3D

[Jonathan Toole]

I know it's a lot to ask, but it would be awesome if on some future update, Affinity could add total 3D abilities (maybe even in a new Persona) that would go beyond the capabilities of 3D & Emboss Effects. 

Things like a 3D workspace with 3D Text, Glyphs, etc.

[Medical Officer Bones]

That's what Photoshop did, and look at the state of its 3d "rendering" and 3d functionality: utterly outdated, slow as a snail moving in mud, and the quality is awful. No wonder Adobe teamed up with Maxon to provide 3d capabilities in After Effects: it just takes too much developer time to keep up with dedicated 3d applications and customer's expectations.

Install Blender, and enjoy high quality rendering and modeling tools instead. The upcoming 2.8 release will have real-time rendering (which already looks FAR better than Photoshop's "final" rendering).

Anyway, I think improvements in interoperability between Affinity and 3d applications would be preferable over half-hearted 3d features that distract the developers from core feature set enhancements.

[Tom Schülke]

thats right...   I´ve been working years as a professional with 3ds max..   and i can tell you...  even if you reduce the funktionallity to some minor 3d gimmics, the amount of needed implementation to get good results is overwelming..    3d Software is by far more complicated as 2d Software..     just take a look at zbrush for example..  or mudbox..   if you open this box,,  the box will grow and grow...

[Jonathan Toole]

Yeah. I totally understand what you mean about the distraction a good 3D workspace would cause.

[kirk23]

IMO  Affinity doesn't need true 3d.  There is open source Blender after all.    What it really needs is depth channel and depth aware object/layer blending  based on an object depth/height black&white channel.  Very same to what is called 2,5D mode /canvas in Zbrush, "impasto" in Painter and Artrage, "deep pixel" in video composers etc.     

 

  In  fact it only needs Photoshop styled transform "chain" links in between layers/vector objects being independent from parent/groups   to work that way.     Everything else is already there. 

 

ps. Plus maybe a couple of "live" adjustment layers turning grayscale depth into normal map and another one turning it into cavity/curvature mask 

[Tom Schülke]

Hi Kirk 23, 

what do you mean with this ? 

 

"In  fact it only needs Photoshop styled transform "chain" links in between layers/vector objects being independent from parent/groups   to work that way "

 

i just didnt understand.. 

 

[Medical Officer Bones]

@Tom Schülke In Photoshop layers can be independently linked (with the chain symbol in the layers palette), which means completely unrelated layers' transformations are linked together. Move one, the other linked layers move. This is the one required missing link (pun intended) in Affinity Photo for certain compositing tricks. Certain operations are really inconvenient and awkward without an option to link independent layers.

 

[kirk23]

Yes, exactly.  It 's necessary to say  subtract Group 2 depth  from  Max (lighter) combination of Group1 + Group2 , a standard way to get a mask for one object intersecting another properly by their actual depth.    So we have to put a layer from   group 1 inside group 2  and still move it in sync with Group 1  and not its new host Group2.        It's possible in Photoshop with chain links but not in Affinity.  Affinity does have all necessary blending modes working in 16 and 32 bit but not that last step.

 

In fact I would prefer just kind of "live" or "formula" mask  where I could write the whole equation as simple expression  , kind of  " layerA - ( layer A  Max LayerB) "   with involving layers  blinking in the stack. That way I wouldn't have to put layers from one group to another in the actual layer stack and Affinity would just know how I want certain mask be calculated.  Would keep Layer stack simple and elegant.   Photoshop way with chain links works ok but not very convenient too since you have to do a huge undecipherable mess of layers , clipping groups and chain links.  

 

Or maybe even simpler approach like one Corel Painter has, although it's too simple there to do such tricks but still I like the general idea of having special depth channel for each layer and special drop down list of depth related blending.  The math behind depth involving  Zbrush styled 2,5 D compositing/ Z combine  is simple like 2x2 , could easily be  working in real time and could be just  coded into layers as a  layer effect .   

In fact Corel Painter is very close to Zbrush, they did it same time Zbrush  first appeared , i.e. decades ago  but for some uncertain reason never developed it into something useful while still having best brush system on the market.      Could be way more advanced than Zbrush in area of 2,5d canvas.      Weirdly even to export depth info from Painter document you have only option of some obscure Blender addon.  

 

[Tom Schülke]

Thanks now is understood this Medical Officer Bones..  you´re right..  is would like this feature too...