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

Recommended Posts

I wanted to make absolutely sure before purchasing brush sets off of Creative Market...

 

Affinity Designer can import .ai files correct?

Are there any special considerations I need to consider?

 

For example, this following brush set: https://creativemarket.com/Guerillacraft/100638-Scatter-texture-brushes-for-AI

Would I encounter any problems in AD?

 

I see on the https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/full-feature-list/ that AI is included in importable file extensions but it says "Adobe® Illustrator® AI (containing PDF stream)"

 

Not sure what the last bit means (PDF stream..?) I just wanna buy some cool brush sets on Creative Market! lol  :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They probably will not work. AI brush files are different than regular AI files. There are a lot of free AI brushes available on the web. I have tried some of them in the past and they wouldn't open in Affinity Designer. Why don't you download some of the free ones and give them a try and find out for yourself?  

iMac (24 inch, M1, 8 cores, 16 GB Memory, 2021)

iPad Pro 12.9", 3rd Generation

Link to comment
Share on other sites

AI brush files are different than regular AI files.

 

I'm confused by this. There are 2 different kinds of .ai brushes??

 

(I am currently trying to import one that I got for free using various methods.)

 

So what extensions are Affinity brushes supposed to be?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

Hi momochan86,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Yes, despite the same extension, Ai brushes are not the same as regular Ai "project" files. Please check this page for more info.

Affinity Designer is able to open regular "project" Ai files if they were saved with Create PDF compatible file checked when the file was saved from Illustrator. That's what the PDF stream means in our webpage. Regarding brushes Affinity Designer supports are own format (.afbrushes) and Photoshop brushes (.abr).

There's a list of some Affinity brushes available on this page.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi momochan86,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Yes, despite the same extension, Ai brushes are not the same as regular Ai "project" files. Please check this page for more info.

Affinity Designer is able to open regular "project" Ai files if they were saved with Create PDF compatible file checked when the file was saved from Illustrator. That's what the PDF stream means in our webpage. Regarding brushes Affinity Designer supports are own format (.afbrushes) and Photoshop brushes (.abr).

There's a list of some Affinity brushes available on this page.

Thanks Meb. I was able to import ABR brushed just fine... and I see most of the brushed on CM are .abr so that's cool.

 

B)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 years later...

Not sure if you want to do this, but if you bought the brushes have AI on your computer you can convert the brushes over to AD. Unfortunately no fast process for it.

Select a brush and draw a straight line and copy the stroke or stroke pattern and create a PNG image of it in PS or gimp etc. with background black and stroke white.... Just leave a little extra black space on ends of image. Then go to AD and import the image you just saved.

On the Brushes panel, click the panel preferences icon and then select:

New Solid Brush—creates a basic, solid vector stroke.

New Textured Intensity Brush—creates a brush stroke based on the opacity values of a raster image. In the pop-up dialog, navigate to and select a file, and click Open.

New Textured Image Brush—creates a brush stroke based on the color values of a raster image. In the pop-up dialog, navigate to and select a file, and click Open.

The new brush is added to the selected category using default settings.

if you need the full details, here's how to do it.

https://www.designcuts.com/learning-hub/how-to-convert-adobe-illustrator-brushes-to-affinity-designer-brushes/

 

***also, if you are looking for Affinity Designer brushes. I have some here. https://creativemarket.com/Annex1

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • Staff

Hi roh821z,
Most Adobe formats are proprietary/closed and/or poorly documented. It's not possible to import them without reverse engineering which is a complex/time consuming process. They also change/modify them according to their needs making them a moving target. There's no direct way to import them to Affinity apps. Same for regular Ai files - we are only able to import the PDF stream contained in the file if present (PDF compatible file checkbox must be ticked in Illustrator when saving the file for it to be included).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can confirm it will not work. 

I recently made that same mistake and there is absolutely no way to use those brushes if you don't already own Adobe Illustrator (which I think most of us don't, otherwise we wouldn't buy Designer) in order to convert them manually. I wish there was some kind of tool that could extract them and let you convert them, but there isn't.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, tallulahlucy said:

Can confirm it will not work. 

I recently made that same mistake and there is absolutely no way to use those brushes if you don't already own Adobe Illustrator (which I think most of us don't, otherwise we wouldn't buy Designer) in order to convert them manually. I wish there was some kind of tool that could extract them and let you convert them, but there isn't.  

Yeah, this is super saddening haha. :( I reeaaaaaally was looking forward to getting out of Adobe's clutches. Alas, I guess I'll remain stuck there for the foreseeable future.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/4/2020 at 12:33 PM, roh821z said:

That's a really brutal process, I'm quite surprised Affinity doesn't have the ability to import brushes from AI after all these years. Is the Design Cuts link really still the only "easy" way to do it?

AD (currently) does not support true vector brushes except for a basic solid one that is little more sophisticated than an ordinary stroke. The (current) other AD "vector" brushes are a raster image that is stretched or repeated along a vector path.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...
On 4/23/2017 at 11:42 AM, MEB said:

Hi momochan86,

Welcome to Affinity Forums :)

Yes, despite the same extension, Ai brushes are not the same as regular Ai "project" files. Please check this page for more info.

Affinity Designer is able to open regular "project" Ai files if they were saved with Create PDF compatible file checked when the file was saved from Illustrator. That's what the PDF stream means in our webpage. Regarding brushes Affinity Designer supports are own format (.afbrushes) and Photoshop brushes (.abr).

There's a list of some Affinity brushes available on this page.

Many of these links do not work to the downloads on the page link from above. I got the Error 404 message on Many of them.  (Serif you need to check all the links and update) Please can you update these links and also add some fabric textures, zips, trims, ruffles et cetera for fashion designers.  I have some great ones from AI but can't import them....

Thank you

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Staff

Hi @2989,
Welcome to Affinity Forums :)
The second link in your quote above goes to my personal page (it's not an official Serif website). The links in the Resources section there don't work because Serif has moved the forum to a subdomain thus the URL changed a bit (i didn't updated the website since then so the links still point to the old URL). See the example links below for the differences. The forum part has now its subdomain (the beginning of the url after the http protocol). So if you change the url in the browser as described below you should still be able to go to the correct page on the forums. Hope it helps a bit.

OLD links (on my website): http://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/12486-basic-letterpress-embossing-layer-styles/
the current working link:  https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/12486-basic-letterpress-embossing-layer-styles/

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.