3D Effects

[peene.biber]

Having an Illustrator alternative is fine and the initial feature load was impressive. Anytime now its silent and there seems to be a lot of activity but no real big improvements in the near future. 

 

So a rethinking of the efforts of a company seems necessary since having a good start is not enough. 

 

3D effects or working plug ins are examples - from my personal view - hardly needed and still missing.

 

I know, not all things are possible at start but start is a long time away now.

 

So I feel redirecting is necessary

Thanks folks

Michael

[MEB]

Hi peene.biber,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

There's more improvements coming with version 1.5 which is still being worked on. Some changes take a little longer than others but it's true the Beta is a little delayed.

For more info on what's planned please check Designer's roadmap.

We are not necessarily trying to mimicking all Illustrator features. I'm not sure what you mean by 3D effects here. There's a few FX effects that let's you fake depth/give some dimension to a shape. If you are referring to "true" 3d like the Extrude and Revolve effects you find in Illustrator, i don't think this is planned for Designer at this point.

[WildBuka]

Hello guys!

 

MEB, you said that "true" 3d isn't planned for Designer at this point... Will it be implemented at some other point, or is it never going to exist at all?

 

I agree with peene.biber... This is a really relevant feature, and it's still not even planned...

 

I love Affinity Designer, but it still needs some improvements so it can beat Adobe's products, and make your customers even happier!

 

I really hope to see these features in the near future, or at least some other big improvement!

 

Keep up the good work you did at the beginning!

 

Thanks all,

Rafael

[peene.biber]

Hi Mr. Moderator,

no its not necessary to copy Illustrator one by one. But its necessary to offer a competitive product. Designer is not a competitive product now. Your business opportunity is to offer a competitive product or you will be in line with a lot of others only saying its competitive. No at the moment you have lost your focus, sorry folks at serif. Lately its a professional market and you are only knocking the door. entrance hasn`t happen and will not happen if you are not quickly moving. In your case its a lot of money and investment and finally -most important - the enthusiasm of your team you are loosing by bad management decisions. 

[MEB]

Hi peene.biber,

You're right it must be competitive, however we can't do this in two years with the 1.x version. It took Illustrator years to get where it is today and Adobe has a lot more resources than us.

So while we are targeting the professional market as well, it will not happen overnight. We are moving as fast as possible but obviously have to ponder what's get implemented first to ensure a balanced grow of all areas of the app. Each user has different needs and it's difficult to fill them all in the beginning. The next version (1.5) will bring improvements for UI/web design and it's taking a little more than usual because it required quite some work to implement them. While it may seem that things have stagnated a little looking from outside due to the delays and apparent lack of activity, things never look so exciting and promising for Affinity apps. There should be some news soon. Bear with us while all this is being worked out.

[tcarisland]

Having an Illustrator alternative is fine and the initial feature load was impressive. Anytime now its silent and there seems to be a lot of activity but no real big improvements in the near future. 

 

So a rethinking of the efforts of a company seems necessary since having a good start is not enough. 

 

3D effects or working plug ins are examples - from my personal view - hardly needed and still missing.

 

I know, not all things are possible at start but start is a long time away now.

 

So I feel redirecting is necessary

Thanks folks

Michael

What 3D effects are you referring to? Are you talking about gimmicky 3D-text with raster-effects that usually end up being incompatible across platforms?

 

To represent three-dimensional images on a two-dimensional surface there's perspective / projection techniques. Adobe Illustrator offers a (from my experience completely useless and easily replaceable) two point perspective grid. Affinity Designer offers proper orthographic projection tools, i.e. isometric grids, that are way more useful than any other tool.

 

If you want 1,2,3,4 or 5 point perspective, I find that the node tool pretty much covers this since the node/pen tool is capable of drawing both straight and curvilinear lines.

 

Most vector graphics tools will tell you that their software is not a 3D-modelling suite. For that you use Autodesk Maya, Blender or some manner of CAD tool. To try and emulate the functionality of something that originally belongs to a quite different software suite usually ends up in half assed results.

 

The only 3D-tools I'm missing as of yet would be the some added functionality in the transformation tools, but that isn't strictly a 3D effect, and the mesh-warp tool on the roadmap just might be the thing to offer this functionality.

 

It would be nice to see some scripting options available though, so I agree with the plugin idea, preferably in some major language like C or Python.

[evtonic3]

Affinity products don't need to be Adobe copycats to be successful Mr. Peene.biber. They are doing just fine without very few inquiries of 3D effects as you would like to see. Can't imagine any professionals use illustrators 3D features as pro effects, sure they are good to mimic another true 3D engines capabilities but they will never compare to the real apps. Besides throwing in boatloads of resources and time to an "effect" is purely a waste of time and money. They are on their way. And just because Adobe has something doesn't mean it is needed to be considered professional software.