Printable View
Hey,
Can I add this to my wish list?
Affinity Designer, version 2.5, $70 U.S., no subscriptions, you buy it you own it, and one of the new features, like Illustrator, is a customizable line width. Sort of like XD's Pressure Profiles except users-defined.
Attachment 134856
Can we get right on this to remain competitive? :)
My Best,
Gary
Something that I've been asking for years to Xara. This and a rounding corner tool. :'(
If your object is a square or rectangle created with the Rectangle tool, you can double-click a corner to round it. This isn't what you're requesting, tho', is it?
My Best,
Gary
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marco D
Gary, @Marco is probably more likely to be after the SmartShape capability of Shape 1 or 2 that allows each corner to be convex. concave, diagonal slice or box cut, with this available for any shape that has a cusp vertex. Each corner can be individually tuned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gare
For your OP ask about variable width lines, Xara has always had the capability of converting Line to Shape whereupon you have total control of any point along each side of this skinny snake.
Where we miss out is being able to associate the Line control points in a one-to-one relationship with its original shape. Presently you have to Clone the shape, convert the clone to get the line and then tweak both new line and shape to keep them aligned.
I think I would be satisfied with the means to add personalised Stroke shapes.
Presently, I create an Art brush and use that.
If desperate, I try painting with the Shape Painter tool and my graphics tablet.
Acorn
it's only in AD beta at the moment and currently that is rather flakey; but it looks good so far, as good as illustrator if not better; the line profiling tool is clunky in comparison but even that is way better than anything xara can provide
@acorn - there we go again [are you there ChrisM] digging the field with a teaspoon ;) I know that work around are useful to know, but if you are sculpting lines as a matter of course, it is going to take forever...
Question for both OG and Marco: How would you use a feature such as this?
draw cartoon line art in constant weight line and then scultpt them into profiles is what I do [actually in painttool-sai] - it is very quick and it gives smoother lines than handrawn pressure sensitivity once you get the hang of it
I am sorry handrawn but if no one rarely ever mentions what's is possible in Xara, however messy, how are we to compare and decide what we really need? I appreciate your observation - "We are going to need a bigger teaspoon!", to misquote JawsTM.Quote:
Originally Posted by handrawn
If I'm at the teaspoon level, where is @ernie-f with his woodcut designs of Dürer's work - Albrecht Dürer and my passion for woodcut art?
I was setting the scene.
What is being asked for?
The ability to tweak and line at any point or create your own Stroke shapes?
Acorn
no need to be sorry acorn and I was not getting at you
long time ago everone said how quick xara was and how it was not bloatware; I don't see it that way any more, in fact the more I learn the more i think it maybe never was, no reason to disagree
the teaspoon analogy only works if there is a much better way of doing it that is easier and faster; I am inclined to think of ernie-f as being closer to a fine-art painter [such as dali] that sometimes uses a brush with only one hair because it gives more control of fine detail; I don't do fine detail, it is very hard to animate
both approaches work; the artist chooses
from my perspective, if I were to ask it would be both as they both have their uses...
It would be possibly nice to have but in no way a ground breaker as it's fairly limiting in the brush type you can make in my opinion. I prefer the Xara brush which is far more flexible.
not really sure how brushes crept into this thread - sure you can use the tool to make a profiled line and make a brush from that, but it is the making of a profiled line that it is for; design it on the fly, change it on the fly...
Which seems to be the same exercise as using a Xara brush. I'm changing over to a new PC & haven't got AD installed at present. I'll give it a try when I have.
egg:
take a short line, of fixed weight which it has to be in xara, made with the line tool - then imagine just a quick drag on the end with the mouse/pen to bring it immediately to needle point - hey presto, an eyelash
imagine what you could do with such a tool when say, changing the expression on someone's face in a cartoon, or any such drawing situation, quickly, easily, expressively; no need to redraw it, no need to make a new brush, just change it
no need to use a brush at all
@handrawn, methinks you are splitting hairs here. >:)Quote:
Originally Posted by handrawn
Take your same line. Apply something line a Raindrop profile.
Now, switch to the Eraser tool and click-drag through the line in several places. You get lots of little eyelashes.
Each one with its own control points that can be adjusted anyway you like.
Now, change the Softness to a small value 0.1px and when erasing you are instead working with an Opacity Mask so that you can actually split hairs.
Most of these operations are just a click away as well.
Definitely harder to achieve, more so with Lines around Shapes (where Brushes can come into play) but there is an untapped richness here.
Acorn
that was a simplistic example, and besides what if you do not want a raindrop profiled eyelash...
either you get it or you don't, no problem to me if it is the latter; the very fact that Gare thinks it's a good idea might carry some weight [pun intentional] I would have thought, but no matter ;)
@handrawn, I too was describing simplistic and I do understand what you would see as a useful approach for how you draw.Quote:
Originally Posted by handrawn
Others are like @ernie-f and I've seen near photoreal art using fading ellipses with no lines anywhere.
It has to boil down to pick a tool that works for you and use that.
Acorn
I have great admiration for ernie-f, I have neither his skill,nor, his patience
xara's shape tool is way better than afinity designer in the way that it enables you to drag out line segments and move the nodes as you draw and if you could profile the line too, that would be so much better; but I'll grant that if what you are aiming for is a closed shape rather than an open one, then this might seem of limited use
My request were about tools that could be integratedbin Xara like the image in the following attachment.
https://www.talkgraphics.com/attachm...hmentid=129195
and a great suggestion it is too, but I fear the chances are slim