USDZ file support

[Bryan Rieger]

Apple just released an update to their Pages app which now supports place USDZ files within a Pages document. At first, I though “yeah, that's something absolutely nobody needs” but after downloading a couple of samples from Apple's Developer site and embedding them within a Pages document my mind started spinning.

First you could resize these assets to whatever size you required, but you can also rotate them to whatever perspective you require. Furthermore, you can also wrap text around the object (see screenshot below) and have it update when you change the position or rotation if the object.

As more and more products and brands are using 3D assets today, it would amazing to be able to work with these files directly within the Affinity apps and have them rendered to bitmap at the appropriate resolution (and colour space) on export. I could also see it opening up some wonderful illustration possibilities.

Anyway, it's not a small undertaking, but it's something that could prove very interesting (and useful) for brands in the coming years.

Addendum
Yes, I'm aware you can essentially do the same thing with a 3D model in Photoshop and then take it into InDesign, but having native support for these modern file format(s) (glTF would be another) within Affinity could really open up the Affinity suite to new possibilities (and markets).

[walt.farrell]

Before considering support of USDZ files, wouldn't basic 3D support be needed in Affinity?

[Bryan Rieger]

Possibly, but not necessarily. Pages doesn't have "3D support" per se, but rather the ability to embed, render and manipulate (in a very basic manner) these assets. It can't actually manipulate the objects themselves, alter geometry, change materials, lighting, etc (that would need to be done in Blender, Maya, Cinema4D, etc), but it can set basic parameters of the 'scene'; position, rotation, and scale—most of which (with the exception of 3D rotation) are common to any Pages display element.