new features (new to Affinity not to the design industry). Marketing???🤔

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Ron P. said:

Logically the only reason for them not to have implemented this is, to have 2.0 packed with new features (new to Affinity not to the design industry).

I think a more likely reason is that the development team is small & they have a lot of work to do just to add what seems like small improvements to the code without having to rewrite & debug large parts of it.

[Ron P.]

30 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I think a more likely reason is that the development team is small & they have a lot of work to do just to add what seems like small improvements to the code without having to rewrite & debug large parts of it.

That's possible, but it's getting to the point where maybe they should consider adding more to the teams? Earlier today I looked and seen where the older requests on the forums dated back 6 yrs. Serif claims they had worked 4 yrs prior to rolling out the Affinity lines, so that's about 10 yrs now. If the case is because they're so small, and at the progression they have had, the Affinity lines will be around 30 yrs old before some of the minor requests have been implemented.

Corel has had this since pre-"X" versions, like version 8 or 9, and I can imagine Adobe has too. That's why people are starting to get frustrated, because it's such a common function or feature, and widely used. Also I came to starting using Affinity Photo, like the other thousands, to escape from Photoshop AND Lightroom. Not so much LR, I sort of like it. I still have the last perpetual version. What caught my attention was the word about Serif releasing a DAM, something to replace LR for me (and all the other masses). The key was "about to". So yep I purchased AP. That's been 4 yrs ago now. I stopped holding my breath 2 yrs ago. IMHO, it's not going to happen, maybe they considered it before, but I think that has fallen off the radar.

[Patrick Connor]

33 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

but it's getting to the point where maybe they should consider adding more to the teams?

There has been no time in the last 6 years when we have not been advertising for and interviewing applicants for the developer role here. We have taken some on, but there are still roles available. People with the specialist knowledge are unusual. If you know any please encourage them to apply.

[R C-R]

19 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

That's possible, but it's getting to the point where maybe they should consider adding more to the teams?

From what they have said in the past, they have been trying to add more people to the team but finding people with the necessary expertise & bringing them up to speed on the unique aspects of the implementation (serialization, the single native file format, cross-platform feature parity, high memory efficiency, etc.) has been a slow & difficult process.

They have told us many times that Affinity is based on an entirely new, from scratch, code base, so it is not as if they can just reuse or plug-in a bunch of old code new employees might already be familiar with.

[v_kyr]

26 minutes ago, R C-R said:

... so it is not as if they can just reuse or plug-in a bunch of old code new employees might already be familiar with.

Even it wouldn't be a new code base here, how should any new employee already be familiar with their old code here? This is a contradiction to itself, either you are a former times Serif employee and know some things about the former times code base since you may have worked with that, or you are a completely new to Serif project member without any prior knowledge about their former and actual code base!

[R C-R]

13 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

... how should any new employee already be familiar with their old code here?

What I mean is familiarity with code they might have seen or used in other graphic apps they have worked on, whoever they worked for before joining the Affinity team. It has nothing specifically to do with Serif's old code base they built their Windows apps on.

Some people seem to have the idea that because other apps have included some feature long missing from the Affinity ones that the same code that enabled them could simply be added to the Affinity ones & somehow that would be compatible with the rest of the Affinity code.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

What I mean is familiarity with code they might have seen or used in other graphic apps they have worked on, whoever they worked for before joining the Affinity team. It has nothing specifically to do with Serif's old code base they built their Windows apps on. ...

You should then much better express things, or let it be. The way you initially wrote it up may probably lead to misunderstandings! - I also wonder how you would even judge this if you have absolutely no idea about the code structure and internal program infrastructure of the underlying core projects of Serif. Not to mention knowing the skills and the possible quick comprehension ability of to you unknown developers to implement algorithms by reusing an existing enterprise framework and APIs.

In addition, most end users are not interested in the internal problems a company may have to contend with when developing its software products. For the masses it is only relevant that the software does what they need and expect.

 

[R C-R]

1 minute ago, v_kyr said:

You should then much better express things, or let it be.

Maybe, but it seems to me that you jumped to the conclusion that I was talking about familiarity with Serif's old Window code base. I hope it is now clear that I was not.

As for me judging anything about it, I am only going by what they have mentioned in the past about the difficulty of finding & hiring people with the skills they (Serif) needs. 

16 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

In addition, most end users are not interested in the internal problems a company may have to contend with when developing its software products. 

Perhaps, but my comments were in response to what @Ron P. said about hiring more people, which seems to be a problem.

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, R C-R said:

...were in response to what @Ron P. said about hiring more people, which seems to be a problem.

We have bad times (the Corona pandemic) worldwide, which started a year ago and the IT domain of course feels this badly too, because IT is also highly dependent on other industries. When other industries do badly, we usually do badly too, because some of them are our most valuable customers. It's overall like a cycle. There are only a few IT areas that are currently booming. - Getting good employees is thus also difficult in these times, especially if you cannot find any qualified on-site next door, because almost no one is traveling or relocating abroad these days. Add to this now the British coronavirus mutation B.1.1.7 version, a bunch of home office, and due to Brexit additional high export and import taxes etc. then one knows how it is currently in general overall.

 

33 minutes ago, R C-R said:

...but it seems to me that you jumped to the conclusion that I was talking about familiarity with Serif's old Window code base. I hope it is now clear that I was not.

Yes, "that Affinity is based on an entirely new, from scratch, code base, so it is not as if they can just reuse or plug-in a bunch of old code new employees might already be familiar with".

[R C-R]

9 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Yes, "that Affinity is based on an entirely new, from scratch, code base, so it is not as if they can just reuse or plug-in a bunch of old code new employees might already be familiar with".

Do you not see that "new employees" does not have anything to do with previous or current Serif employees or what they might be familiar with? This is about finding & hiring new people with the right skills that can be applied to the new, from scratch code base Affinity is based on.

[v_kyr]

Looks strange to me especially that part here "so it is not as if they can just reuse or plug-in a bunch of old code...", which either way is a wrong opinion in this threads warping context. Since if a developer is familiar with the corresponding general algorithms for vector distortion, i.e. the associated transformation mathematics, then he can also implement this with the help of the already existing Affinity API vector graphic primitives. So he can reuse any graphics domain and algorithmic knowledge he has about that!

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Since if a developer is familiar with the corresponding general algorithms for vector distortion, i.e. the associated transformation mathematics, then he can also implement this with the help of the already existing Affinity API vector graphic primitives.

If it really was that simple, don't you think it would have been done long ago?

[firstdefence]

How many vector apps have vector Warp and or envelope features, Free or Paid barring Illustrator?

[v_kyr]

10 hours ago, R C-R said:

If it really was that simple, don't you think it would have been done long ago?

I didn't said that the whole is simple, though it also shouldn't be too hard for them, since they already have similar for such tasks needed vector node manipulation functionality inside.

7 hours ago, firstdefence said:

How many vector apps have vector Warp and or envelope features, Free or Paid barring Illustrator?

A bunch of vector capable apps offer the one or other distortion functionality, just a few of them ...

• Old Freehand had
• Corel
• Xara/Magix
• VectorStyler has a very large repertoire of these 
• Inkscape
• Amadine
• PhotoLine
• LibreDraw
• MS Expression Design
• Photopea
• Most CAD apps
• ... and so on ...

[Andy05]

6 hours ago, firstdefence said:

How many vector apps have vector Warp and or envelope features, Free or Paid barring Illustrator?

I'd ask the other way round. Which vector app does not have any vector warp/envelope features? Should be the way shorter list of apps.

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

I didn't said that the whole is simple, though it also shouldn't be too hard for them, since they already have similar for such tasks needed vector node manipulation functionality inside.

How do you know how similar this existing functionality really is to what would be needed for vector (or text) warping?

Whatever it might be, it has to work with both single & multiple curve ("Curves") vector objects, & ideally with a mix of text, curves, & possibly raster objects (both image & pixel types). Warped text should remain editable, not converted to curves. Above all else, it should be bug free, something that even now after all this time cannot be said of several vector based operations in Affinity.