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I totally agree that a blend tool is necessary, I was about to buy the whole suite for the special pricing, but now I’m not so sure as I use this function a LOT in adobe products, it’s the only thing stopping me from pushing the ‘buy’ button…

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Blend tool would be a nice touch for this tea ball thing I'm doing atm...

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Blend tool is available in Vectorstyler right now along with a number of other missing tools in designer. Consider picking up Vectorstyler as an add-on tool to fill in the needs while waiting for affinity to catch up. Vectors created in designer and in Vectorstyler are easily copied and pasted between the two programs. I'm not advocating to quit  using designer, I'm encouraging using both. Why not? Between the two together, most every important need is addressed. Vectorstyler can easily be a companion vector program. Use one as the primary and the other as a supplement 

Vectorstyler is half off right now and also has a 42 day trial and is not subscription based. It's improving by leaps and bounds at a rapid pace. Currently the developer is working on a big update but has still put out consistent bug fixes and enhancements every couple weeks in the process.

 

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4 hours ago, Boldlinedesign said:

Vectorstyler is half off right now

Not anymore.

4 hours ago, Boldlinedesign said:

Blend tool is available in Vectorstyler

Speaking of which, earlier this week I tried to convert a seemingly simple blend object that I created in 2005 2003 with – *gasp* – Illustrator 10:

ai_blend_object_with_gradient.png.aeb384dac0baa3671a6d8307c18bfd68.png

Affinity was able to interpret it more or less correctly from the 25-steps flattened *.ai PDF stream, although first I had to figure out how to match the ICC profiles to make it work in (CMY)K. So it's somewhat usable, even though the gradients don't match precisely:

apu_ai_blend_object_with_gradient.png.ae93c519288cbcf550b675c1af7506b3.png

Sadly, VS failed at the same task, attempting to crack-open the *.ai:

vs_from_ai_blend_object_with_gradient.png.097697af35bd6e36338db9409c449a28.png

And so did attempts to reproduce it directly in VS because one of the two shapes has a gradient fill, and I wasn't able to find any setting that would take that into consideration to achieve the same appearance as in AI. The best I was able to come up with after fiddling about for an hour (and yes, I RTFM this time):

vs_blend_object_with_gradient_rebuilt.png.e701374564e8eae9d40885d74cf12028.png

^ The gradient blend seems to work only in horizontal direction.

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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39 minutes ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Is it? I can't find any mention of 50% off on their home page.

Unfortunately, this deal is over. I bought mine at 8 of December with 50% discount.

It's a really good software. You can make stuff, you are not able to do in Affinity Designer.

Just make some designs in Vectorstyler and paste to Designer. I haven't noticed any file corruption whatsoewer.  

I use both apps and It's a perfect match.  I am no longer frustrated.

 I like in Vectorstyler, the developers quickly reply to your problem, they are listen to your ideas and apply them. 

I also like they are frequently publish software updates, and have a public roadmap, so we can see what direction the software is heading to.  

On other hand Affinity Suite is more stable, established  and there is a Ipad vers.

 

 

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Original PhotoLine blend object (25 steps, from neutral grey to inner object with gradient applied:

image.png.b4b7b6e528cd621957e8b7d7e053ddb4.png

Saved as SVG in PhotoLine.

SVG imported in Designer:

image.png.2489a9c2ad60873132f846aceff24415.png

SVG imported in InkScape:

image.png.17fd5d5a37f4f56e28df5224edc08f33.png

SVG imported in Figma:

image.png.166319be34dff56b765a8fcc7284a1b7.png

SVG imported in Illustrator:

image.png.8d8ac69a47855191affba1b7c2a7e6e7.png

SVG imported in VectorStyler:

image.png.38f14dd69c9d67d410d3979e42e0f209.png

VectorStyler still has issues with various SVG files that I have tested with. But I've sent them an example SVG and they are working on improving it.

I've been testing VectorStyler the past week or so, and my main beef with VectorStyler so far is its slow performance compared to other design apps that I use. Editing one of the 25 shapes in the above example SVG is a smooth experience in Designer, PhotoLine, Illustrator, Figma, and even InkScape feels twice as fast as VectorStyler. Heck, even Figma (prototyping app) is absolutely smooth.

But VectorStyler feels slow to work with, despite my best efforts to adjust preferences and despite turning on all the GPU performance bits. I've opened a bunch more complex art of mine in it, and it isn't a good experience at all to the extent that I can't and won't use it. All the features in the world will not help when performance lags force one to push work-arounds to keep things running at a speed that allows for a reasonable work pace...

Mind: I have a pretty beefed up system with a 3080ti and 128GB ram. I've reported the performance issues to the VS developer. Based on their forum posts, it seems to be a known issue and affecting some more than others, depending on the complexity of their art. Hopefully they'll be able to improve it in the upcoming release.

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1 hour ago, Medical Officer Bones said:

Original PhotoLine blend object (25 steps, from neutral grey to inner object with gradient applied:

I really should install that PhotoLine trial version now…

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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@Medical Officer Bones there are certainly improvements that can be made in Vectorstyler as with any program. I've got a solid list of improvements I've advocated for and helped test to improve.

It's easy to find an extreme scenario that causes a program to fail and judge the entirety of the program on that extreme function. I'm glad you brought up the issues with complex vectors in Vectorstyler and sent the sample to the developer. I have little doubt vectorstyler will improve dramatically in short order as a result. Thankfully, I don't think most vector users are doing super complex designs like that all the time and will not run into this issue often before a fix is made. 

I don't have any insider knowledge, but I can imagine solutions to the issues you brought up will be fixed in a matter of weeks or months, not years. 

I'm glad you've brought up issues on the VS forum. I wish more people would do the same instead of just shutting down and avoiding it. There are plenty of areas like this complex svg issue that not everyone runs into. So it's great when people bring up diverse issues because it helps round out the improvement of the program


This was why I was saying the use of both vectorstyler and affinity designer in tandem provides a solid well rounded solution. Designer can open complex vector designs smoothly then vectorstyler, but it also lacks pure vector brushes, blending between shapes, eraser tool, image trace, blob brush equivalent, etc other existing tools need a lot of refinement and improvements. If I were to claim I couldn't use designer because of these missing features, that would be the wrong mentality. Just because Vectorstyler is not as capable at running super complex extreme designs does not negate the rest of its powerful featureset. 

I've used vectorstyler full time for solid year now and rarely saw crashes or instability and rarely had slowdowns during use. Then again, none of my projects are as complex as von glitchkas wormwood sample. If most of your work is that complex, keep using designer and jump over to vectorstyler for the missing tools in designer. 

 

.

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@visualrevolt thanks for sharing. I agree with you on most everything you said. Many think they are only allowed to use one or the other. I own both and use both for different reasons. Designer alone was not enough to replace illustrator in my professional work. Using vectorstyler allowed me to not be as impatient waiting for affinity to add basic features. Vectorstyler is my primary at this point, but I enjoy using the iPad version of designer as well and like the interconnection with photo and publisher. 

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To me the Illustrator-like Blend tool is the number one feature still missing. I do hope it will be in Designer rather sooner than late. Blending curves, shapes, gradients and colours would open up so much creative possibilities and speed things. There is just no way to create certain things without it.

Keeping my fingers crossed for 2023.

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On 1/12/2023 at 3:14 PM, rui_mac said:

how it was done in FreeHand

Meanwhile, FH9 is running in my SheepShaver: :) 

fh9_sheepshaver_catalina.thumb.png.9b54b9cbfabbf517c7d6280b5597051e.png

MacBookAir 15": MacOS Ventura > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // MacBookPro 15" mid-2012: MacOS El Capitan > Affinity v1 / MacOS Catalina > Affinity v1, v2, v2 beta // iPad 8th: iPadOS 16 > Affinity v2

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@Red Sands I had first heard of vectorstyler on the affinity forum years ago when I was hoping affinity designer would sufficiently replace illustrator for my professional work. Affinity was lacking a number of tools and features and vectorstyler supplied most of them, allowing me to avoid an adobe subscription. Now I use vectorstyler as my primary vector design program and use affinity designer occasionally, depending on the project. I also use designer on iPad and port the results to the computer as usually paste it into vectorstyler to compete. Even for those who still want to use affinity designer as their primary vector program, having a copy of vectorstyler on hand allows for the missing features and tools in designer to be covered

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