Please bring back an option to use guide objects as slices

[KIR23]

To be exported as png with alpha or even tga with alpha . So it could be possible to export a parts/crops of the whole document as images with alpha, not a selected thing only. It definitely worked some time ago .

Or maybe just a crop tool to crop document borders or match a certain object. I remember Xara allowed to move document borders, bring it back too please

[Big Frank]

To be exported as png with alpha or even tga with alpha . So it could be possible to export a parts/crops of the whole document as images with alpha, not a selected thing only. It definitely worked some time ago .

Or maybe just a crop tool to crop document borders or match a certain object. I remember Xara allowed to move document borders, bring it back too please

i agree it would be nice to have all of the above
those of us who work in both print and web would find this useful

[handrawn]

To be exported as png with alpha or even tga with alpha . So it could be possible to export a parts/crops of the whole document as images with alpha, not a selected thing only. It definitely worked some time ago .

you can export page area, or drawing as a whole without selection, not just selections [options are in the export dialog box] - make sure colour depth is 'true colour plus alpha' if you want alpha preserved

Or maybe just a crop tool to crop document borders or match a certain object.

this is called clipview - you will find it in the help

I remember Xara allowed to move document borders, bring it back too please

can still do this I think - go to options page size tab and make sure 'lock page size' is unticked


[above comments applied to designer pro]

[handrawn]

you should not be doing this on guide layer as pointed out in other thread:

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...636#post508636

[KIR23]

thanks for "lock page size" hint. to bad it still doesn't allow to move top and left border

Clip view is not really a workaround since it messes all the document layers structure which often is important to keep , we need somethings similar on the top of the whole document/page .

[wizard509]

can still do this I think - go to options page size tab and make sure 'lock page size' is unticked

Yes it can at least XP&GD 10 can, don't know about the pro version since it's not out yet but I assume it could also.


KIR23 I fail to understand. If you want to export the entire page why not set it up the way you want from the beginning and set the margin for the left side. Why would you need to preserve the layers? If you save the document as a xar file then you would have all that information anyway. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the way I see it.

[handrawn]

I can see reasons for preserving layers but you can always use a duplicate document - and there are other ways as mentioned - but hey if KIR23 does not want to do it the current xara way maybe should be using something else, or sticking with the older versions if they do actually work differently - changing workflow is not most peoples preferred option after all...

[KIR23]

KIR23 I fail to understand. If you want to export the entire page why not set it up the way you want from the beginning and set the margin for the left side. Why would you need to preserve the layers? If you save the document as a xar file then you would have all that information anyway. Maybe I'm wrong but that's the way I see it.

One big plus of Xara is that it allows to easily and quickly recompose a new texture or game interface form old assets. Every color correction is stores in objects directly which you could just paste in other objects without having a huge mess of adjustment and "smart" layers. Anything done in Photoshop or Mari turns into a huge pile of layers where even author can't find anything after a week or so. Working with other people psds is just a big pain in the ....

Having all this said I still find layers in Xara documents somehow important for further work with assets. Doing export from an other document page is a workaround but I try to explain why it's not that easy also. I am doing slicing not only because of INTERNET ( game assets could easily be gigabytes) but mostly a way textures are created.

For example I need to do a road texture and a dirt edge next to it and then another part of pure grass. For game engine it should be 3 different images/textures. But the dirt part should consist both grass and road edge so it's reasonable to do all in a single document and then export 3 properly sized parts. ok . I can do it with clip view on separate page. but I need to recreate the same clip for normal map version and specular map version of the texture too ( and depth one for DirectX11) on other pages

Then I import resulting textures into my game engine and it looks like I need to change the scale of details on my textures. Ok, no problem. Xara is fully non destructive . But ... I need to go back to layered document again and do all the clip routine again. Especially if the grass/asphalt part is shared within several output images. And such small tweaks may be countless and takes hours. That's the PROBLEM

ps. my example of road/edge/grass doesn't need an alpha really until it's a special transparent layer of macro/micro details in a game . But in a lot of other cases it's a must. And I am not even talking about tga files. Those I have to turn my png in . Xara can't wright alpha in tgas. So basically I am working in Xara only with assets I know precisely would not require an alpha

[handrawn]

ok - thanks, that's a bit clearer - if the problem is getting the export to pick up the background, but preserve alpha, have you tried using a chroma key method and deleting the chroma colour once the export is made - not ideal depends on the art you are making, but just a thought

[KIR23]

ok - thanks, that's a bit clearer - if the problem is getting the export to pick up the background, but preserve alpha, have you tried using a chroma key method and deleting the chroma colour once the export is made - not ideal depends on the art you are making, but just a thought

That chroma key method could works probably with some kind of image magic or anything batch processing tool. It actually looks ok on video composing. But for game textures, especially not so hi res ones for tablet games, it would gives a noticeable coloring halo around non transparent pixels.


ps. I figured recently that Xara never did what I asked. It was my misconception just because it works sometimes with a guide object covering underling things completely, everything is selected and nothing is shared with another slice . Still would be a great thing I would love to see in Xara.