Affinity Photo for Game Devs

[giakaama]

I love Affinity Designer, I'm using it allot, for UI design for presentations, it's a great tool . I even use it for small texture work when I need to do something sharp . But Affinity Photo it's well how to put this ... I would like to use it but I'm always returning to Photoshop .

Why ?

Well because the workflow for copy / pasting textures into channels is not that intuitive ( the spare channel flow ... ) and the problem of exporting TGA's .

I prefer a tga instead png's because of the dedicated alpha channel .

 

[JohnMakesGames]

I would like to use Photo for games as well. Will the texture packing workflow ever be improved? Tga would be nice too.

[Mackinder]

Hello! I purchased Affinity Photo today. This was despite the issue of channel packing and TGA support. It wasn't a deal breaker for me as I've just kept GIMP installed. But better channel workflow and TGA support really cannot be overestimated for game development. Modern game engines (such as Unreal Engine and Unity) will have a preference for TGA and lots of game art texture pipeline software (such as Substance Designer and Substance Painter) will make extensive use of it.

While improved channel workflow and TGA support might not seem like a flashy bulletpoint, it really would be noticed by game artists. Especially in an environment where prices for other software are increasing and often turning into subscription services.

[Redphoenix]

I have to say:

I am hesitant because those features are missing. I tried about 15 minutes on how to copy stuff into channels but gave up after this.
It is very crucial for me to have this work, same as full TGA compatability.

 

The chance that I will purchase it is high. But not now.

[keithoc]

+1 for a better channel editing workflow. Particularly the alpha channel - as a game developer I often want to look at the alpha channel in isolation as just another grayscale channel just like RGB.

[WarrenMarshall]

Going to +1 this request.  Channel control and being able to save to TGA are important to making inroads into the games industry as a tool ...

[Duskstalker]

yep, +1 - i'm a gamedev myself and approve this request.

[bitey]

+1 here (also a UE4 gamedev). Despite the slightly unfriendly workflow, I'm just happy channel packing is possible in Photo at all, because it means a step toward cutting the Photoshop leash completely. For most of AP's shortcomings, I get the feeling we're looking at early versions and that these tools and processes will improve with updates.

[Redphoenix]

On 7/29/2018 at 4:46 PM, WarrenMarshall said:

Going to +1 this request.  Channel control and being able to save to TGA are important to making inroads into the games industry as a tool ...

I know it's slightly offtopic, but if any of the Affinity peeps read this: listen to Warren.

 

Good to see you here, I learned a ton from your tutorials!

[WarrenMarshall]

Thanks Red! 

[OlaHaldor]

Still no news about this. 

I am fighting the current works of channel packing. It's such a hassle and not the least bit enjoyable vs. how Photoshop handles this, which imho is the way to go.

Crossing fingers there will be change in future updates.

[thomasp]

Same here. Would be great to see improvements made to channel paste and the addition of the TGA file format (export).

[leifm]

+1 This.

[kirk23]

As game artist myself  I could say those two issues : channel packing and tga export are not critical at all.    You could convert png to tga with  Xn converter. Just drop in and push "convert"  PNG actually have an advantage. You don't have to solidify it before saving as with tgas. 

And as of channel packing AP dev build already has  " procedural texture" live filter  where you could set  to what exact  channel any specific layer ads too.  So you have your channel packing working perfectly ok already.    In fact AP makes it easier to work with channels  by showing you only chosen channel with just a single click and continue to work as usual while  in Photoshop it's a pain in the a... because it switches back to rgb once you try to tweak something

I would much more prefer they would focus on making  AP truly competitive in a non-destructive style of working.    Photoshop has transform links in between layers from different mask stacks /clipping groups  which  allow to  do same thing "Height Blend" node does in Substance designer . I mean deep compositing with depth aware.    APhoto is very close actually , just needs a checkbox, like lock children or something that would  allow to select and scale/move every same color codded layer in sync whatever parent they all each be having.

Another things is "Layer comps".  They are super helpful in Photoshop to switch in between  color/normal/roughness/height  versions  of a same doc and to export them automatically.   Would love to see them in AP export persona.

And to make me finally  get rid of Substance Designer  which I hate really notwithstanding its very flexible nature and where I feel like painting on a canvas with my hands handcuffed behind my back      APhoto could just  borrow open source node interface from Blender  for " procedural texture" filter or just make a few typical things:   height to normals,  normals to curvature,  min/max/distance, edge detection,  gradient slope distortion, normal vector distortion.  Gradient map we already have.  Histogram scan is just same as levels.   Well, with those I wouldn't even need any nodes at all.

Or maybe do this procedural filter a bit more programmable. Currently I hardly understand a thing.

 ps,  Also please Serif, make those color wheels in color panel   RYB color model   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RYB_color_model

Like what artists have been using since 17 century, with complementary colors selector

 

 

 

 

[Patrick Connor]

Relevant input from Serif added here

 

[Kuso77]

I haven't used it extensively yet, but the free JR Macros: Channels that's now available for free makes splitting an image into RGBA and editing them separately much more quick. 

I recommend giving it a try.  Seems very promising.

[Sandrooo]

Incredible how I was still googling after my other post and find more and more people asking for really basics Serif isn't able to delivery! Shame the faith put 3 years ago hasn't been even remotely listened to channel packing still requires lots of steps, like a joke of an amount for no reasons, the spare channel flow is something someone would come out after a heavy night at the pub IMHO

Will look at JR Macro (by the way as it took me some Googling it is on Gumroad for whoever wants to give it a go) however still, too much work for something that should be copy and paste as in Photoshop or worst in something offered for free like GIMP...