Blend Tool and Mesh Tool

[adam1762]

I really miss a basic tool like Blend Tool, even the free inskacpe has this tool, and also the old Draw Plus, why haven't you added this very useful option for so many years? please add it as soon as possible, because I really miss this option.

[R.I.P. Affinity 26.03.2024]

Probably in v3.0 LOL.😃 Seems like in 1 year.

[Samuelm]

Please Affinity give us Blend Tool 🥺 

[earl_grey]

(28 tyg - 28 weeks) 😉

[blureogroup]

Hello!

The recent launch of Modyfi saw a very interesting way of doing something similar to blend but with a single object, it's called a Repeater and it's basically Affinity's power duplicate but in the form of a live filter which can be altered.

Maybe we should let Serif see this since I for one believe that it might be a good start for implementing a real Blend tool and it might come even sooner since they've already implemented the power duplicate menu.

Cheers!

Have a great day!

Tudor.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

Priorities, yeah, priorities is all what’s matter to have a software company, having several applications on three different platforms/operative system - it ain’t easy to make everyone happy…

In the same time we have Microsoft and Apple change things in their system that makes more jobs for application updates…

Blend Tool for me? No, I have at least 20 other wishes before Blend Tool. So, we all have to wait for our wishes…

[Affinityconfusesme]

Hi @earl_grey when was this posted?

[earl_grey]

5 minutes ago, tzvi20 said:

Hi @earl_grey when was this posted?

14 July 2023

[Affinityconfusesme]

saw it in this thread.

 

[blureogroup]

11 hours ago, AffinityMakesMeSmile said:

Priorities, yeah, priorities is all what’s matter to have a software company, having several applications on three different platforms/operative system - it ain’t easy to make everyone happy…

In the same time we have Microsoft and Apple change things in their system that makes more jobs for application updates…

Blend Tool for me? No, I have at least 20 other wishes before Blend Tool. So, we all have to wait for our wishes…

Look, we are all here to have productive talks about what we wish Serif to implement inside the Affinity suite in order for our workflows to improve. Most of us also use Affinity as our standard design tool.

You mentioned three apps. I for one also believe it is a bit excessive on the part of Serif since publisher is a few features away from having all the other two offer.

I am personally keeping a private list where I add features I am looking for and cannot find every single time I encounter them.

The blend tool, true vector brushes, variable font support are features which I've seen plenty threads open for, so yes, maybe they should prioritise those since these three features alone might grab them tons of users from Adobe.

I've read a lot of threads on this forum and I must say: I think the amount of confusion and adversity could easily be turned around by serif by publishing a simple dynamic roadmap and being a bit more transparent with what they're working on. Some good example in this regard would Wordpress site builders like Bricks https://bricksbuilder.io/roadmap/ or Cwicly https://roadmap.cwicly.com/ which have made feature requesting and tracking incredibly convenient.

Lots of love from Blureo to Serif, who have revolutionised our design workflow with their StudioLink.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

On 1/28/2024 at 11:51 AM, blureogroup said:

Look, we are all here to have productive talks about what we wish Serif to implement inside the Affinity suite in order for our workflows to improve. Most of us also use Affinity as our standard design tool.

You mentioned three apps. I for one also believe it is a bit excessive on the part of Serif since publisher is a few features away from having all the other two offer.

I am personally keeping a private list where I add features I am looking for and cannot find every single time I encounter them.

The blend tool, true vector brushes, variable font support are features which I've seen plenty threads open for, so yes, maybe they should prioritise those since these three features alone might grab them tons of users from Adobe.

I've read a lot of threads on this forum and I must say: I think the amount of confusion and adversity could easily be turned around by serif by publishing a simple dynamic roadmap and being a bit more transparent with what they're working on. Some good example in this regard would Wordpress site builders like Bricks https://bricksbuilder.io/roadmap/ or Cwicly https://roadmap.cwicly.com/ which have made feature requesting and tracking incredibly convenient.

Lots of love from Blureo to Serif, who have revolutionised our design workflow with their StudioLink.

Personally I’m more concerned that Serif Labs is holding up the new features also to iPad, not only Win/Mac…

Two new features not implemented into iPad is ‘Layer/States’ and ‘Move Data Entry’ - that’s sad, and we will never ever know if it comes in the future…

[PaulEC]

3 hours ago, blureogroup said:

You mentioned three apps. I for one also believe it is a bit excessive on the part of Serif since publisher is a few features away from having all the other two offer.

Publisher only has the Designer and Photo Personas available if you also have those apps installed. In any case those Personas only have the basic features of the other two full apps. It has been suggested that Publisher should actually include all the features of Designer and Photo, but not only would this make it a very large and unwieldy app, it would also inevitably mean it would cost much more, which would not be helpful for those people who only use Designer and /or Photo. Personally I much prefer having three specialised, separate apps rather than one "does it all" app. Of course all Affinity files can be opened in any of the apps, and can also easily be "opened in" either of the other two apps from the one the file was opened in originally, which makes for a well integrated and very versatile suite of products.

[blureogroup]

20 hours ago, PaulEC said:

Publisher only has the Designer and Photo Personas available if you also have those apps installed. In any case those Personas only have the basic features of the other two full apps. It has been suggested that Publisher should actually include all the features of Designer and Photo, but not only would this make it a very large and unwieldy app, it would also inevitably mean it would cost much more, which would not be helpful for those people who only use Designer and /or Photo. Personally I much prefer having three specialised, separate apps rather than one "does it all" app. Of course all Affinity files can be opened in any of the apps, and can also easily be "opened in" either of the other two apps from the one the file was opened in originally, which makes for a well integrated and very versatile suite of products.

I know you need to buy the other apps in order to have personas available inside of publisher, but truly the USP of the Affinity Suite is their Studio Link. They have added other features which are interesting or help streamline a design workflow, but in my opinion they intentionally dumb down the capability of their Studio Link because of this fear that you mention of creating an app that is too big.

I think that if you like specialist apps in your workflow rather than one superapp with all of your design tools, you are not in any real sense taking advantage of what Studio Link has to offer and Serif should not dumb down Studio Link to appease these people.

If people only want to use one or two of the apps let it be what it is meant to be: a raster only editing app, a vector only editing app, or a desktop publishing only app just like Adobe does it. But Studio Link is capable of so much more and if it would be a standalone, more expensive app that contains all the features of the other three in the form of personas I would pay without even thinking about it.

[Komatös]

I can only agree with @AffinityMakesMeSmile and @PaulEC.

Has anyone ever asked Adobe to merge InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop into a single application? 
And why not pack the entire Creative Suite into one program? No annoying switching back and forth and 64 GB RAM would then be the standard memory expansion, mind you, only for the Gigaprogram. And where would that leave the space for the data? So another 32 GB RAM for the data. If the old hardware plays along.   

[blureogroup]

6 hours ago, Komatös said:

I can only agree with @AffinityMakesMeSmile and @PaulEC.

Has anyone ever asked Adobe to merge InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop into a single application? 
And why not pack the entire Creative Suite into one program? No annoying switching back and forth and 64 GB RAM would then be the standard memory expansion, mind you, only for the Gigaprogram. And where would that leave the space for the data? So another 32 GB RAM for the data. If the old hardware plays along.   

Affinity Publisher is already not InDesign it is only missing: Liquify, Develop, Export, Smart Object, and Plugin Support (has all other features from the other two apps).

If Serif want a bigger pie of the market their main focus should not be keeping their suite cheap and compatible with old hardware.

For people who do graphic design combining rasters and vectors every single day, it's the other way around. The annoying switching back and forth happens when I need Liquify for 2 mins and have to open Photo just to use it, or when I want to edit a mockup, and have to first open the file inside of Photo just for it to make the Smart Object connection, even though publisher already supports them.

[GripsholmLion]

Um, just out of interest, approximately how much of your day is spent waiting for another Affinity application to open on what I assume is cutting-edge, professional-grade hardware?

[Barry Newman]

On 1/9/2024 at 7:15 PM, adam1762 said:

I really miss a basic tool like Blend Tool, even the free inskacpe has this tool, and also the old Draw Plus, why haven't you added this very useful option for so many years? please add it as soon as possible, because I really miss this option.

It may be a bit of a stretch to label it a basic tool, yet it is an infernally useful instrument, one that might reasonably be expected in drawing programs such as Affinity Designer. Hence, I posit that the program, in its current state and age, is lacking a blend tool. There are numerous scenarios wherein it automates tasks that would have taken a prohibitively long time to execute manually.

[blureogroup]

11 hours ago, GripsholmLion said:

Um, just out of interest, approximately how much of your day is spent waiting for another Affinity application to open on what I assume is cutting-edge, professional-grade hardware?

Look, you are purposefully missing my entire point. It's not about waiting for the apps to open, it's about the fact that I am three tools away from never needing to open them in the first place.

It's about extra steps. Why would I, in order to just apply a bit of liquify, need to open my file inside of a separate application, go into the other persona, apply the changes, save the changes, close this app and go back to my app.

I think Studio Link has the potential to mitigate this sort of useless additional actions inside our workflows by going all in with the concept of Personas.

With the risk of repeating myself, Affinity's USP is not being cheap, working on older hardware, or existing on iPad. StudioLink is the most innovative feature to come to design apps for maybe the past decade.

DaVinci Resolve comes to mind. Instead of taking the Adobe approach and having separate apps for compositing, video editing, encoding, they created one app with something very similar to personas. The consequences? Most professional videographers have long abandoned Premier Pro, After Effects, and Media Encoder, since their workflow is disjointed and archaic.

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, blureogroup said:

need to open my file inside of a separate application

I think using the Edit in... command makes transferring a document to another application quite easy and smooth.

[AffinityMakesMeWonder]

On 1/30/2024 at 12:12 AM, Barry Newman said:

It may be a bit of a stretch to label it a basic tool, yet it is an infernally useful instrument, one that might reasonably be expected in drawing programs such as Affinity Designer. Hence, I posit that the program, in its current state and age, is lacking a blend tool. There are numerous scenarios wherein it automates tasks that would have taken a prohibitively long time to execute manually.

But, why try to do a blend manual I Affinity Designer when you can download another free app that can make the job, export it as appropriate file format - then just import it to you Mac or Winmachine.

You can also Copy/Paste between this applications if you have an Mac... 

[blureogroup]

On 1/30/2024 at 3:03 PM, AffinityMakesMeSmile said:

But, why try to do a blend manual I Affinity Designer when you can download another free app that can make the job, export it as appropriate file format - then just import it to you Mac or Winmachine.

You can also Copy/Paste between this applications if you have an Mac... 

This is an unacceptable workflow for graphic design or really any professional work. I think we can all agree that in order to do any professional work we need our apps to move at the speed of our knowledge, experience, and imagination.

That is why professionals use shortcuts, that is why professionals use non-destructive workflows, that is why they don't eyeball their design decisions everyday. Having to open a whole other app, work there on a blend (mind you I might have to import swatches, styles and other past design decisions I'd already made in order to see the live consequences of the blend on my design), copy my work from one app to another or even export it and reopen it. This is not a professional workflow.

Why on earth are there so many people on these threads going: „Affinity is fine the way it is. Affinity doesn't need to change. As long as it stays cheap and I can use my app forever they can go bankrupt for all I care.”

An agency that would offer Serif quite an investment for licenses for example would never work with this suite so long as it lacks: a blend tool, gradient meshes, true vector brushes.

You are bringing absolutely nothing to the table by replying: Oh just install these three other apps for features you use every day, than work in all your four apps at the same time for a single web asset.

Bring suggestions for improvement, bring ideas, bring helpful information.

[Petar Petrenko]

On 1/28/2024 at 3:16 PM, PaulEC said:

It has been suggested that Publisher should actually include all the features of Designer and Photo, but not only would this make it a very large and unwieldy app, it would also inevitably mean it would cost much more, which would not be helpful for those people who only use Designer and /or Photo.

Actually, it was me who suggested the integration of the Affinity suite.

Now, my opinion is, that starting with the universal licence, Affinity will wait until everybody accept it and then, under the hood, the integration will happen. Then we will have only one file to download to install, update or upgrade for the Affinity Suite Pro. Hopefully, they will remove overlaping features and maintaning the Suite will be easier and faster.

I think (at least, hope) that the price will remain the same.

And don't forget, it is just my opinion.

[PaulEC]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and you’re not the only person to suggest having one piece of software to do everything. But, what about the people who don’t want or need all three apps? If they just want to edit photos, or produce illustrations, why would they want one big app that is full of functions that they might just find confusing and why would they want to pay for it?

I really don’t see much advantage in one app, rather than the three integrated ones that we have now. It obviously depends on how you work, but I tend to do a job in one app at a time, I rarely need to keep changing from one app to another. If I do need to do so StudioLink and “open in” work perfectly well.

[Petar Petrenko]

6 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and you’re not the only person to suggest having one piece of software to do everything. But, what about the people who don’t want or need all three apps? If they just want to edit photos, or produce illustrations, why would they want one big app that is full of functions that they might just find confusing and why would they want to pay for it?

I really don’t see much advantage in one app, rather than the three integrated ones that we have now. It obviously depends on how you work, but I tend to do a job in one app at a time, I rarely need to keep changing from one app to another. If I do need to do so StudioLink and “open in” work perfectly well.

I layout books, magazines and such, so I need all three apps. But, whether you work with photos or producing vector art, you will find the other 2 apps as valuable tools for polishing your design, photos, artwork...

[GripsholmLion]

That is quite a bold statement. To state that "some people may find..." would be fairly representative.

I switched to Designer around 2015 and used only that application for work for about five years until I added Photo. Designer remains my primary work tool; the change of photo editor was driven as much by a hobby as by work. Publisher is irrelevant to me and will remain so; every such purchase must be justifiable and pay for itself when running a small business alone.

The universal licence is good value, but only if there is a need for all three applications on at least one desktop OS: £160 versus £204 before discount offers. This is, of course, just one permutation as an example – the value proposition can change if, for instance, iPad versions are wanted. So if I had purchased since the universal licence was introduced, my decision would have been exactly the same.

Just in case my usage makes it look like I may have been a customer for a single Swiss Army knife application, let me be clear that if Serif had chosen to commit to going down that road, I would very probably not have become a Serif user. The cost would almost certainly have been too high because – let's be realistic – it would cost far more than the one application which was my entry point. I would have needed to consider performance, too.