Smart Layers on Affinity Suite

[Uncle Mez]

Hello everyone !

Well i will try to make it short, today !
With all recents improvements brought into Affinity line of product, i believe it is time for Serif to develop what i would call smart layers.
Well this smart layers would be similar to what one have on photoshop (smart object) but will be more flexible and would allow users who convert from Adobe products to not lose it all:
Smart layer would :
a- bring more non destructive possibilities as when we uses the develop persona
Case: i open a a photo and switch to develop persona then do my thing there, the minute i click Develop the software should actually not apply all those tuning liek it does now but instead convert the photo into a smart layer and embed all settings in there as sub Adjust. layers or Live Adjust.layer allowing us to fine tune it later if wanted.

b- handle smart objects from PS and make it possible to fine tune them or even better convert them (only convertible functions) into what we actually have and use on AfPhoto then allow users to continu and finish their work started on PS with AfPhoto with ease.

c- help us go beyond what we do and actually make it possible for AfPhoto users to create Dynamic Mockups that would be used among all 3 softwares and even exported for use with PS but discarding non compatible stuffs also allowing to open and process Mockups crreated with PS without losing anything.

implementing Smart Layers would actually open to new possibilities and this is only a glimpse of what i think it could be, anyone here more talented or aware of stuffs then i do should had inputs here to help the Dev's to figure it out even better.

Blessings 

[Mark Oehlschlager]

I would really love to see a smart object feature added to Affinity Photo that enables non-destructive transformations to layer art.

Here's just one concrete example of the need for Smart Object layers in Affinity Photo: 

I need to produce template files for brand application mock-ups. I need to be able to use the Warp Mesh tool to non-destructively wrap graphics and images over the surfaces of standard photographed objects (e.g., bottles, cans, newspapers, open books, etc.) for the purpose of producing brand application mock ups. Presently, I can use the Mesh Warp tool in a destructive manner only. But, if we were to see Smart Object layers introduced to Affinity Photo, I could then paste various instances of branded art into the Smart Object layer and have the Mesh Warp effect automatically bend the art non-destructively to conform to the surfaces of the photographed object below.

Please add Smart Object layers to Affinity Photo.

At the very least, as an interim step, please add the Mesh Warp to the list of Live Filter Layers.

Thank you.