Workarounds for Distortion, Warp, or Perspective distort?

[garrettm30]

2 hours ago, abra100pro said:

multiple strokes (!!) would make AD make look good.

That, at least, Designer already has (it's via the appearance studio, with the "Add Stroke" button). Are you referring to something more than that? Perhaps the ability to offset strokes, which I think would make the the appearance studio more effective.

[Dazmondo77]

For me Inkscape is a bit laggy on the mac, plus I can't use the clipboard, and doesn't seem to support CMYK, as the only input method that seems to work for moving things back and fourth between affinity, while retaining vector is .SVG.

Well on the 1st of October Affinity Designer is 7 years old which is just over a month away - would be good if it's a lucky seven years and we get a few missing basics over the following year?

[abra100pro]

5 hours ago, garrettm30 said:

That, at least, Designer already has (it's via the appearance studio, with the "Add Stroke" button). Are you referring to something more than that? Perhaps the ability to offset strokes, which I think would make the the appearance studio more effective.

Oh, thanks, I didn't know. You're right about the offset but most of what I can think of can be achieved that (existing) way - cool!

[Dazmondo77]

14 hours ago, abra100pro said:

That, at least, Designer already has (it's via the appearance studio, with the "Add Stroke" button)

I find multi stokes on a path to be very limited mainly because it only supports 1 stroke to be set as a global colour - so say on a shape that you set up with five strokes, all set to specific document global colours, only the last assigned stroke will maintain it's global link - I setup all my jobs as global as it makes "Sue doesn't like the orange" last minute, committee decisions, on a 80+ page annual report a two second fix 

[garrettm30]

2 hours ago, Dazmondo77 said:

because it only supports 1 stroke to be set as a global colour

That is an odd limitation. It kind of sounds like a bug.

[Old Bruce]

I have to agree with garrettm30 as far as a limitation is concerned, quite odd. Perhaps it is a choice made which should be reviewed.

[Dazmondo77]

I originally flagged it in a post when it was first introduced, I'm guessing either 1.7 or 1.8 beta, they said it's not a bug but a limitation that could possibly improve in the future - still not usable for me, I continue to stack multiple strokes to achieve the same goal, which isn't really too much bother.  

[FYITom]

Needed this today, I come across people asking for simple things on the forums all the time. Serif does not come close to Adobe in terms of features despite what people say, it's not a replacement and not even close.

It's funny that we live in a time where Tesla is going to have an AI bot that will do your washing and Serif can't even figure out how to distort a vector after 3 years.

[AdrianB]

2 hours ago, FYITom said:

Needed this today, I come across people asking for simple things on the forums all the time. Serif does not come close to Adobe in terms of features despite what people say, it's not a replacement and not even close.

It's funny that we live in a time where Tesla is going to have an AI bot that will do your washing and Serif can't even figure out how to distort a vector after 3 years.

It's funny that we live in a time where people think their pet peeve feature is the only priority the developers should have at a software company with multiple products for multiple plattforms. 🙄

Yes, it sucks that this part of Affinity Designer does not work better. No, people are not claiming that Designer is feature complete and can do everything Adobe software does. No, that does not make the Affinity suite of applications worthless.

Depending on your needs they go a long way, but yes there are still features missing here and there. Some of them might even be a dealbreaker. And then there are other features that are way better than Adobe's (the unified file format is absolutely genius and works so well). And if you compare the cost of ownership the value is tremendous.

[sheriffderek]

 

12 hours ago, FYITom said:

Needed this today, I come across people asking for simple things on the forums all the time. Serif does not come close to Adobe in terms of features despite what people say, it's not a replacement and not even close.

It's funny that we live in a time where Tesla is going to have an AI bot that will do your washing and Serif can't even figure out how to distort a vector after 3 years.

I don't think it's funny. And although it's frustrating 2% of the time... I have to try and remember that Serif is a much smaller company than Tesla. I also - don't want a bot to "do the washing." So,  - I'm happy enough to use Illustrator - for this one thing. After deciding to teach Affinity Designer at PE, to can't imagine being any happier (except of course... with those few little warts removed.) I am joyous when I use it. Every time. I feels like my little friend. The things they are doing right - far outweigh the faults. As a graphics professional / it seems pretty reasonable to have many graphics programs. After all - Affinity is basically free. So, you're only really paying for Adobe.

[Megnusin]

On 9/1/2021 at 2:02 PM, FYITom said:

Needed this today, I come across people asking for simple things on the forums all the time. Serif does not come close to Adobe in terms of features despite what people say, it's not a replacement and not even close.

It's funny that we live in a time where Tesla is going to have an AI bot that will do your washing and Serif can't even figure out how to distort a vector after 3 years.

Seven years, not three. I wouldn't hold my breath or spend my time trying to convince the regulars who frequent the boards.

[satchmo]

Well, I need this today as well and stumbled on this huge thread.

I get Serif is a small fish, but to be honest, the more I peel back the layers and spend more time with their products, I'm finding a lot missing. 

It's still a decent purchase, but there's a reason why it's cheaper.

[Thomas M. Braun]

On 2/6/2021 at 10:17 PM, PaRunk said:

Even though it's a bit inconvenient, I also use Photo in parallel to make my distortions. If you use the live filters and then return to Designer via the editing path, the vector graphics remain and you can even use the perspective filter again in Designer without having to switch back to Photo. I have tried this several times now and it works.

But unfortunately, the graphics are later converted to bitmaps when they are output. Unfortunately, that is not so nice.

I'm curious whether the perspectives and distortion tools will be added to Designer in the next major update.

 

As you said, this is all nice and well for the use of photos. But it is not vector-based, which means it's rather useless for all kins of artwork that needs to be vector-based. 
It's just disapointing that this basic feature has been on the roadmap since 2014 (that's 7 years now) and still couldn't be included. Thanks for the video. 

[VisionsMind]

Looking for the same basic feature. Yet another wall with Affinity software.

I know they're a "small" company, etc, etc... But, lets be real: Inkscape is FOSS, meaning it's made by a community of volunteers and you can do whatever with it. It's far from perfect, but I find myself installing it from time to time to compensate for what Designer lacks. Same with APhoto, for that Krita is also FOSS, same exact situation.

I mean, Affinity products are good overall, but they're lacking quite a bit and it's not like these tools involve super high-tech complex 3D functionality to take them all these years to implement. There's far more complex stuff being released for free with higher frequency of updates, done by volunteers.

But I digress, the more time I spend with these proprietary tools, the more I wish I had spent time with the FOSS alternatives, which are free to use...

I hope Affinity has some more success (?) so that they can hire more devs to help them improve these things at a faster rate.

[boberto]

Perspective Grid Please. Thanks.

[LassiP]

I finally read this thread pretty much so I can comment it. Now I notticed the thing I wanted to suggest has been said but once, and don't think it got the attention it deserves (even though I'm perhaps not the best judge, being perhaps not that pro:

On 8/14/2021 at 3:32 PM, Dazmondo77 said:

... if you have a raster image inside a vector container, you would want to distort both the vector and raster and retain both formats, can you imagine how complex that could be, especially if trying to remain non-destructive... 

The issue, I think is that some are comparing AD to AI, which - in this regard - might be forgetfull of the one big difference between the two: AI is vector drawing sofware (as is Inkscape which I already used for some path effects AI lacked before Affinity was ever heard about). AD isn't. It's a drawing tool that uses raster and vector while being somewhat (perhaps a lot) more feature rich on the vector side of the software. 

 

I think they may have originally thought of a vector distortion tool, but soon realized, they can't just vectorise all the bitmap portions of a complex vectbitmap (just coined that term - albeit poorly) object. Firstly. Many have rightly complained that using bitmap warp tool for vector curves is a compromise on quality and editability to say the least. Secondly others have rightly pointed out warping vectors freely doesn't produse the same predictable results warping pixel images does, because vector images consist of knots and strokes and such. So you would oerhaps first need to calculate the transformation for vectors, then calculate the optimal arrangement of knots and handles so they do the job well enough without making the file too big and clumsy, then modify the bitmap image according to not the original warp map but the warped vector image all while the end user was thinking (s)he's doing a very basic thing which should be easy, exact and straightforward. 

The above was - obviously - a simplified explanation, since I'm no tech-wizard, but I hope there's something to it. It might also be that they never thought it would be easy to make a vectbitmap-warp (and I don't think it has been even tried before since the other sofware has to my knowledge allways been either just vector or just bitmap so no. They cannot rely on premade code if I'm right).

Call me a lay Affinity apologist if you like, and you might even be correct (I certainly try to be a lay Christian apologist, but that's got nothing to do with this thread). Agree or disagree. I just thought I've got something to add here.

I've used InkScape for small pieces of right to left text, vector object along the path, warping and such, but I wouldn't leave affinity for Edoba if they were the same prize. Affinity simply has its strengths regardles of price tag. Also I wonder how its any different to swap between AD and InkScape than between AI and PS. In both cases the native file formats were different between the two, the only difference in these two cases being that AI and PS are supposed to be of the same family. (though I don't know if Edoba has made AI and PS more compatible with each other since CS). Yes I understand that some can do their work entirely within AI or PS, but I couldn't.

The bottom line how ever: Affinity Design is not a vector only or even a vector plus a little bit of a raster drawing tool. It's meant to be (almost) equally a raster tool as a vector tool. And that makes it almost unique. And that also makes it not propably going to do vector only warp tool, but the so much more complex unified warp tool.

I wish Serif all the good luck (and wisdom) in that. It might however be quite a daunting task...

Sorry for weard english. My native is Finnish.

Sorry for typos. I'm using a phone.

[davemac2015]

Heck... at this point, I'd be ecstatic if we got something like workable gradient meshes, a la AI. Yes, I know AD != AI  I can dream, though...

This does NOT take away from my admiration for this software! I have a blast using it.