Jump to content
You must now use your email address to sign in [click for more info] ×

The Pumpkin Tutorial


Recommended Posts

Okay all, here's what I've been up to: it's 35 pages, almost 100 images, tutorial on beginning to use Affinity Designer. It one of my "In Action" tutorials, where we start right off creating new documents and learn all kinds of stuff along the way. It's not just a "How to do this" tutorial, it's a "How to do this because..." tutorial. Sometimes it's good to get the whys of things as much as the how. Hopefully, this tutorial begins to do it.

 

Here's the link to the box folder where all the files live:

 

https://app.box.com/s/gltgu7u2wscuxxra1e1y

 

It contains the PDF and PNG file and the ZIP file, which contains the pdf and png, incase somebody doesn't like to download ZIP files from an unknown source.

 

this tutorial was written for newbies, but old-hands at Vector apps may find it good.

 

I"ll be working on finishing it as the week progresses, but I gotta get working on my comics. Daddy's gotta make money.

 

 

Any comments or such, post 'em here or send me an message via this board. 

 

thanks!

 

 

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

post-705-0-80944200-1415312052_thumb.pngWow! It's like having Stan Lee on board. 

 

Well, this is what I asked for...so I'm gonna download it. NOW. 

 

peter

 

Ps I've thrown my hat cat into the ring, I want that tablet! It has got to be better than using the mouse.

MacBook pro, 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB, OS X 10.11.6

 

http://www.pinterest.com/peter2111

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FANTASTIC !!!  

 

Looks like you've put a lot of work (and thought) into this… and all that for newbies (like me at the tender age of 61) and for old-hands vector vets...

 

mighty nice and generous of you Mike, it is very much appreciated  (I need all the help I can get)  Lots and lots of thanks!!

 

Dutch

iMac : 2.3 Ghz Dual-Core  intel Core i5
Affinity Designer 2.0.3 : Affinity Publisher  2.0.0 : Affinity Photo 2.0.0

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a long time amateur Page Plus user and was waiting for Affinity Publisher to arrive but after seeing this I'm inspired and I think I will have to ask Father Christmas to buy me a Mac.

 

The presentation and style of the tutorial showing a worked example is just what I need to get to grips with AFFINITY.

 

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

Wow, that took me some time to digest, Mike! :) Great tutorial - and some truly, truly terrible puns thrown in for good measure! ;)  (I particularly refer to "Boolean isn't a diet food for ghosts" - lol!)

 

Thanks for the massive amounts of work that have gone into this - I'm sure I'm not alone in looking forward to part 2! :)

Matt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

I just got as far as page three, and read this bit:

 

Get in the habit of saving your files often. Sometimes even do a Save As... to save incremental copies. Sometimes things get corrupted -- it's always good to have a fall back.

 

At his very moment I'm looking at ways of ensuring that our save mechanism is totally robust (in a way you won't see from other similar apps).  We've had one case of files being saved to a USB drive and getting corrupted, but I'm almost 100% sure that this was due to the drive being disconnected early. We actually designed our file format to guard against file corruptions.  I'm confident that we will crack the USB drive issue as well.

 

Our file format actually includes a versioning system, much like a database. When you do a save, only the differences are tacked onto the end of the file, and only when the whole file is written do we finalise the file and make your changes permanent.  This means, in theory, that you can try to save and it could fail due to a drive being disconnected or a power outage and your original file should be preserved.  We use the same strategy to make our Auto saving completely non-intrusive - if it's taking too long to auto save and you start to try using a tool, we just stop it dead and wait until your machine is having some down time.

 

So, while your advice is absolutely right, we're hoping our technology is going to protect your files further, and between our regular saves and auto saves, you're going to have to worry about this less.

 

Of course, we can't do anything about your drive dying or you accidentally deleting stuff - it's always good to make backup copies!

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

@Peter: thanks for the words. And thanks for being the inciting factor in the creation of this tutorial. :)

 

@ Dutch & JohnM : one of the things I try to do in an introductory tutorial is to assume that the reader is a total newbie to the software. I do try to include things for the experienced too. Glad it was helpful.

 

@ MattP : Puns? Me? Well, I can't help it. I was bit by a radioactive copy of Mad Magazine when I was a wee sprout. :P

 

@Ben: The whole save/save as/save early thing is like a variation of the Tyranny of the Commons. While AD (and I assume all other Affinity products-to-come) has (will have) an unparalleled robust save/autosave mechanism, sadly other apps don't. In fact, I just lost about 15 minutes of work when the app (NOT Affinity Designer) I was using crashed. I restarted and the app showed a dialog that stated I could restore from a back up. I clicked okay, and there. Was. No. Backup. If only I had followed my own advice, but I had gotten spoiled using AD (which has been relatively crash-free) and got out of the habit of saving often. And we humans are creatures of habit, so that comment about saving was an overall tip, not specific to AD. I'll rework the comment to incorporate your feedback. But my experience this AM just goes to prove that sometimes, you just have to adapt habits to the "lowest common denominator" when working with multiple apps. 

 

I'll be continuing work on the tutorial and when I do update it, the whole friggin' tutorial will be complete and will replace the files in the Box folder, so all one has to do is re-download the ZIP or PDF file and any additional PNG files if you've just d/l'ed the PDF. FYI: the tutorial will be updated with either the most current MAS version or customer beta, depending on how quickly they come out. 

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

CartoonMike, you're welcome.

 

Did I forget to mention the word...?

 

AWESOME!

 

Love the puns. One of my great talents...#Affinitycat: win a tablet competition should be renamed; Do a tabby for a tablet before Tuesday (other cats are available - a BBC TV/radio joke).

 

I am honoured to be that spark, that started your fantastic tutorial. You are becoming a bit of a legend in your very own lunch time!

 

Ps don't forget to email TonyB: your NI Number, Bank A/C details and address: as Serif Labs need to know to know where to send your wages and pay slips. 

 

Message to rest of forum; this guy rocks!!!

 

Thank you CartoonMike

MacBook pro, 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB, OS X 10.11.6

 

http://www.pinterest.com/peter2111

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you CartoonMike!  I am a hobbyist who had only rudimentary skills (some Illustrator, mostly GIMP) when I discovered Affinity Designer.  With thanks to the Affinity Designer team, and the very generous contributors such as yourself I am now nearing competence doing much better.  Enjoying it very much.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Hugo_555 -- I'll make it more explicit that the default "layer 1" that's created when we make a new file must be active before the place image tool is used. Oh, never, ever, apologize for ignorance, we all have to start somewhere and here to you for working things out and trying to learn new things! 

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks Mike. All good now... I've completed the tutorial as things stand now. Really really helpful - thanks so much. 

 

 

Just waiting for the next section to finish it all off and learn some more stuff. Pumpkin is looking very bare ;)

 

Thanks for all your efforts putting this together!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Kathrin -- Yeah, ComicLife is one of those apps that some may disparage, but like with any tool, the more you use it, the more you find out just how powerful it is. I wouldn't consider doing a tutorial any other way now. Especially since v3 now can import scripts from text/rtf files that you can drag and drop onto the page area. I think of ComicLife as being InDesign for comics. 

 

Speaking of which, I am making some incremental progress on finishing the tutorial. It's on track to be finished sometime around Thanksgiving (US), so expect it by the end of the month. The finished tutorial will be replacing the original documents, btw. I've made some corrections and additions to what was already in part 1 to accommodate the changes in 1.1.2 and the most current beta.

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Galfaille -- I went back and reread and followed the instructions in that part of the tutorial, and it is Subtract that I used to get the final shape. For the shape, we want the triangle to cut away from the pupil of the eye. I may add one more page to this, as I do go kinda fast on that part and I'd rather have a longer explanation than to be vague. Many thanks for that catch, shows me where things need to be clearer.

 

Thanks so much for the comments. I try to keep my tutorials informal and relaxed (for the most part), as I am  s o  tired of tutorials that are oh-so-serious. I feel that being relaxed is a better state of mind to learn. 

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hmm. Well something went all sideways there.  I'll redo the exercise on my "pumpkin template" file and see what the what is happening. But if add works, use it. That's part of the "deeper" meaning of this tutorial, is to get comfy with the app and find your own way. 

Mac OS X Catinlina, 2014 iMac, 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7, Huion Kamvas Pro 22 Graphic Tablet, 16GB RAM, MacOS10.12 || Magic keyboard w/numeric keypad, wireless trackpad, Kengsington Edge Trackball || Flux Capacitor in a secure location

---

I encourage kids to go ahead and play on my lawn. I mean, how else can I make sure the death-traps work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Guidelines | We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.