casterle Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 I'm trying to draw a symmetrical object with the Pen Tool and not doing well. Is there a good way to do this, or is it just a matter of tweaking until things look good? Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 You could start to draw your object working from the document centre line or a guide line or a grid, you only need a few nodes, then make it a symbol, drag an instance of that symbol onto the workspace and align to the original, then continue to draw and the other side will update as you draw. You use Photo don't you? the above would be for designer. In Affinity Photo there is a mirror tool ⌥+⌘+M This wouldn't work as a symmetry tool for drawing on the fly, you would have to draw one half and then apply the symmetry tool, you also need to work from the centre of the document. casterle 1 Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casterle Posted March 20, 2019 Author Share Posted March 20, 2019 25 minutes ago, firstdefence said: You could start to draw your object working from the document centre line or a guide line or a grid, you only need a few nodes, then make it a symbol, drag an instance of that symbol onto the workspace and align to the original, then continue to draw and the other side will update as you draw. You use Photo don't you? the above would be for designer. In Affinity Photo there is a mirror tool ⌥+⌘+M This wouldn't work as a symmetry tool for drawing on the fly, you would have to draw one half and then apply the symmetry tool, you also need to work from the centre of the document. I started in Photo, but recently bought Designer. I was a retired dude looking for a fulfilling hobby (I never thought it would have anything to do with art), and I've found it. I've got ArtRage as well - I wish Affinity had a paint program to complete the set! I just covered a lesson on Symbols but never thought to use them in this way. This gives me an excuse to look into them further. As an aside, is there any way in AD to map an object to a perspective grid? In AP there's the Perspective Tool but I haven't found a way to accomplish something similar in AD. Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 Not yet, Hoping warp and envelopes turn up in the near future. I have Artrage it's an awesome app Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casterle Posted March 20, 2019 Author Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 minute ago, firstdefence said: Not yet, Hoping warp and envelopes turn up in the near future. I have Artrage it's an awesome app So how do you get an object to appear to be lying on a plane? Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 you have to use sheer and the corner node of the bounding box and just pull it until it looks kinda right. You can probably set up grids ala isometrics and use snap to grid, or try to align the grid to the plane you want the object to appear to lay on. Shouldn't really have to work so hard for this. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 See: Affinity Designer Mirror MockUp Template Or these: Free Affinity Designer Templates casterle 1 Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 An example. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casterle Posted March 20, 2019 Author Share Posted March 20, 2019 Just now, firstdefence said: you have to use sheer and the corner node of the bounding box and just pull it until it looks kinda right. You can probably set up grids ala isometrics and use snap to grid, or try to align the grid to the plane you want the object to appear to lay on. Shouldn't really have to work so hard for this. I found this in the 1.7 feature list (https://affinityspotlight.com/article/affinity-designer-17-beta-now-available): By enabling Edit in Plane on the new Isometric Studio, tools can edit objects and appear to make those edits along the currently active plane—extremely useful for artists who enjoy working with any axonometric projections. It sounds like this will help, although it sounds like the Perspective Tool in AP is much easier to use. Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 Yes in 1.7 beta that is a feature. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casterle Posted March 20, 2019 Author Share Posted March 20, 2019 12 minutes ago, v_kyr said: See: Affinity Designer Mirror MockUp Template Or these: Free Affinity Designer Templates Thank you for the links. What do I do with templates? The help file doesn't mention them as far as I can tell. Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casterle Posted March 20, 2019 Author Share Posted March 20, 2019 13 minutes ago, firstdefence said: An example. That looks good. Did you do that with just shear and dragging the corner nodes? Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 minute ago, casterle said: That looks good. Did you do that with just shear and dragging the corner nodes? just with sheer Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstdefence Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 Just had a look at the isometric studio in more detail and it is most definitely not a method for creating a perspective plane. Its like having a rigid flat sheet and twisting it in 3D space, all the grid lines remain perpendicular to each other in the horizontal and vertical axis, there is no option to taper the grid to simulate perspective and get converging lines. So an example would be to drag an image into the art, say a sketch of buildings and a poster frame on one of the walls, now edit that image in a plane, the problem is the top and bottom of the image stay parallel to each other so you end up with a Rhombus, a parallelogram. I might be doing this all wrong but this is what I get using an image. Quote iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9 (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum) Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casterle Posted March 20, 2019 Author Share Posted March 20, 2019 39 minutes ago, firstdefence said: Just had a look at the isometric studio in more detail and it is most definitely not a method for creating a perspective plane. Its like having a rigid flat sheet and twisting it in 3D space, all the grid lines remain perpendicular to each other in the horizontal and vertical axis, there is no option to taper the grid to simulate perspective and get converging lines. So an example would be to drag an image into the art, say a sketch of buildings and a poster frame on one of the walls, now edit that image in a plane, the problem is the top and bottom of the image stay parallel to each other so you end up with a Rhombus, a parallelogram. I might be doing this all wrong but this is what I get using an image. Sigh. Thanks for looking into this. I tried using AP to warp the object, but of course I get a pixel result. I wonder if InkScape can handle object warping? I'll take a look when I get a chance. Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 10 minutes ago, casterle said: Sigh. Thanks for looking into this. I tried using AP to warp the object, but of course I get a pixel result. I wonder if InkScape can handle object warping? I'll take a look when I get a chance. Warping and Sculpting Fun in Inkscape Distorting a 2D object to give the appearance of 3D Space Inkscape warp Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
v_kyr Posted March 20, 2019 Share Posted March 20, 2019 1 hour ago, casterle said: Thank you for the links. What do I do with templates? The help file doesn't mention them as far as I can tell. You don't know what a template (aka a reusable sample/demo file) is? - Well, just unzip, open and reuse those for your individual drawing needs. So reuse their setups for your own contents, or take them as a reusable example. Quote ☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan ☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casterle Posted March 21, 2019 Author Share Posted March 21, 2019 5 hours ago, v_kyr said: You don't know what a template (aka a reusable sample/demo file) is? - Well, just unzip, open and reuse those for your individual drawing needs. So reuse their setups for your own contents, or take them as a reusable example. Thanks for all the links. I see what you mean - I thought templates referred to a special type of file as they do in some other programs. Quote Windows 11 Pro, XP-Pen Deco 03, AP, AD & APub Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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