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Export dialog in game development


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The export dialog has a number of things that can cause issues in a game development workflow.

When using illustrator, to export all I would need to do was go to export (Save to Web) and click "clip to artboard" if I
wanted to keep the dimensions of the canvas or not if I wanted to crop to the content. If I wanted a background fill I
would add one as a layer, otherwise the background of the exported image would be transparent. This method of exporting
was very fast and allowed for quick asset creation, not just sprites but for things like particles.

In Affinity Designer, this process is so much slower and prone to mistakes due to the required extra steps to accomplish
the same thing.

First, the settings default to "Whole Document", this sounds ok until you find out this means that it will export a
fill/background for you. In order to change that you need to have things selected that will what's to be export as it
doesn't just assume you want to export everything, like illustrator does (unless I'm doing something wrong). This means
you have to close the export dialog (it's a modal), select the parts you want to export, and open the export again. Having
the option to export only selected is a GREAT feature and would be great for making UIs, where you need to export them
piece meal but having it as a default slows down the process in most cases. Also, if a layer/object is locked you can't
select it, slowing the process down further.

Then if you want to export without a background you can now change "Whole Document" to "Selection Without Background",
again, if I wanted a background fill, I would have added one myself.

While I'm changing these options, the above "size" fields are changing appropriately, this also causes issues. Cropping
the the content to exported is a very helpful feature, but often times in game developement you want/need to export images
of a certain size (namely, power of 2 size images for compression. Can also be needed to match pivot points of sprites). 

So an example occurence can be:
Export. Realise I don't have the parts selected correctly. Close export, make selections, open export again. Select
"selection without background" as transparency is a neccessity in most cases. By now the size fields have changed but I
need to export the whole document size (for compression, pivots, sprite swaps etc). Have to manually adjust size fields
for whole document. Save.

The amount of time this can take, the number of opportunities to get it wrong, resulting in having to go back and start
over and the fact that you can have to go through this process dozens of times a day, makes the export window a problem
for game developers.

This window I'm sure works just fine for artwork/mock-ups etc but it really does slows the game asset workflow down a lot.

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