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Distort/skew perspective of curves in Affinity Designer.


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Feature Request: Ability to distort/skew perspective of curves in Affinity Designer.

I drew a rectangle shape, converted it to curves, and duplicated it repeatedly into stripes.

image.png.943451bd5a677348eba79201943e7bb2.png

I would next like to distort, skew, stretch the perspective. But I don’t see how with the current set of tools.

Best I can discern is to grab nodes and randomly pull them where they look close enough. But this is time-intensive and imperfect.

image.png.39334d152c01a00a5ce2925bc8b1f22f.png

I also tried drawing trapezoid shapes, but their controls seem even less precise.

I asked in the support board how better to do it, and I was told there is no way (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/166065-how-to-distortskew-perspective-of-curves-in-affinity-designer/).

Thank you.

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Dont know if your Picture is just a Example what you miss.

But if your Problem is to put these Stripes in a Perspective
then try the following.

Create your Stripe Pattern
Select all Stripes and do a Layer > Geometry > Add

Then select all top Nodes with the Node Tool.
Activate Transform Mode for that Nodes.

Hold the STRG-Key (Win) (guess Command-Key (Mac))
while moving the most right or left Node.
(the round Nodes in the Picture)

See Picture here

Perspective.png.f8bd8cb4d9df74c1bcb6e79417a01e7e.png

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2 hours ago, 2ddpainter said:

Create your Stripe Pattern
Select all Stripes and do a Layer > Geometry > Add

No need to do an Add. Just make sure they are curves and you can select all of the curves and set the node tool's Context Toolbar like this 

1429743479_ScreenShot2022-08-09at8_38_14AM.png.28f7eb16113e0ee2f3555cbe7dbf22e8.png

select the nodes as shown and you can move, scale, rotate or whatever to them.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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6 hours ago, 2ddpainter said:

Create your Stripe Pattern
Select all Stripes and do a Layer > Geometry > Add

This combines my series of rectangular curves into a single rectangular curve.

Your drawing is of stripes spaced by gaps. I need a series of stripes of alternating colors with no gaps.

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4 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

No need to do an Add. Just make sure they are curves and you can select all of the curves and set the node tool's Context Toolbar like this 

1429743479_ScreenShot2022-08-09at8_38_14AM.png.28f7eb16113e0ee2f3555cbe7dbf22e8.png

select the nodes as shown and you can move, scale, rotate or whatever to them.

Can you show what you mean? Or describe it using more exact words? How can this lead to a perspective skew/distortion?

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26 minutes ago, jAffinitySerif said:

Can you show what you mean? Or describe it using more exact words? How can this lead to a perspective skew/distortion?

I was simply commenting on how there is no need to use the Layer > Geometry > Add step, you can just have the curves separate. To do some simple warping just use the Node tool to select the nodes and make sure the Node tool's Context Toolbar is set like the screenshot in my earlier post. Then you can drag the handles on the selection box to make the top more narrow, or wider, or rotate it, or shift it to one side etc.

What your screenshot shows is more complex.

252562760_ScreenShot2022-08-09at2_09_06PM.png.40dc09f5b19080fd6a0d38eb73e4505b.png

The short answer is there is no simple easy way to achieve this currently. We cannot easily curve the top and bottom like you show.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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> just use the Node tool to select the nodes

How is that different from what I described in my original post?

> make sure the Node tool's Context Toolbar is set like the screenshot in my earlier post

How does that make any difference?

> drag the handles on the selection box to make the top more narrow, or wider, or rotate it, or shift it to one side

How is this done precisely (without creating gaps or ragged edges)?

>We cannot easily curve the top and bottom like you show.

The curved/ragged edges in my screenshot are unintentional, due to my struggling with the interface.

Here is an image of what I’m trying to achieve (though this is rasterized and the wrong colors, found via image web search):

image.png.a3746a18b23ff5d1054e33a628a29f6a.png

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I’ve attached a short video showing (crudely-done) the whole process - you will need to take better care in getting the right result.

Note: The colours need to be added at the end because merging the curves makes a single Curves layer which can only have one fill/stroke.

Note: As mentioned by Old Bruce below, the Merge and Separate steps are unnecessary; you can omit those steps (and therefore have the shapes coloured beforehand).

Edited by GarryP
Added note.
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I do not want to sound impolite, but i have two questions.

first question:
Are you completely new to vector graphics?

second question:
Have you tried the recommendations at all?


All of us here would like to have a perspective Distortion Tool in Affinity Designer.
But fact is there is none. Anyway, some simpler things can be done in Affinity Designer
although somewhat laborious.

As far as i can see, your case could be done the in the way descriped above

In my example above I used a simple repetition of rectangles to show the principle
how this could be done. It doesn't matter that each rectangle should be colored differently.
If the whole thing has the right perspective, then you can resolve everything and
give the individual objects their color

Even a curve could be done at the edge with a corresponding object an a Boolean cut.

Perspective-1.png.6a3d88ccf308e11e0d7f9e2bd752e1c6.png

 

perspective-2.png.659a5f56179e96135c3f705cb0f675d4.png

 

Perspective-3.png.f7c199a39ba68cf40342327926412c18.png

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8 hours ago, GarryP said:

Note: The colours need to be added at the end because merging the curves makes a single Curves layer which can only have one fill/stroke.

Note: For this kind of example I see no need to merge the curves. None at all.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.6 
Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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> I’ve attached a short video showing (crudely-done) the whole process - you will need to take better care in getting the right result.

This is perfect, thank you! I was unaware of the “merge curves” and “separate curves” commands, and they appear to be the key to accomplishing my desired outcome.

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> Are you completely new to vector graphics?

No.

> Have you tried the recommendations at all?

Yes.

> All of us here would like to have a perspective Distortion Tool in Affinity Designer. But fact is there is none.

My first comment at the top of this thread links to where I asked how to do this. I was told there it cannot be done. I therefore next created this thread to request the feature, and I linked each thread to the other to keep this history easy to find.

> As far as i can see, your case could be done the in the way descriped above

I did not understand your suggestion, so I asked for clarification. After reading your second reply, I must admit I still do not understand your approach.

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As has been mentioned by Old Bruce above, you don’t actually need to merge/separate the curves, you can use the Node tool on multiply-selected shapes without merging/separating as long as the shapes are Curve layers and not smart shapes (e.g. Rectangle, Star, etc.).

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12 hours ago, GarryP said:

you don’t actually need to merge/separate the curves, you can use the Node tool on multiply-selected shapes without merging/separating as long as the shapes are Curve layers

Interesting. You are correct that curve-merging is not required. It is actually the “Transform Mode” step that is most crucial.

The full series of steps is:

  • Draw rectangle.
  • Duplicate rectangle and move to side of first rectangle. Repeat to create and translate more rectangles.
  • Convert all rectangles to curves.
  • With all rectangular curves’ layers still selected, and using the node tool, click/drag a selection box around all point along one edge.
  • From the app window’s upper toolset, click “Transform Mode”.
  • Now you can click/drag one of the corner nodes (with or without holding command or control keys) to skew/distort the perspective.

I wish the “Transform Mode” button had a corresponding command in the menu bar. My first step in looking for something is to search the menu bar, via command-shift-slash, or by clicking “Help”, and then typing what I want (like “transform”).

I wish also there were some help article that would appear in the Help-Search list of results for “transform mode”. How is anyone to know what this tool is supposed to do?

Thanks again.

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It is simply this you are trying to achieve? (Minus the renaming) - it is crazy easy in other programs, this example is from Vectorstyler, where you can also get a wireframe preview, useful to experiment before applying to complex groups without going into full wireframe mode:

spacer.png

 

10 Reasons Why Strategic Plans Fail
Having a plan simply for plans sake - Not understanding the environment or focusing on results - Partial commitment - Not having the right people involved - Writing the plan and putting it on the shelf - Unwillingness or inability to change - Having the wrong people in leadership positions - No accountability or follow through - Unrealistic goals or lack of focus and resources.

Get it?

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18 minutes ago, jAffinitySerif said:

Yes, it is simply that.

And yes, it is much easier to discern how to do this in other vector-art programs.

Yes, very much so. I think it's pointless to struggle with the 100% manual methods in Affinity, unless you need to achieve something very simple. It can be done, but you can also cook with a jigsaw should other kitchen tools be unavailable.

So we look forward to seeing if there are such tools in future versions of Affinity. Until then, I can only recommend that you don't torture yourself with manual work in Affinity, but use what else the market offers in terms of software. If money is an issue, I remember once having to make do with freeware, drawing shapes and adding perspective to them in Inkscape. It wasn't as easy as in Vectorstyler, but it was fast and it looked natural.

By the way, the latest update of Inkscape is quite excellent. I just don't need it.

Good luck :)

10 Reasons Why Strategic Plans Fail
Having a plan simply for plans sake - Not understanding the environment or focusing on results - Partial commitment - Not having the right people involved - Writing the plan and putting it on the shelf - Unwillingness or inability to change - Having the wrong people in leadership positions - No accountability or follow through - Unrealistic goals or lack of focus and resources.

Get it?

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As an Ex-Illustrator user, I find it really mind-boggling that a very useful feature is completely missing from Designer.
I just wanted to warp some text to give it some perspective and there is NO way I'm manually going to do that. it's such an imprecise way to go about it.

My question would be why are affinity avoiding adding this rather popular feature request? Surely Adobe doesn't hold the IP on warping vectors?

So come on Serif folks, just grasp the nettle, we'd all love you more for it if you spent some time developing this feature.
You can do it!

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 8/11/2022 at 10:49 PM, Winsome said:

I think it's pointless to struggle with the 100% manual methods in Affinity

Exactly! - we may never get a lot of these "missing" features that a lot of us have been waffling on about for the past 8 years. I'm now not that bothered if these things are added or not, as VectorStyler is now part of my workflow, which is a vector powerhouse that improves weekly, and compliments Affinity brilliantly, you could do what you want detailed above on a super complex vector graphic, copy pasted from Affinity and back, in a few seconds - save yourself grief = Affinity + VectorStyler 

Daz1.png

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17 hours ago, Dazmondo77 said:

vector powerhouse that improves weekly, and compliments Affinity brilliantly, you could do what you want detailed above on a super complex vector graphic, copy pasted from Affinity and back, in a few seconds - save yourself grief = Affinity + VectorStyler 

great points. There's no reason to think there should be undying single devotion to any one application. It's ok to use and appreciate a more advanced vector program like vectorstyler and still love the simplicity and interconnection between designer, photo and publisher. 

It's concerning that text warp is among the standard tools still missing from designer after eight years. Utilizing multiple applications like vectorstyler alongside affinity gives the user the best of both worlds and reduces the impatience waiting and hoping affinity will be adding certain features

I'm a fan of supporting any and all of the vector applications that increase subscription free options for users

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One can find it a bit strange what Affinity sells as a vector program.

On the other hand, I find the mix of some vector and bitmap functions
quite handy from time to time.

But I have my doubts that, if you are interested in more vector features,
that you will find them in Affinity Designer. Like to be surprised.
Btw Vectorstyler will be difficult to top in this area.

 

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