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Designer: Feature Request - Gradient Mesh Tool


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The Gradient Mesh fill tool is one of the "big" things missing from Affinity Designer and present in almost all alternatives.

I'm pretty sure Affinity is working on this.

As a thought experiment I considered how I'd like to be able to work with such a tool and what features I'd like to see to make my art production easier.
I've worked with Inkscape's mesh tool and had a short entanglement with Adobe Illustrators mesh tool. I'm a hobbyist user.

Attached is a PDF outlining the way I think such a mesh tool could be implemented into the UI and some of the features I think could be useful.

Comments please.

If we provide high quality ideas, then hopefully Affinity can listen to them and turn out a whopper of a tool making our lives easier.

Affinity Designer Gradient Tool Mesh Option.pdf

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I am someone who has used and come to really like the Gradient Mesh tool in Illustrator. It is a fun challenge to use it for semi photo-realistic illustrations like this one:

image.png.c9262d45041b8f61f6b116aa6f3ce4c5.png

However, I'm not so certain that it is a real necessity in Designer. The reason for this is because of AD's pixel persona capabilities. The main reason for a tool like the Gradient Mesh is to have subtle and complex coloration of shapes in a vector environment. Pixel persona gives us the ability to have paint tools and the resulting powerful detailing capabilities within AD without having to find a complex vector imitation of it that is still pretty limited. I know that you might say that painting pixels into a vector shape removes some of the advantages using infinitely scalable vectors but here's the thing: the Gradient Mesh tool (as well as the newer freeform gradient) is only vector in nature within the Illustrator environment. When you take it out of that for inclusion in any other tool or project - even Adobe's own tools like Photoshop - the artwork gets rasterized. Export a PDF? Your Gradient Mesh object becomes a raster image. Creating an asset for After Effects? It will be a raster layer, not a vector object. 

So, if you step back from it and consider when you will want a Gradient Mesh as opposed to the ability to paint color, shading, highlights, etc., it is hard to find a use case that really requires a vector-based advanced coloration approach. Maybe you can envision one that I don't see.  

A blend tool, in my opinion, is a much different story. 

Having said that, I do think that something like what you are proposing could be interesting and I will not turn my nose up at it if it arrives. What you show could possibly be added to the existing Warp Group feature. The mesh nodes for that could take on additional color overlay properties. This could be interesting and build upon what they have already. 

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The main reason I prefer vector mesh over a Pixel persona painted gradient is the scaleability & editability. From what I can see of the Pixel persona is that it's a one and done tool, no editing possible later.

In Inkscape I can create a mesh and change colours, easily changing the colours is a different matter. A lot of clicking around is required.

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