Deperditus Cliens Posted May 22 Share Posted May 22 2 hours ago, Frozen Death Knight said: To simplify it; Illustrator doesn't need ctrl or shift to make adjustments to line width or point placement sliding without affecting each other. It can all be done through mouse clicks and dragging in specific directions. Affinity changes both values at once until you either press ctrl or shift. I would say Illustrator behaves closer to what you want compared to how Affinity does it. Here I believe there should be a preference (and preferences should be much more workflow- and tool-oriented in the future) between Illustrator and Affinity behavior. I see advantages and disadvantages, and very clear preferences for different types of graphic work: 1. When drawing logos and fonts and similar tightly controlled designs, fixed adjustment points should clearly be preferred by default, and it would be exhausting and annoying to have to use a modifier every time you use the width tool on a point. 2. When using the width tool for drawings and art, you will likely have the opposite scenario and need. I recommend Serif to have a preference for the width tool that concerns fixed or dynamic width points, where the modifier is the same but with the opposite effect depending on the preference. Hold or release. BBG3, Frozen Death Knight and Intuos5 3 Quote Festina lente Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CM0 Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Curves are not curves, they are segments. Deperditus Cliens 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CM0 Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Many glitches when using this with brushes. 2024-05-22 21-28-23.mp4 Deperditus Cliens 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anto Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Returning to the Shift modifier key. Logically, if I put a node, I want to change the width of the line at this point. Therefore, the behavior that we have now with the Shift modifier key should be the default. The opposite should be the case with the Shift button. I have a question. Why does Serif do everything the other way around and complicate the usual algorithms. Is it because simple logical algorithms are patented, and Serif has to reinvent the wheel, or is it just to be different, and logic and usability are not taken into account? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deperditus Cliens Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 5 hours ago, anto said: Returning to the Shift modifier key. Logically, if I put a node, I want to change the width of the line at this point. Therefore, the behavior that we have now with the Shift modifier key should be the default. The opposite should be the case with the Shift button. I have a question. Why does Serif do everything the other way around and complicate the usual algorithms. Is it because simple logical algorithms are patented, and Serif has to reinvent the wheel, or is it just to be different, and logic and usability are not taken into account? It's hard to say, but it seems to me like decisions are being made based on assumptions, with too little knowledge, too few inputs, and too small a network of professionals and industries worldwide. I recall Ash at one point saying, "we are struggling" (internally) to understand why a tool should be able to do something, what the use case is, and many people could quickly explain it to him in the forum. I wonder how many of the allegedly 3 million users could have confirmed that there was a use case. So, who "we" are in "we are struggling," I don't know, but I guess it's a few Serif employees in a building in Nottingham. That's not how you create software for millions of users in different industries and product contexts. I hope Canva can elevate the development process to use large networks and more professionals. It is absolutely crucial for Serif to be lifted from the hobbyist level it occupies in too many places in the suite. bures, Patrick Connor, IthinkthereforeIam and 1 other 4 Quote Festina lente Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deperditus Cliens Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 8 hours ago, CM0 said: Curves are not curves, they are segments. I am still not sure I will ever use this tool (I have flawless implementations in several other programs) but I see these segments often, and the results I get are ... hm: Example path thickened with the width tool. Zooming in and out I see what looks like segments. Expand stroke: Smooth curve: Using smooth curve a second time even reduced the number of nodes more but now I get an instant crash after second attempt at using smooth curve. But fundamentally, I think I'm observing some hocus-pocus code trying to create line width Bezier curves from segments, and the suspicion is strongly reinforced after expanding the stroke, where I actually see the segment nodes. A smooth algorithm repairs the result to appear reasonable as Bezier curves in this simple example. I'm not sure it will always succeed. Now, I personally choose to use the width tool in programs that do it right from the start with good algorithms. Not something contrived and half-finished. I need the precision and aesthetics in my curves. I can do the opposite by hand. It will take a lot to convince me that Serif hasn't thrown good money after bad and has implemented the line width tool on top of an outdated and inappropriate foundation, which sounds like an exceptionally bad idea in general, and especially when it happens 10 years into the program's life, where refactoring matters for longevity and thus simply the company's survival. Therefore, my point about Serif focusing less on ARM support for Windows and putting its efforts where the results happen, where the customers actually are, and where the company's livelihood is. In this case, for example, I get immediately beautiful, simple Bezier curves out of my work in other programs' line width tool, both on desktop and iPad, and have for a long time, so v2.5 has nothing to sell to me. On the other hand, I become skeptical about whether the blend tool and other new features that might come will be equally algorithm-weak. Then Canva and Serif make the decision for me and I am FORCED to use other software in the future. Then the investment has finally failed. What Serif/Canva is doing by releasing such an algorithm weakness is akin to showing up at the World Cup in poor form, without glasses. There is one thing that characterizes winners, it is the attitude and thoroughness. Quote Festina lente Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hangman Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 21 minutes ago, Aldus said: Using smooth curve a second time even reduced the number of nodes more but now I get an instant crash after second attempt at using smooth curve. This has been reported here as well... Frozen Death Knight 1 Quote Affinity Designer 2.5.5 | Affinity Photo 2.5.5 | Affinity Publisher 2.5.5 MacBook Pro M3 Max, 36 GB Unified Memory, macOS Sonoma 14.6.1, Magic Mouse HP ENVY x360, 8 GB RAM, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, Windows 10 Home, Logitech Mouse Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deperditus Cliens Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Sure, but whether it gets fixed is irrelevant. With that bug fixed, the entire feature is still way behind the competitors, so I'll never encounter the bug even if it doesn't get fixed. I work with line width in other programs yesterday, today, and in the future. I don't really have a choice, given how Serif has implemented it. A sphere according to Serif Labs: The reaction from Pierre Bézier: Quote Festina lente Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anto Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 1 minute ago, Aldus said: it gets fixed It won't, because the release is already out. CM0 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deperditus Cliens Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Whatever. I will only be affected by regressions in this release. Quote Festina lente Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anto Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 4 minutes ago, Aldus said: Whatever. I will only be affected by regressions in this release. If you don't solve problems as they come up, they will crush you later. And Serif does not solve them, but accumulates them. But this is all up to a point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deperditus Cliens Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 1 hour ago, anto said: If you don't solve problems as they come up, they will crush you later. And Serif does not solve them, but accumulates them. But this is all up to a point. I completely agree that the accumulated bugs and issues drive affected customers to the brink of despair sooner or later. Especially since there is no prospect of fixes or refactoring. Instead, Serif is diving into ARM support, so more hardware can support their bugs. Quote Festina lente Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CM0 Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 2 hours ago, anto said: It won't, because the release is already out. Affinity seems to have closed their eyes to all the feedback on this feature as if that makes it all go away. I've never understood their policy of "we don't talk about or acknowledge difficult issues". Significant demotivator for continuing to participate in these betas. Intuos5, iuli, Aammppaa and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozen Death Knight Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 On 5/23/2024 at 2:53 PM, CM0 said: Affinity seems to have closed their eyes to all the feedback on this feature as if that makes it all go away. I've never understood their policy of "we don't talk about or acknowledge difficult issues". Significant demotivator for continuing to participate in these betas. For the last few versions they have divided up the workload of new features by having the first version implemented and then push incremental changes over coming Betas. This is the natural outcome of having 1-2 months long Betas and releases. Unless Serif/Canva change the scheduling for Betas by making them longer and/or hire substantially more coders to work on changes it will be next to impossible to iron out most major issues of a feature in a single Beta period. Just for comparison, Blender gets 3-4 releases each year which is practical 2-3 times the amount of time for users to publicly test every Alpha+Beta. There was a period where it was even faster than that, but the devs changed it because regardless of how much resources and manpower you have, it takes time to test, gather feedback, and make the necessary changes for any improvement. There are also cutoff dates for when you can push out a change, since a lot can go wrong when you start hard pushing patches that can cause heavy instability and make it harder to fix issues later without proper code review and documentation. Mind you, this isn't a defense of certain issues being left unaddressed. I don't consider the Line Width Tool or the Pencil Tool changes feature complete. It is simply a downside of having very short testing periods per retail release. You get the features out faster, but there will be bugs and missing functionality until it's added in a new release build. Personally I think 2-4 months are a decent middle ground where features have time to cook, but you don't have to wait several months or up to a year to get them. Beta testers get to play around with the features early while retail users get to deal with less bugs and frustrations when something new comes out. Though, it is up to the devs if they think 1-2 months long Betas are the way to go. I've said my piece. Intuos5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CM0 Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 35 minutes ago, Frozen Death Knight said: For the last few versions they have divided up the workload of new features by having the first version implemented and then push incremental changes over coming Betas. Yes, this is a positive change in concept as it allows you to gather feedback quicker and iterate on those changes before development progress too far. I was pushing for more iterative development long time ago, so I see it as much positive potential. However, if you don't iterate on those changes it is mostly moot. Lots of feedback from the other betas has been ignored. This all could easily be addressed with simple acknowledgements of intent. Furthermore, sometimes a feature simply isn't ready. You are not required to release it. We did this often for companies I worked at. Just because a feature was in beta wasn't a guarantee we would make it available in that release. We shipped features that were ready and held others for next release to keep iterating if lots of feedback indicated more work is required. Intuos5, Deperditus Cliens and Frozen Death Knight 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
debraspicher Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 Someone kindly reminded me that today is the Canva Create event... so makes sense that it was pushed out at the same time. Maybe we will hear something regarding further development, then. (I'm not as optimistic as others, tbh) CM0 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fde101 Posted May 23 Share Posted May 23 10 hours ago, Aldus said: Serif is diving into ARM support They have had full native ARM support for several years now, on all supported platforms except for Windows. Patrick Connor and garrettm30 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwz Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 That is massive update, muchas gracias! Does Line Stroke Width can be obtained just by drawing with pressure sensitive pencil? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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