Improvements for Game Art (Video)

[nezumi]

On 4/16/2020 at 1:53 PM, Andy Somerfield said:

Thanks Bones,

Early days for sure - we will be looking to the beta user community to help us make sure we get this right, when we are in a position to release a build which supports it.

Andy.

Great news! Sign me in!
I think people here are expecting too much talking about competing with dedicated software like Painter I see that a lot in Blender community too - they want Blender to become ZBrush, Houdini, Maya in one which is unrealistic. To compete with dedicated software you would have to build... well - whole dedicated software. So yeah I agree with @VisionsMind on very focused approach. Specially on shadow removal, light removal tools. This would be huge and extremely useful for texture creation and fitting nicely into Photo.
Also PLEASE - while you are on 3D side of things, please kindly take a look at that already mentioned in other thread Blur from Z-depth pass. It would be great for compositing done in Photo.

Side note - I am extremely happy to see you guys expanding Photo in such a way! I see I ditched Adobe for a good team Much luck in development!

[PassiveAggressor]

This is fantastic news! Can't wait to try some of this stuff out!

Thanks for continuing to improve Affinity Photo

[softsound]

Wow if this 3D painting stuff & preview happens I'd be so excited, I normally just do everything in Blender and Photoshop but that could definitely be a game changer and save me a lot of back and forth having a preview (would be even better if it also supported .fbx). I know everyone is like don't do too much, but honestly it's worked out great for Blender. Blender is definitely an all in one tool. 

But yeah tile tools like in Krita would be great too. You already have something similar in Designer with your pattern creator (which at some point you should make vector friendly currently it just works with raster if I recall).

I think animation itself should be it's own software though if you do go in that direction, considering how easy you make it to open up other apps I think an animation app would be a better direction for that, if you went in that direction man I'd love to create vector animations!!! Using after effects for that sort of thing is overkill.

[VisionsMind]

2 hours ago, softsound said:

Wow if this 3D painting stuff & preview happens I'd be so excited, I normally just do everything in Blender and Photoshop but that could definitely be a game changer and save me a lot of back and forth having a preview (would be even better if it also supported .fbx). I know everyone is like don't do too much, but honestly it's worked out great for Blender. Blender is definitely an all in one tool. 

But yeah tile tools like in Krita would be great too. You already have something similar in Designer with your pattern creator (which at some point you should make vector friendly currently it just works with raster if I recall).

I think animation itself should be it's own software though if you do go in that direction, considering how easy you make it to open up other apps I think an animation app would be a better direction for that, if you went in that direction man I'd love to create vector animations!!! Using after effects for that sort of thing is overkill.

You do realize the relationship between the TEASER the devs showed and the context here vs what you just posted, right? Srsly, it's almost scary to see ppl even thinking in 'competition to substance painter/designer' with Affinity Photo/Designer, not that the dev's wouldn't be capable, just that's so out of context and utterly irrealistic, that's just a waste of resources.
Examples like Blender make no sense what so ever in the point - it's open source, and that's both it's advantage and it's curse (e.g. if the resources put in a video editor and motion tracker and similar had been put in actual relevant features for a 3D app the advent of 2.8 had been years earlier).
So, again, I have no doubt on the capabilities of the Affinity Dev Team, but come on, be a bit more sensible and focus on the advantages the Affinity suite already has. If the plan is to compete with something of that humongous scale (Substance) might as well just double the dev team size and build a 3D app from the ground up...

Again, I mean no harm or anything, I just beg for ppl to be more sensible and let Affinty be a focused but amazingly well programmed tool as it has been thus far. Please, don't ask for decontextualized features. Affinity Photo/Designer with the features I've suggested in my previous post would be a thousand times more useful in my workflow (+-4 of professional 3D Game Art) than being "yet another substance painter alternative" - for that I already have Quixel MIxer, 3D-Coat, Blender+Addons and even ArmourPaint, and probably many others since the Adobe acquisition.

The 3D market is more in need of a better 2D tool catered to complement already established workflows rather than "another 3D painter". I see ppl complain about photoshop everywhere, yet it's that with plugins on top that ppl tend to use for those tasks. I've replaced Photoshop for Affinity Photo/designer for some of those tasks some years ago, didn't look back since, but needed to add more smaller tools for work that could be done inside Photo if some of the features I've referred in my previous post were implemented.

Edited April 17, 2020 by VisionsMind

[nezumi]

2 hours ago, VisionsMind said:

Srsly, it's almost scary to see ppl even thinking in 'competition to substance painter/designer' with Affinity Photo/Designer, not that the dev's wouldn't be capable, just that's so out of context and utterly irrealistic, that's just a waste of resources.

Always the case. Every improvement to sculpting is added to Blender - people already start saying "ZBrush is dead!" It can be very cool addition to Photo, it can be very useful but lets not pretend it will beat Painter, Mixer, Armor Paint, 3DCoat and other DEDICATED software. I dont know why people are so silly and unrealistic. Like you said - its not that Affinity team cant do it - it is matter of team size and focus. It would be shame to see Affinity Photo being bloated with something that is rarely used. However I am sure that Affinity team knows that too and have some plan. Right? RIGHT?!  

[softsound]

I mean if they already made something like this I'd hate to see them throw it out. I didn't say it would beat all those other tools but I think it's really cool they thought of that.

I'm much more of a noob with texturing stuff and don't really use 5 other tools I just do everything in Photoshop so I don't have a lot to say on the matter. 😅 I was excited to see that and bought Photo today just for that, that's the only thing to me that makes it slightly stand out compared to Photoshop to me (Photoshop tried this before and it was so slow it wasn't useable). Until they get a layer fill option like Photoshop or some interesting feature that really makes it stand out I won't really use Photo over Photoshop, but I wish for the best for them and really love Designer and Publisher! For me I mainly use Clip Studio (best for digital painting with 3D models & reference work with vector painting), Krita (best for sprites), Photoshop (general tool), and Designer (vector & UI) for most of my work and Publisher for anything marketing or print related. I don't think it's bad for them to be more general like Photoshop but I mean right now they don't have anything that makes them stand out feature wise from Photoshop to me. I don't think I'd use the layer and channel info you would... Or I'd just end up using Gimp in the end for some of that. But hey like I said it's not really a tool I use so I don't care a great deal on the direction, I'm sure all that layer & channel stuff would be helpful to others and defiantly think they should add that.

So TL;DR I think it's a still a cool idea and I'd use it. Photo doesn't have much that makes it stand out so I think slightly helps but I don't really use Photo so I'm not really the target audience. Maybe after they add in all the other features you requested they might add this in later. I mean, it's like telling people they shouldn't use Photoshop for digital painting or making comics, sure it's a bad tool for that but people make it work and I think a lot of people like Photoshop because it has some digital painting options even if they kind of suck compared to better tools like Clip Studio Paint. 

[Filo63]

On 4/17/2020 at 4:17 PM, VisionsMind said:

With this, I'd focus on the following:
- Texture Maps conversion (Hieght to Normal, roughness maps, normal to AO,  and usual pbr texture maps conversion)

- ID Maps/Masking workflow improvements in the Layer Stack (instead of having to colour select each color to creat masks, having an IDMap picker that automatically masks the current Layer would be a huge time saver.
- Seamless/Tileable automation tools, Tileable painting features (Krita has a Canvas Wrap Around mode that automatically tiles brush strokes while handpainting textures, etc)
- Photo editing tools to create texture maps from photos - shadow removal, light removal (Albedo != Diffuse - any light information shouldn't be present in a good texture set for accurate PBR results) convert from color to normal, height, etc
- a HUGE thing in an app suite like yours would be Normal Map Painting/Sculpting - adding vector shapes, paintstrokes, gradients, etc that correctly blend as Normal maps shapes allowing to set height/intensity, Bevel Scales, etc - this was a huge selling point for NDO back in the day)
 

working on product design I believe that everything expressed above is really necessary !!!  Often we have to photograph portions of materials to be mapped on the models but eliminating light and shadow strokes is a long and imprecise job ... having tools in this area would be very useful.  It would be really good news for the world of design.  There are many companies out there that are working on suites of very complex programs, certainly beautiful and powerful, but for many of us it is more effective to have what is written above in a daily use tool such as Photo.
 

thanks

Fabio

[R C-R]

On 4/14/2020 at 2:28 AM, Andy Somerfield said:

I am pleased to report that we have been working through some of the items mentioned here:

- In Photo 1.8.3, the [ and ] keys will step the Pixel Brush in exact, single pixel sizes.

I am using Affinity Photo version 1.8.3 on my Mac. The [ and ] keys still work as they always have done, increasing & decreasing the brush size by a percent, not by single pixel increments. What am I missing?

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, R C-R said:

I am using Affinity Photo version 1.8.3 on my Mac. The [ and ] keys still work as they always have done, increasing & decreasing the brush size by a percent, not by single pixel increments. What am I missing?

Works fine on Windows in Photo 1.8.3. Make sure you're using the Pixel Tool, not the Paint Brush Tool.

[R C-R]

28 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Works fine on Windows in Photo 1.8.3. Make sure you're using the Pixel Tool, not the Paint Brush Tool.

Duh! I did have the Paint Brush tool selected. Works fine with the Pixel Tool.

[Maestrorobertus]

There are two things difficult with textures. first, the are multi channel, like normal. Roughness. Etc. So you have to work on opacity masks only, or you have to redo the other maps later. In my opinion, this needs multi channel support, so you can also output the channels all at once. I do a lot Quixel work in AP, and use the load stack. One problem have er when dropping images in the workspace is, they don’t align. 

Second, the most important task on textures is making it tile able. Unfortunately AP has no none destructive workflow here. So transform effect need to be done as no filter, or we need a paint effect that projects on the opposite side when near border.

[VisionsMind]

19 minutes ago, Maestrorobertus said:

first, the are multi channel, like normal. Roughness. Etc. So you have to work on opacity masks only, or you have to redo the other maps later. In my opinion, this needs multi channel support, so you can also output the channels all at once.

Not Entirely sure I understand what you mean. But, although I think it could be a bit more streamlined like the images dropping centred to the canvas as you've said, or things like having to toggle layers visibility, select all, copy the image to a temp channel, then going back and copy that into the correct channel again, etc), I till think channel packing in Photo is pretty much fine as is right now.

[geothefaust]

On 4/16/2020 at 10:07 AM, Andy Somerfield said:

Hi again,

Further to the other things, we are looking to add more support for game art users - can't promise this for 1.9 but we are working on it..

 

 

(I have two documents open here - you can see the texture itself, the other document is the normal map - both are being edited and a realtime preview is being rendered on a .obj model in the new Model panel).

Thanks,

Andy.

 

Thanks for this. :) I'm a 3D artist that uses Substance tools (designer+painter) every day, and while I enjoy the tools, I loathe adobe. I've converted almost everyone at our studio to using Affinity. :) It's such a great suite of tools.

All that said, my main purpose here is that if you want a beta tester, I'd love to help. Just let me know if you're interested. 👍

[Kiarian]

On 4/16/2020 at 6:07 PM, Andy Somerfield said:

Hi again,

Further to the other things, we are looking to add more support for game art users - can't promise this for 1.9 but we are working on it..

 

 

(I have two documents open here - you can see the texture itself, the other document is the normal map - both are being edited and a realtime preview is being rendered on a .obj model in the new Model panel).

Thanks,

Andy.

 

Excellent. Count me in on any Betas!

[3n41y]

Can I test this?

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, 3n41y said:

Can I test this?

When it's available for customers to test, it will appear in a customer beta release which anyone who already owns the product will be able to download and install.

[Louka Dubois B.]

it's very very nice! I can't wait to try this update!

[nezumi]

Just other thought hit me now. This 3D components in Affinity will need surely 3D acceleration to work well, right? Does that mean Photo will gain 3D card acceleration under Windows with that update? Also for 2D? As far as I know Mac has it already, right?
If thats the case, man this is going to be epic update... Probably for 2.0? Can you confirm anybody?

[Mark Ingram]

7 hours ago, nezumi said:

Just other thought hit me now. This 3D components in Affinity will need surely 3D acceleration to work well, right? Does that mean Photo will gain 3D card acceleration under Windows with that update? Also for 2D? As far as I know Mac has it already, right?
If thats the case, man this is going to be epic update... Probably for 2.0? Can you confirm anybody?

Unfortunately, the two are unrelated. We already use Direct3D to draw the (software / CPU) rendered document to the screen on Windows, the other half of this is using the GPU to perform the actual document rendering (for performance).

[Kiarian]

8 hours ago, nezumi said:

Just other thought hit me now. This 3D components in Affinity will need surely 3D acceleration to work well, right? Does that mean Photo will gain 3D card acceleration under Windows with that update? Also for 2D? As far as I know Mac has it already, right?
If thats the case, man this is going to be epic update... Probably for 2.0? Can you confirm anybody?

According to James Ritson's reply to a similar question on yesterdays Lockdown 2020 YouTube presentation, we will be seeing a significant update for Windows 10 which will be using GPU acceleration. Apparently this is still in the testing stage, but is very quick. Looking forward to the Affinity Suite making use of GPU RAM in the same way other software is doing.

[nezumi]

Thanks for both answers. I mean Affinity is pretty smooth as it is. One step at the time. Good thing I moved to Windows 10 lately. I heard some horror stories but really and truly I dont have any problems. Looking forward to future releases!

[VladimirU]

On 16.04.2020 at 20:07, Andy Somerfield said:

Привет еще раз,

В дополнение к другим вещам, мы надеемся добавить больше поддержки пользователям игрового искусства - не можем обещать это для 1.9, но мы работаем над этим ..

 

 

(У меня есть два открытых документа - вы можете видеть саму текстуру, другой документ - карту нормалей - оба редактируются, и предварительный просмотр в реальном времени отображается на модели .obj на новой панели «Модель»).

Спасибо,

Энди.

 

Please continue to add this functionality. I’m just one of those users who sometimes need to make texturing of 3d models, but I don’t have the time or the desire to buy and study bulky and expensive programs like the Substanse painter or Mari. And such functionality inside the familiar and simple Affinity Photo editor would be very handy for not complicated but visual texturing. I look forward to the appearance of this feature in future releases. Thank you and success in your work!
Sorry for my English:)

[MG Degenhardt]

I was caught with a pleasant surprise when I read this post. I can't wait to be able to test this functionality. It will be very good!

I do not expect that there will be a competition with other programs, but only the possibility of allowing you to work on 3D meshes, as alternatives to other programs.

[mzone3d]

Awesome. 

Sounds promising, I don’t know what the roadmap is but, here are 

a few things I would like to see...

1. being able to paint, add text, shapes, gradients, paths and photos and be able to convert them to normals and use later blends would be awesome. Being able to produce a height map would be a nice addition to this.

2. An auto affine tile Tool would be great, and as mentioned, toggle tile view would be Good for seeing the repetition.

3. Some kind of quick layer based Colour ID creator, maybe based on layer naming? For exporting ID maps 

4. As mentioned, a shadow removal tool for albedo maps is a great suggestion.

5. A simple 3D viewer would be nice. No need to paint in 3D, but would be nice to paint in 2d window and have it update fast in the 3D viewer

6. Create an auto backup layer of the original image, shape, text etc when normals are created would be good.

I'm up for testing any updates on this.

[Danielcz]

would really love to have tillable (seamless) generated textures (cloud/perlin and others), chrome filter, sponge filter etc with crisp/sharp results. Some Affinity Photo procedural texture output is kind of blurry or too soft (maybe because of interpolation/resampling?) its not that much usable for game assets now.  (look at PS filters) 

Some basic normal map generator would come handy too.

Or ability to draw tiled (seamless) patterns like in Cosmigo Pro Motion NG, i think that even Ph0tosh0p dont have it.