Raster perspective and mesh warp live filters added to Designer

[Ash]

Apps: Designer (Pixel Persona)
Platforms: Windows, macOS and iPad

As has been requested many times we have now added both the perspective and mesh warp live filters from Affinity Photo into the Pixel Persona of Affinity Designer. You can add one of these live filters from the Layer menu in pixel persona on desktop, or from the + button in the layers panel on iPad (again only when you are in pixel persona).

We understand these are convenient tools to have available from within Designer for occasions where you may wish to distort images, embedded documents, etc. within your designs. It is important to consider that these tools are raster-based filter effects. This means that while you can use them on vectors and text (or elements with mixed vector and pixel data) the output will always be flattened. e.g. if you had some text where you applied a pixel persona live perspective filter, if you export your design as a PDF that element will be rasterised at document resolution.

If you just wish to warp vector outlines you should be using the vector warp group functionality in the Designer Persona (added as a new feature to V2) which will always maintain a true vector result.

[Patrick Connor]

Known Issues

• AFD-6464 - 'Merge' button on Live Filter and Adjustment dialog not working
• AFD-6465 - Document containing Perspective Filter crashes when attempting to export or adjust
• AFD-6470 - [iPad] Live Perspective Filter causes lag and leads to a crash when the magnifier appears

Fixed Issues:

• AFD-6390 - iPad - Add perspective and raster warp to pixel persona
• AFD-6399 - Live perspective / Warp - added as destructive version on Windows
• AFD-6400 - Windows pixel persona has warp group button on layers panel

[JhonatanS]

Hey Ash, thanks a lot for bringing that into Designer.

By the way, Is it possible to apply the Vector Warp that contains pixel layers inside?
Unfortunately, the current Vector warp doesn't move or change the pixels inside.

I'll attach an example, this definitely would make the Vector warp more consistent to work with Paintings.



 

 

A real example attached, trying to deform the Vector with painting

[Intuos5]

That was also the case I wanted to make in this topic:

If you apply a vector warp from within Designer (with the Designer persona active) it would be nice if the tool were to determine whether the contents are raster or vector data. Ideally, placed PDFs should be treated as vectors.

It may be possible (from a users' perspective) to rename the tool to Warp group instead, so you could use it regardless of context type. Meaning the tool is context sensitive. For images, this is what happens now:

And for placed vector documents, such as this SVG (I clipped it to a rectangle to get rid of some text below):

And without clipping:

Ideally, all of these should be working and the layer name (warp group) should indicate whether the result is a vector or raster.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ash]

The thing with this is that it's not just a case of being vector or raster data you are warping. Even vector data cannot necessarily be warped in the way you would like using the vector warp. For example if it has gradients, or strokes - like if you apply a perspective to a logo which has a stroke around it you might want that stroke to appear thinner when when it's further away. Generally with embedded documents in particular the sense we had from the feedback we were seeing is that in the main you always want the warp / perspective to give a visually accurate result, and the best / most reliable way to do that is using the raster based tools we have in Photo. They are non destructive so you can still edit the vector data within them, and you can still choose the resolution you want at output time.

There are ways we could do a hybrid tool in some way, but it is a huge amount of work - I guess we are wanting to figure out whether actually using the live filters from Photo do solve a lot of requirements that people have in this area, or whether we should still be looking to invest a lot more time in expanding the functionality of vector warp.

[Intuos5]

That is a clear explanation on the matter, thanks! Unfortunately, I'm a bit confused still on the scope of the new feature still.

I wasn't exactly sure which way this was supposed to be working (or how it was implemented in general). I think I understand now that this just concerns the live adjustment filters. But it appears I can only apply the effect, dismissing the window doesn't add the live adjustment it as it does in Photo:

 Windows 10.0.19045.2486 (22H2), Affinity Designer 2.1.0.1706.

What good does the warp group do in the Pixel persona then? I can't seem to use this on any raster layers nor placed documents. Couldn't it be replaced with the live filter the way I accessed it in Photo previously? To me it appears a bit redundant now.

 

 

[Ash]

Thanks that's all kinds of wrong by the look of it:

1. It should be the live version of the filters you are getting. I presume this is a Windows problem as it's fine on Mac.

2. you should not have vector warp available in pixel persona - again must be a windows problem

We'll get that fixed!

[Intuos5]

Ah, well, that does explain the confusion 🤣

[StuartRc]

I just tried the perspective filter on a large really drawing with a mixture of vector and raster elements. Works great initially!. I was impressed with the speed. but If I undo after applying the layout gets a bit broken...then corrects itself! will upload a video...

So
Process
1. Select Artboard in PX Persona
2. Activate Perspective Filter
3. Apply results
4. Undo
6. Switch to Wireframe to correct!



Apart from the weird bit at around 50 seconds it is great!.. surprised me a bit as this file is well...complex!
 

[Frozen Death Knight]

The Pixel Persona is missing the Live Filters icon. Will it be added so these pixel specific filters can be accessed the same way as it's done in Photo?

[lepr]

4 hours ago, Ash said:

There are ways we could do a hybrid tool in some way, but it is a huge amount of work - I guess we are wanting to figure out whether actually using the live filters from Photo do solve a lot of requirements that people have in this area, or whether we should still be looking to invest a lot more time in expanding the functionality of vector warp.

 

In the absence of a hybrid tool, it would be very helpful if the Photo Mesh Warp live filter used the same meshes as the Designer Warp Group, and we could copy the mesh from one to the other.

[loukash]

7 hours ago, Ash said:

whether we should still be looking to invest a lot more time in expanding the functionality of vector warp.

This, please.  

[Intuos5]

8 hours ago, loukash said:

This, please.  

To be honest, even though I could also make use of an even more advanced warp tool, I would rather see resources being divested in more pressing features, such as vector patterns, layer appearances or explicit group/ symbol editing. The workarounds for those are more costly to me. If the live filters work as they are supposed to, I would say it's good enough for now.

[Ash]

20 hours ago, StuartRc said:

I just tried the perspective filter on a large really drawing with a mixture of vector and raster elements. Works great initially!. I was impressed with the speed. but If I undo after applying the layout gets a bit broken...then corrects itself! will upload a video...

First off great artwork Stuart! Now to be honest what you are trying to do there is actually a reason as to why we have been a little unsure about including this feature. The use case we are trying to cover is not about warping artwork in that way with 1000s of objects. It is actually to more cover the cases of needing to warp embedded documents or images. And I can say that the only reason you are seeing pretty decent performance there is because you are on the Windows version and that in fact currently has the destructive version of the filters which is incorrect.

I've just recorded a quick vid of why we have included it. This is using Designer to create some mock up options of an iPad app, where the UI of the app itself is also a Designer document. You can place the multi-artboard UI file as an embedded document in your mock up. Apply a live perspective from pixel persona to place in the iPads. As it's non destructive after you've done that you can still choose which artboard you want to show in your mock up. You can even edit the embedded document, float the window and update the source file while the mock up updates in real time.

Obviously this is perspective, with live warp you could use it to warp an embedded document on something like an open brochure (where the page is curled a bit) or a bottle label or whatever. But yeah, for these cases it felt wrong we are forcing people to use Affinity Photo to achieve this, especially when the type of mock up or whatever you are doing is better suited to use Designer to create the other elements around it (or to have options on artboards and things like that).

While this I think offers a fantastic (and unique) workflow for this kind of thing, the possible issue is the assumption that could be made that this is some alternative to use like vector warp when that isn't the intention. We'll have to try to be very clear about this with our help / learning materials around it as best we can.

 

 

[StuartRc]

22 hours ago, Ash said:

First off great artwork Stuart! Now to be honest what you are trying to do there is actually a reason as to why we have been a little unsure about including this feature. The use case we are trying to cover is not about warping artwork in that way with 1000s of objects. It is actually to more cover the cases of needing to warp embedded documents or images. And I can say that the only reason you are seeing pretty decent performance there is because you are on the Windows version and that in fact currently has the destructive version of the filters which is incorrect.

I've just recorded a quick vid of why we have included it. This is using Designer to create some mock up options of an iPad app, where the UI of the app itself is also a Designer document. You can place the multi-artboard UI file as an embedded document in your mock up. Apply a live perspective from pixel persona to place in the iPads. As it's non destructive after you've done that you can still choose which artboard you want to show in your mock up. You can even edit the embedded document, float the window and update the source file while the mock up updates in real time.

Obviously this is perspective, with live warp you could use it to warp an embedded document on something like an open brochure (where the page is curled a bit) or a bottle label or whatever. But yeah, for these cases it felt wrong we are forcing people to use Affinity Photo to achieve this, especially when the type of mock up or whatever you are doing is better suited to use Designer to create the other elements around it (or to have options on artboards and things like that).

While this I think offers a fantastic (and unique) workflow for this kind of thing, the possible issue is the assumption that could be made that this is some alternative to use like vector warp when that isn't the intention. We'll have to try to be very clear about this with our help / learning materials around it as best we can.

LivePerspective_2.mov 31.77 MB · 4 downloads  

 

Many thanks for your comprehensive feedback. I was not suggesting it is a bug.. I just wanted to try it out to see what the results would be!😀.. I was actually really impressed. To use the tool more effectively I would have rasterized the whole lot and distorted it using the tool. When you mention embedded files.. Strangely this is the way I used to build the artwork (Creating individual layers on separate files and adding them to stacked master file.) You can see this in some older files  here

But...the apps have progressed so much that it is no longer necessary...I have been blown away by the speed of progress with their development and how much faster V2 Versions are in comparison to V1 and this new raft of tools for 2.1 are just fantastic. I think the vector fill is going to be a big hit!.. and the brush improvements.. I can only say thanks...looking great.. which is good as I have so many brushes!😀 

I fully understand what you are saying with regards to the video. I was surprised that it worked at all....nut it was not a failing more just a glitch. The Perspective options interested me as I was looking into what tools | assets I could add to the Comic Book Template toolkit. One thing I considered was creating a simple vector based Perspective grid tool that could be incorporated into asset panels or tiers; using it sort of as a sub-template. (Using warp: Perspective or mesh)...but it is ok for simple distortions...but the lines inside the grid can actually 'bend'

Footnote: Thanks for the video...that is really what I expected it to be used for !...Microsoft would not let me play it!😀

 

[CM0]

On 2/15/2023 at 11:29 AM, Ash said:

 I guess we are wanting to figure out whether actually using the live filters from Photo do solve a lot of requirements that people have in this area, or whether we should still be looking to invest a lot more time in expanding the functionality of vector warp.

Vector warp that could warp anything inside, vector or image would be awesome.

However, on the topic of bringing over live filters. I use them all the time from photo. But not in pixel persona. What would be really great is if I could add any of the live filters to my toolbar in designer so I don't have to jump into photo and then jump back.

[Ash]

Hi All - an updated beta build (1709) is now available to download. This now includes the correct non-destructive version of these filters in the Windows version, and we have also now made these available in the iPad version too. More details about this update are in this post.

[oscarlosan]

On 2/16/2023 at 9:11 AM, Intuos5 said:

To be honest, even though I could also make use of an even more advanced warp tool, I would rather see resources being divested in more pressing features, such as vector patterns, layer appearances or explicit group/ symbol editing. The workarounds for those are more costly to me. If the live filters work as they are supposed to, I would say it's good enough for now.

vector patterns with symbols, that would be great. It would attract more users such as fashion designers. very useful also for any type of design.

[CM0]

4 minutes ago, oscarlosan said:

vector patterns with symbols, that would be great. It would attract more users such as fashion designers. very useful also for any type of design.

I would also have to agree on priority. Although improved vector warp would be great, there are many things more pressing for me personally.

Yes, Improved symbol functionality while being able to distribute symbols along a path would be incredibly powerful.

[Intuos5]

15 hours ago, oscarlosan said:

vector patterns with symbols, that would be great. It would attract more users such as fashion designers. very useful also for any type of design.

Just to be able to import CAD files more cleanly, for one. And symbol replacement, but let's keep the discussions on those in their own dedicated feature requests, instead of this beta thread.

[gw_westdale]

On 2/24/2023 at 5:26 PM, CM0 said:

Yes, Improved symbol functionality while being able to distribute symbols along a path would be incredibly powerful.

Yes, I'd like this ...  I keep an old version of Illustrator to run the Scriptographer plugin ... I wrote a small script in that which takes the selected objects and repeats/scatters them along a path ... an 0n-the-fly vector brush creator.

[WintrySnowman]

I've encountered what seems to be a bug with the two warps behaving differently, using this new feature in Designer (2.1.0.1769) on Windows 10.

I've attached the afdesign file for replication.

Perspective Warp.afdesign

[Old Bruce]

Are you wanting to warp a Symbol so its corners match the corners of the "Target"? Is this warping for one instance of the symbol or all instances? 

Aside: There is something weird going on with your file, I added an Artboard to it and large coloured squares appeared.

[WintrySnowman]

57 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Are you wanting to warp a Symbol so its corners match the corners of the "Target"? Is this warping for one instance of the symbol or all instances?

The only reason I've used symbols in that file is so that the source can be changed for demonstration purposes, instead of having unlinked copypastas - the issue occurs regardless of symbols being present. The target was made as an example, and the warp handles were adjusted to fit it.

It should be set up to warp individually - I had to wrap the raster version in a group so that it didn't affect all symbols.

I've not tried with an embedded SVG, if warp groups even work with those.

58 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Aside: There is something weird going on with your file, I added an Artboard to it and large coloured squares appeared.

Might be canvas clipping taking effect. I had an issue that might be described like that, until I made the canvas larger. The overlaid version is just shifted to the left/right and seems to get clipped. Outside of the scope of this issue, however!

It was a fresh file made specifically for this demonstration, after noticing oddities in the vector warp results.

[Sean P]

On 4/22/2023 at 9:44 PM, WintrySnowman said:

I've encountered what seems to be a bug with the two warps behaving differently, using this new feature in Designer (2.1.0.1769) on Windows 10.

Hi WintrySnowman,
Thanks for letting us know. I've reproduced this and will pass it on to development for further investigation.