Features you most want in XaraX

[Sheff]

If I'm going to make minor changes to a bitmap that I've imported, brightness/contrast/saturation etc. I don't want to lose the alpha channel because Xara is incapable of applying any filters to 32 bit images. As it stands in order to make adjustments to 32 bit images, I have to exit and do it in Photoshop.

I also would like to be able to change the fill of an object with in a mould without losing the perspective of the fill when I do so. It's a pain having to clone a moulded object just so you can copy and paste the perspective/envelope. Also, even when you go through those steps, you still lose the basic shape and perspective.

Sheffield Abella
sheff@sheff.com
www.sheff.com

[Squeaky]

I would VERY much like moulds to work better especially with profiled lines. I still occasionally get my get my fills vanishing when I apply a mould!
Annoying becauses it is a great tool. I bet Xara could make it even better with more than 4 control points, and a more structured way to control perspective. (maybe setting vanishing points that moulds can snap to?)

Home sweet home:
Http://www.squeakypics.co.uk
http://www.xaraxone.com/FeaturedArt/dc3/index.htm

[gdavidson]

Dave, I'm right with you on that one!

Freehand 10 has got a clever perspective tool where you can drag any perspective plane to the desired position and then hang objects on it where they immediately acquire the appropriate perspective. It's rather like hanging pictures on a wall/floor!

The only down side is that that you can't have planes other than the X,Y and Z axis. i.e. putting a circle of the side of a pyramid wouldn't be natively possible.

A beefed up version of Freehand's perspective tool would be quite good, methinks [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

--
Graeme

[Sheff]

Wouldn't it be great if you could have perspective control of an object separate from moulds? If you create an object it's default perspective would be flat, but if you wanted to add perspective you could just drag either corners or vanishing points to manipulate objects and still have them be editable objects. The way I see it, or rather would like to see it, your objects would have attributes;color, fill, line weight, transparency, etc, just add perspective as an attribute.

Then you create 3d looking scenes and simply move a global vanishing point(s). Objects you'd build could potentially be set to snap to global vanishing points.

This way you'd have the ILLUSION of 3d without actually having 3d. For the majority of what I do, I don't need radiosity or motion mixing, etc.

You just need to be able to make your drawing LOOK RIGHT.

As it is, you can fake 3d by creating perspective grids on the guide layer, and snapping your objects to them, but if you have to change perspective, it's a horrible nightmare.

Xara already has the ability to fake lighting and texture. I think I'm not too far off in asking for this.

I'm not proposing that Xara become a 3d app, but this is all about illusion. Xara 3d, is nice and all, but it's very limited.

Sometimes you just need to do a nice vector drawing in perspective and sometimes the client wants to change the perspective.

Imagine typing some text and extruding it and then being able to move the extrusion my moving the vanishing point. That's assuming that the extrusion is in perspective.

I like the program, Sketchup and I'm seriously considering getting it and it would be nice if Xara had more 3d features, like DXF import, export etc.

Also speaking of fake lights. One of my tricks is to clone an object that has a bitmap fill, apply bitmap effects to the fill to increase brightness, and use that fill on the cloned object and add elliptical transparency. I do just the opposite to make a light object look darker, just that the elliptical transparency goes from transparent center to opaque, rather than the usual default elliptical transparency. This is something that I do A LOT.

I wish there was a way to hit a button and "add light." Either by default, or enabling me to create a series of actions that I can repeat at a push of a button. It would be nice to be able to do actions like Photoshop and assign them to a button.

And spell checking would be nice. It would also be nice to have the choice when selecting text to "copy text". Every time I try to paste from Xara into an office app it pastes a graphic. Sometimes I just want to paste text.

Or am I just rambling....?

Sheffield Abella
sheff@sheff.com
www.sheff.com

[sgiff]

OK, the features I most want are:
CMYK output for Bitmaps etc.
Photoshop export to Layers
A node reduction feature for imported vectors
An extrusion feature that also creates volumetric
lights like the following two links:Luce (get it it's free)
Flair Plugin
More transparency modes like Photoshop has i.e. Screen, Soft-light, Hard-Light etc.
Better/more warping enveloping controls

I guess that's about all for now.

[sgiff]

When you perspective mould a bit map the edge of the bit map loses it's antialiasing. Please fix this.
s.g.

[sgiff]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Risto Klint:
... Dale!

I though the screaming button idea was brilliant too... it could help relieve a lot of stress!

I'm not sure it makes a lot of business sense for Xara Ltd. to implement it though [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

But I would sure love to have it...

Risto

risto@ristoklint.com)

http://www.ristoklint.com

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You know, in my experience that screaming button would be much more appropriate in Adobe Illustrator which is about as fun as getting your teeth pulled. Xara would be much better off having a "oh, Yeah!" button since that is how I feel every time I start to do an illustration.

s.g.

[philhendry]

I'd just like one little thing added- to be able to alter the startup defaults- you know- black fill, line width 0.5pts, etc. Just like the way I seem to remember being able to do in the days of CorelXara...

...Then I wouldn't have to go through the same tiresome ritual *every* time I start the program, start a new drawing, open an old drawing, etc.

Not a whole lot to ask I think?

Phil

Trust the computer industry to shorten 'Year 2000' to 'Y2K'. It was this sort of thinking that caused the problem in the first place.

[Sheff]

I'd like to see gradients along a path. I'd like to be able to have a linear gradient follow a path that I create within an object.

And I don't want to use a brush work around. I figure, if you can do a gradient in an ellipse, circle, cone and line, then a path shoudn't be too far off.

One of the reasons I don't use Xara very much to create figures is that it takes too long to create shapes. It's much easier to paint in a bitmap program like painter or photoshop.

The problem is, you have to paint with very sharp edges and then do a trace to get it into Xara. And regardless of whatever trace program you use, you spend a hell of a lot of time doing cleanup. It seems you can't get a really accurate trace without an ungodly number of nodes/points.

What I would like to see is a way of creating shapes by painting with the brush so that you can create organic and abstract shapes with the wacom pen and eraser tool and then do a convert to shape command. This is the easiest way I can think of to bring this function to Xara.

I'm not proposing full-on bitmap painting within Xara, I'm just proposing a single color, pressure sensitive hard edge paint function within Xara. That should be less taxing on the system than thousands of objects with transparency in a brush on a line.

Most of the time, you have to create vector shapes with the pen or line tool. I'd like to be able to brush my shapes and adjust brush size on the fly. What would be nice in that regard would be an ability to hit a key combo and drag to the brush size you want.

What would really be cool is if you could not only brush abstract shapes that you create from bitmaps, but also turn shapes back into bitmaps so you can edit them and turn them back.

Once you've created your shapes, you can play with color, transparency and feathering.

And if Xara had a real timeline, you could make minor adjustments to the frames and have an animation.

I don't know where Xara is going, so that's why I'm proposing everything I want whether or not it's practical or realistic.

With Xara modules, it seems that they're more focused on the web rather than print so I'd like to see either better integration with Flash or have them add animation and sound to their Flare plugin.

The way it works now is too time consuming and unreliable.

Any opinions on this proposal?

Sheffield Abella
sheff@sheff.com
www.sheff.com

[This message was edited by Sheffield Abella on September 05, 2002 at 10:37.]

[jclements]

I think you have some intriguing ideas.

Perhaps there would be a way of having variable feathering along an object's edge (the variability of the feathering linked to the presssure sensitivity and pen angle ?).