Bitmap fill, swatches, style UI issues

[NotMyFault]

Hi,

 

on a M1 Mac mini (2020), latest MacOs, Photo 2.0.4. and Beta 2.1

I have a 200x100 checkered pattern, to be

1. used as fill in a 400x200 document,
2. saved as style
3. saved as swatch
4. used (applied to) on group, pixel and vector layers

There are so many issues V2, including beta 2.1. Some may have been reported before.

Important: the fill should use "repeat", and size must be exact as source file 200x100.

steps to reproduce

1. create new document, 400x200px
2. add pixel layer
3. add a ellipse of 200x200px
4. add a group layer
5. move ellipse and pixel layer into group
6. have group selected in layer stack, use fill tool, set to bitmap, use checkered png file of 200x100px (and try on all 3 layer types, group, vector, pixel)
7. save as swatch in a document palette
8. save as style (e.g. from pixel layer as bases)
9. use the saved swatch and apply it on the group
10. use the saved swatch and apply it on the pixel layer

Issues:

1. it is totally random which initial site the file tool shows. Expected: use 100% of selected bitmap file. Observed: totally random size, probably dependent on former usage. Often 1x1 px
2. whenever you change "extend" mode, the rendering becomes totally blurry. You need to touch and move one of the nodes to get a sane rendering again.
3. The color panels shows the fill as color. You can add the fill as swatch. If you try to apply the fill on a pixel layer, a totally wrong size of 1x1 px is chosen and all is rendered black. a totally wrong aspect ratio of 1x1 is chosen instead of the correct 2x1.
4. After manually correcting size and aspect ratio, and moving the center point to the center of the pixel layer, the rendering is blurry.
5. when applying the swatch to group or pixel layer, different sizes are chosen. Position is always upper left instead of center (center is always used when creating bitmap fills)
6. You can create a style from the bitmap fill. But you can't apply the style to the group or the pixel layer (gets ignored). Use the grey solid swatch before applying the checkered style. The style only gets applied to vector objects.
   But the selected swatch gets copied to the color panel. if you switch primary/secondary 2 times, the style gets finally applied to all layer types. This makes no sense at all.

 

It is totally random and inconsistent how a bitmap fill will look, either applied from a swatch, or from a style.

The results differ for vector, pixel, and group of mixed layer types. Getting a 100% 1:1 bitmap fill is almost impossible, without knowing the exact pixel size of the used file, and helper layers.

[NotMyFault]

PS1: and to add another issue: occasionally (on Mac and iPad), the saved swatches (with a bitmap fill) get destroyed / replaced by a solid color or a linear gradient, when switching between selected layers in stack, and between hand tool / fill tool, and choosing a solid color. This should not happened as I never selected "edit gradient" or similar. V2.0.4 and Beta 2.1.0.1732 

[NotMyFault]

PS2: If you try to use "edit fill" on a bitmap swatch, you only get single color chooser. You cannot leave the Chooser without destroying the fill by selecting a single color, even by pressing "esc" key. This makes no sense for bitmap fills.

[NotMyFault]

PS3: If you save a bitmap fill of 200x100ps as swatch, and apply this swatch to a vector layer, it will always get distorted to 200x200px (wrong aspect ration when the swatch is selected to be applied.

[Dan C]

Hi @NotMyFault,

Thanks for your report

Just to confirm:

On 3/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, NotMyFault said:

The color panels shows the fill as color. You can add the fill as swatch. If you try to apply the fill on a pixel layer, a totally wrong size of 1x1 px is chosen and all is rendered black. a totally wrong aspect ratio of 1x1 is chosen instead of the correct 2x1.

On 3/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, NotMyFault said:

when applying the swatch to group or pixel layer, different sizes are chosen. Position is always upper left instead of center (center is always used when creating bitmap fills)

On 3/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, NotMyFault said:

You can create a style from the bitmap fill. But you can't apply the style to the group or the pixel layer (gets ignored). Use the grey solid swatch before applying the checkered style. The style only gets applied to vector objects.
But the selected swatch gets copied to the color panel. if you switch primary/secondary 2 times, the style gets finally applied to all layer types. This makes no sense at all.

On 3/27/2023 at 6:45 PM, NotMyFault said:

PS2: If you try to use "edit fill" on a bitmap swatch, you only get single color chooser. You cannot leave the Chooser without destroying the fill by selecting a single color, even by pressing "esc" key. This makes no sense for bitmap fills.

On 3/27/2023 at 6:49 PM, NotMyFault said:

PS3: If you save a bitmap fill of 200x100ps as swatch, and apply this swatch to a vector layer, it will always get distorted to 200x200px (wrong aspect ration when the swatch is selected to be applied.

I have been able to replicate the above and will be logging this with our development team.

On 3/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, NotMyFault said:

it is totally random which initial site the file tool shows. Expected: use 100% of selected bitmap file. Observed: totally random size, probably dependent on former usage. Often 1x1 px

Unfortunately I'm not sure what you mean by this, could you please expand for me?

On 3/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, NotMyFault said:

whenever you change "extend" mode, the rendering becomes totally blurry. You need to touch and move one of the nodes to get a sane rendering again.

I'm not seeing this behaviour here, both on Windows or MacOS, with H.A. enabled, the bitmap fill renders the same when changing the Extend options without the need to adjust the fill nodes

On 3/27/2023 at 6:28 PM, NotMyFault said:

After manually correcting size and aspect ratio, and moving the center point to the center of the pixel layer, the rendering is blurry.

In multiple cases, I've been able to manually correct the aspect ratio and re-centre the bitmap fill, at which point the fill renders 'crisp' as expected. I can't replicate this unless the fill is not sized as original, which is as expected as the fill is scaled.

On 3/27/2023 at 6:44 PM, NotMyFault said:

PS1: and to add another issue: occasionally (on Mac and iPad), the saved swatches (with a bitmap fill) get destroyed / replaced by a solid color or a linear gradient, when switching between selected layers in stack, and between hand tool / fill tool, and choosing a solid color. This should not happened as I never selected "edit gradient" or similar. V2.0.4 and Beta 2.1.0.1732 

At no point during my testing on Windows or macOS did this occur, so we'll need more info or a screen recording showing your steps to investigate this further.

I hope this helps!

[NotMyFault]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

 

On 3/27/2023 at 7:28 PM, NotMyFault said:

After manually correcting size and aspect ratio, and moving the center point to the center of the pixel layer, the rendering is blurry.

In multiple cases, I've been able to manually correct the aspect ratio and re-centre the bitmap fill, at which point the fill renders 'crisp' as expected. I can't replicate this unless the fill is not sized as original, which is as expected as the fill is scaled.

Thank you so much, @Dan C.

The video below shows the issue.

[NotMyFault]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

 

On 3/27/2023 at 7:44 PM, NotMyFault said:

PS1: and to add another issue: occasionally (on Mac and iPad), the saved swatches (with a bitmap fill) get destroyed / replaced by a solid color or a linear gradient, when switching between selected layers in stack, and between hand tool / fill tool, and choosing a solid color. This should not happened as I never selected "edit gradient" or similar. V2.0.4 and Beta 2.1.0.1732 

At no point during my testing on Windows or macOS did this occur, so we'll need more info or a screen recording showing your steps to investigate this further.

By change I got this recording, which I made directly after the former recording uploaded before. Saved the file immediately after the occurrence with history.

Steps to reproduce:

1. fill tools was active
2. changed to move tool->swatch gets destroyed 

The same issue happened multiple times on iPad.

The trigger seems to be a certain sequence of cycling between fill tool / move tool and selection of color swatches.

 

gradient fill gets destroyed.afphoto

[NotMyFault]

Another strange sequence if I cycle through "quality" while the fill tool is active.

The fill gets always resized, out of sync with the fill nodes.

[Dan C]

On 3/28/2023 at 7:34 PM, NotMyFault said:

The video below shows the issue.

Screen Recording 2023-03-28 at 20.29.54.mov

Thank you for the recording, I can replicate this on my Intel mac in the office so I will update the dev log with this now

On 3/28/2023 at 7:40 PM, NotMyFault said:

By change I got this recording, which I made directly after the former recording uploaded before. Saved the file immediately after the occurrence with history.

Steps to reproduce:

1. fill tools was active
2. changed to move tool->swatch gets destroyed 

In this recording, I can see the HSL wheel pops-up for a moment when you select the Swatch - when double-clicking on the swatch you begin editing the swatch, at which point the previously logged issue occurs: 

On 3/28/2023 at 3:13 PM, Dan C said:

On 3/27/2023 at 6:45 PM, NotMyFault said:

PS2: If you try to use "edit fill" on a bitmap swatch, you only get single color chooser. You cannot leave the Chooser without destroying the fill by selecting a single color, even by pressing "esc" key. This makes no sense for bitmap fills.

I'll be sure to include that double clicking the swatch can also break the fill.

On 3/28/2023 at 7:55 PM, NotMyFault said:

Another strange sequence if I cycle through "quality" while the fill tool is active.

The fill gets always resized, out of sync with the fill nodes.

Screen Recording 2023-03-28 at 20.54.38.mov

Thanks for this recording also, it appears very similar to the above issue when changing the Extend option and I suspect this is caused by the same code, so I'll include this with the above.

 

As a slight aside, the latest beta release has changes for the new Vector Fill Tool in regards to Bitmap fills, so you may want to test any similar future workflows using this and let our beta team know in the relevant section of the forums if you find any issues with this new tool 

[NotMyFault]

5 hours ago, Dan C said:

In this recording, I can see the HSL wheel pops-up for a moment when you select the Swatch - when double-clicking on the swatch you begin editing the swatch, at which point the previously logged issue occurs: 

I didn’t spot this detail, thank you for pointing this out.

Occasionally a UI action like mouse click seems to not work, and you tend to repeat the action. This could trigger an unintended double-click. It would be really great of Affinity  would give an unambiguous feedback after every keystroke / mouse action that it has been recognized, and show if the execution needs more time before a result can be shown, or the command is invalid / not available.