Xara simultaneously building out vector and bitmap in v6

[Tallis]

I've seen a lot of talk about who likes what direction in Xara 6, and how Xara is ruining the product with too much bitmap feature development, or whatnot.

I wholeheartedly agree with the posts about being conservative- I've seen way too many products either become, or even be born, huge memory-hog monsters, capable, but so feature packed, that the errors and slowness counteracted any benefit from the "kitchen sink" concept.

I don't know if I'll buy 6 or not, but all my brain needs is speed, and if Xara can add features and not reduce the nimbleness of the product, then who can complain? Again, this would be the 20% of the 80/20 rule that's prevalent in the market-- the 20% being features added without slowing the product down to a molasses pace, like many many products out there, including many of Magix' own.

To illustrate the need for simultaneous vector and bitmap feature development, look at this guy's work. I don't know anything about him other than he was mentioned on a design blog. There are many more out there.

http://www.alexvaranese.com/work/pl#amv_pl_asymptote

There are many many places where vector concepts and bitmap content coexist and create an unmistakable synergy. Vector and bit map (and web!) can all live together in world harmony, as long as the bloat is kept away.

Say no to bloat, yes to progress!

[gwpriester]

Excellent examples.

What is all boils down to is the creativity and vision of the artist. Great tools are only great tools. I have seen excellent artwork done in Adobe Illustrator and I am always amazed because even though Illustrator has many more tools than Xara Xtreme/Designer, But Xara has always had the tools that mattered and you can see the difference in some of the excellent way users have used those tools to create some exceptional art.

[MarkMyWords]

To be honest, if every vector program were as fast as Xaras, I would see little real need for bitmap software. I have said before that Xtreme could well have been the program to make bitmap editors almost redundant, because of it's vector speed.

Unfortunately they don't follow my corporate advice and tend to do what they want instead. Hard to believe, I know, but they seem to be doing okay.

[highfrontier]

Like many others, I also switch in and out of 2d, 3d, vector, raster.. and necessarily, the lines between them are blurring. The first company to offer a true and capable hybrid vector/raster should do very well in future.. this is a holy grail that not just Xara is going after :
Alias Sketch (not sketchbook pro) is a new product that has a long way to go but is offering something similar, though closer to raster than vector and just not up to production work IMHO. Xara are coming at it from the vector end and doing better, again IMHO.
The twin product workflow Adobe solution just doesn't work for me.
I think Xara are going in the right direction (web aside) ;-)

[Markku]

Like many others, I also switch in and out of 2d, 3d, vector, raster.. and necessarily, the lines between them are blurring. The first company to offer a true and capable hybrid vector/raster should do very well in future.. this is a holy grail that not just Xara is going after :
Alias Sketch (not sketchbook pro) is a new product that has a long way to go but is offering something similar, though closer to raster than vector and just not up to production work IMHO. Xara are coming at it from the vector end and doing better, again IMHO.
The twin product workflow Adobe solution just doesn't work for me.
I think Xara are going in the right direction (web aside) ;-)

Thanks for the Alias Sketch tip. That is one amazing looking drawing app! The bitmap/vector integration seems truly fluid and being a 3D house they've actually borrowed some tricks from 3D like real time mirroring.

The new Xara apps are great and the staff should take a much earned vacation. While on vacation I would suggest a summer camp where they would study a number of 3D apps and benchmark if there are any features in those 3D apps that Xara could implement in order to meet demands for new drawing features. I bet they would find plenty.