Tupaia Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 Hello! 1) Could you please add a movable 'center' icon for the Move tool, so it is possible to rotate/scale/shear about an arbitrary location? I assume you know what I mean - just like it is in e.g. Photoshop or Illustrator. In Photoshop, the "Free Transform" tool has a center that can be dragged freely. In Illustrator, you can place the center for the rotation or scale tool with a double click. CorelDraw has it too (but only for rotation, however). The Center icon should support snapping, too, of course. 2) In the Transform panel, Rotation, Size and Shear values are displayed - could you please add the 'Scale' values, too? (in percent, or as scalar values) Obviously you store a transformation matrix per object, so this should be no problem. 3) The Center icon should be stored, too, then. If you tweak the rotation/scale values in the Transform panel (or via Move tool), one would expect the Centre stay where it was, not to reset to the objects' bounding box center after deselecting / selecting. Thanks! Best regards Eugen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 1) It's already there, but it isn't shown by default. Please see the attached screenshot. 2) What would the 'Scale' value be relative to? 3) As far as I can see, it reappears in the same position when you reselect the object after deselecting it. You can double-click it to return it to the centre of the bounding box. Bri-Toon 1 Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tupaia Posted July 7, 2016 Author Share Posted July 7, 2016 Thanks, Alfred! Very good news! There's one thing, though: ad 1) The icon you refer to is called "Show Rotation Centre"... what about scaling? It makes total sense, too, to be able to scale about the centre! Now, you can only scale about the object's bounding box corner, bbox edge, or bbox centre (holding CTRL during scaling). In other words, the "Rotation Centre" should be the "Centre". Works that way in Illustrator... (although, unfortunately, AI forgets the rotation/scale center after re-selecting - AD remembers it, yay!!). ad 2) About the Scale X, Scale Y parameters (in addition to Width and Height): Those would be 1.0, 1.0 in the beginning (or 100%, 100%), relative to how the object was created initially. If you watch the Transform panel when creating an object, you will notice that it is grayed out until you release the mouse and define the initial size - that's 100% then. Allow me to go get a bit technical, since I also work with 3D software (3ds Max, Cinema4D, Rhino, Softimage, ...): although these are 3D programs and Affinity Designer is 2D, they share one common fundamental concept of computer graphics - the Transformation Matrix, or Axis of an object, or Centre. It's a 3x3 or 4x4 grid of real numbers that stores position, rotation, scale, shear. (I don't know your background, so apologies if I'm telling nothing new...) Data-wise, an object (2D or 3D) is basically a geometry description that stores the object's points etc. - in 3D, that's often a polygon mesh - points in 3D space plus the information how they are connected by edges, to form polygons. - in AD, objects are lists of 2D points (Bezier, could also be the mathematically higher ranking B-Splines or NURBS) plus attributes. The point's coordinates are stored relative to the object's centre then - coordinate 0,0 means, the point is at the axis/centre. Now here's the point, so please bear with me: Basically, there are 2 ways of interactively moving/rotating/scaling an object: a ) the interactive transformation only changes the matrix, keeping it 'live', and everytime the object needs to be drawn to the canvas, all of it's points are multiplied with the matrix, hence it 'jumps' into place. Has the advantage that you can easily go back to the object's initial state, and that it is unproblematic to make 'parent/child' relationships (in AD: 'Paste Inside' - look at the Layers). Small disadvantage: calculations need to be done with every redraw, but with our fast computers, that doesn't matter much. b ) change all the object's points by immediately 'baking' the transformation into them. The matrix will be reset to some inital state - or even no matrix at all is stored with the object (obviously, fortunately, not the case in AD). Advantage: no calculations need to be done anymore to have the object at the desired place. Now, I suspect that AD keeps the rotation part of the matrix live, but bakes the scaling. (Cinema4D does it this way, too, in 'Modeling Mode'. In 'Animation Mode', the scaling is stored in the matrix). My suggestion: this should be optional - the scaling part should be kept live, too, if the user chooses to! Hope it's clear what I mean =} Thanks for reading! Best regards Eugen Alfred 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirk23 Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 An ability to scale of a specified center is one of most missing features imo. In fact I have never felt any necessity to rotate around specified center , only scale. You can do so it in Photoshop, Xara, Fusion, Photoline and in every 3d soft ever existed. So I guess it's not something patent restricted or secret know how . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staff Ben Posted July 8, 2016 Staff Share Posted July 8, 2016 We will add the scale about point soon. anon1 and p10n 2 Quote SerifLabs team - Affinity Developer Software engineer - Photographer - Guitarist - Philosopher iMac 27" Retina 5K (Late 2015), 4.0GHz i7, AMD Radeon R9 M395 MacBook (Early 2015), 1.3GHz Core M, Intel HD 5300 iPad Pro 10.5", 256GB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tupaia Posted July 8, 2016 Author Share Posted July 8, 2016 Very nice, thanks!! Been a while since I was that excited by a new application... At last a software company who wants to do it right, listens to the users, has a transparent roadmap, and is quick in bringing the good stuff... you guys rock!!! Keep it up, and much success!! Best regards Eugen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted July 8, 2016 Share Posted July 8, 2016 Hope it's clear what I mean =} Yes, very clear. Thanks, Eugen! I'm sure your explanation will be useful for others like me who have little or no experience of 3D software. :) Quote Alfred Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tupaia Posted November 19, 2016 Author Share Posted November 19, 2016 Hi guys! Congratulations to the 1.5 release!! Already purchased... I really like the way you handle transforms, also when multiple objects are selected... however, please don't forget to add the scale center! And if you are at it, please think about a clever way how to use the modifier keys (CTRL, SHIFT, ALT) during scaling: SHIFT contrains proportions. CTRL scales from the middle of the object. Then maybe ALT scales from the (to be added) scale center? It might be a good thing to be able to CTRL-scale from the middle anytime, no matter what the scale center is, but then another key would be needed for the scale center. Anyway, I'm sure you will find a good solution. Best regards Eugen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirk23 Posted November 21, 2016 Share Posted November 21, 2016 Please add this scale feature. It's a very basic necessity for precise composing. Absence of it makes Affinity Photo an interesting new toy still behind Photoshop. Can't believe it's a hard to do thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricoholmes Posted February 2, 2017 Share Posted February 2, 2017 Did this one slip through the cracks ? Rotation center is superb, though nothing I've needed. Scale around point is something I reach for constantly though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari82 Posted April 16, 2017 Share Posted April 16, 2017 +1 for Scale around point!! :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejnaren Posted October 10, 2018 Share Posted October 10, 2018 +10 for scale around point. Affinity programs have so many nice workflows which are better than the competition. Its annoying that when you present the programs to people using other programs these papercuts often cut deeper than the other features impress... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lepr Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lepr Posted October 18, 2018 Share Posted October 18, 2018 . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarahsaharah Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 (edited) Hi there, I am curious if threre is an update for this feature? (movabel scale center) This would improve the workflow so so so much! :-) (windows, designer) Edited April 17, 2019 by sarahsaharah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aammppaa Posted April 17, 2019 Share Posted April 17, 2019 The 1.7 beta introduces a new tool - "Point Transform Tool". It can rotate / scale / translate around any point, and can use all of Affinity's numerous snapping options. As yet I don't think we can shear about a user defined point - but I'm not sure I can even visualize what that would mean, so I for one probably don't need that function! Quote Win10 Home x64 | AMD Ryzen 7 2700X @ 3.7GHz | 48 GB RAM | 1TB SSD | nVidia GTX 1660 | Wacom Intuos Pro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sarahsaharah Posted August 28, 2019 Share Posted August 28, 2019 Thank you! :-) Aammppaa 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p10n Posted November 15, 2020 Share Posted November 15, 2020 On 4/17/2019 at 12:14 PM, Aammppaa said: The 1.7 beta introduces a new tool - "Point Transform Tool". It can rotate / scale / translate around any point, and can use all of Affinity's numerous snapping options. As yet I don't think we can shear about a user defined point - but I'm not sure I can even visualize what that would mean, so I for one probably don't need that function! Should this be in the OS X version of AD? I can't find the icon the help is suggesting. BTW. Why doesn't Scale just obey the center that I dragged somewhere for rotating? (Feels like the center was forgotten when implementing the Scale function...) Edit: Ahhhhh I have to press cmd while scaling!!! Thats weird. Would expect the same behavior for Mode and Scale. Anyway, it works. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lepr Posted November 15, 2020 Share Posted November 15, 2020 2 minutes ago, p10n said: Should this [Point Transform Tool] be in the OS X version of AD? I can't find it. Help seems to know about it, but I am too stupid to find that icon. I think that tool's icon fails to appear for many people until they add it to the vertical Tools bar via View > Customise Tools. 2 minutes ago, p10n said: BTW. Why doesn't Scale just obey the center that I dragged somewhere for rotating? (Feels like the center was forgotten when implementing the Scale function...) It does if you hold down cmd key - see the hints in the status bar at bottom of the app window. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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