Look at this vector program Sketchbook Designer

[Sheff]

I would love to see fills like these in Designer Pro.

If these features were implemented, I would predict that a ton of industrial designers would start using Xara. But first and foremost, it would need to be more friendly to people who draw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1F9y...yer_detailpage

The thing that I like other than applying a mould to a gradient fill is the idea of saving multi color fills like saving brushes in the line gallery. It would make sense to be able to save fills. Currently, i go back and find old designs and copy and paste attributes to apply a custom fill I made in the past.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqhyY...yer_detailpage

Looking at the way it does transforms and perspective, It makes Xara's mould tool look positively clunky.

Also notice how there is an eraser function.

This symmetry tool blows my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0hmS...yer_detailpage

Currently, I'm holding off on getting it because 1) it's pricey, and 2) a lot of reviewers have mentioned that it's unstable and crash prone. But if it were solid and reliable, I would probably get it.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

That looks cool. Many of the functions seem very similar to Xara's representation.

The symmetry tool, though would be a wonderful addition to Xara. I can imagine a tool where selecting objects and then clicking "Symmetry" allows a symmetry of those selected objects around any point/line/angle...as well as radial symmetry.

All of these can be done manually... but why?

James

[StevenWWinters]

Very cool stuff there Sheff...

[Albacore]

Is it worth £475? Think how much work you would need to do to get your money back. It's even more expensive than Illy and that is saying something!

[Guest]

Is it worth �475? Think how much work you would need to do to get your money back. It's even more expensive than Illy and that is saying something!

I'm in the lucky situation that I can use that Software for free.
This by the way is possible for every Student and University-Teacher, the license is valid for 36 months... So for me it is definedly worth what I spent .
I believe it's not about money here. Autodesk products are notoriously expensive, the firm wants you to get you into all sorts of other Programs and want to sell subscriptions for their stuff.

This all said: Sketchbook Designer really is a highly interesting program. It lacks all DTP options and can do nothing to Bitmaps apart from displaying them.

That's intentional. Instead the program shines in areas where Xara, Corel and Illustrator have nothing to offer at all. One can blend beautifully between Curves and can interactively smooth them out. This doesn't come along as technical as in CAD-Surface-Modeling, instead it feels very natural. There's awesome reatime Curve-Booleans. So whenever Curves form a closed Domain one can fill it, simple as that.
No Ctrl+1,2,3, Limbo as in Xara, no conversion to Live Paint as in Illustrator. Just fill what's closed. Fills/Gradients btw. automatically get recalculated as soon as Shapes changes.
The Fill widgets are by far the best I have seen in any 2D Graphics Application. And all this is poored into a very slim GUI with working with Graphics Tablets in mind (although I have some issues here).

This all is awesome but I would also have a hard time to pay the full price.
The Xara-Makers imo really should have a close look at SketchBoook Designer. Adobe/Corel are surely too indolent to react in time... I would certainly consider Xara for my Sketching work when the >20 years old fundamental concepts of its drawing tools finally got a significant update. I believe there's quite a bunch of fellow Product Designers who would prefer giving their money to a small british firm instead of feeding the fat and not very friendly Giant.

[gwpriester]

It looks like the next generation of Xara if Xara took itself to the next generation. Xara was one of the first to feature on screen interactive controls. Canvas had some of this, and then Corel ripped off all of Xara's cool interactive features for version 7.

But this puts everything right at your fingertips. The small color wheel at the control point is really a great idea. Kind of like the difference between the controls on a small Cessna and a F-14.

I cannot imagine that Xara does not have a copy of this and is working to figure out how to extend the capabilities of Designer.

The ability to edit envelopes as well as to envelope a gradient fill would be really useful.

[Guest]

Good to hear that from you. You certainly know some of the Guys in charge and could give them a little Nudge or two.

[Sheff]

I started playing with Sketchbook Designer. It's just foreign enough to be annoying. All in all, I'd rather like to see the mould effects on fills be added to Xara. Also, I'd like to be able to save my multicolor gradient fills. But a pencil, a paintbrush and an airbrush would be really awesome basic additions that I'd like to see in Xara.

[MarcT]

Also notice how there is an eraser function.

Only in bitmap mode!

I've played a bit with it and it's definitely has great innovations.
indeed, Deforms are especially interesting

It's nice to see such improvement happening in the illustration field.

The edit curves tools are quite cool, with adjustable sliders and manipulators.
I like really like the combine curves tool, as seen in this video at 1:10
http://www.youtube.com/user/SketchBo.../0/AVr9wBFf3OY

A lot of very good ideas but not all are well implemented.


Plusses

-Innovative transformation tools
-Great curve edit and connection tools
-Gradient deformation
-Variable width strokes
-Skeletal strokes
-One click deletion of crossing segments
-Free Canvas rotation


Minusses

-Cannot select the object as whole, only as segments.
-NO transparencies.
-Variable width controls doesn't work very well (Although the idea is excellent)
-No "outline" vector export of variable width lines
-Quite heavy, and rendered strokes are a bit slow to tweak even on simple projects
-Absolutely no keyboard shortcuts
-Oversimplified controls at times, there is neither bezier or bspline type direct point curve controls.


Similar creative tools combined with Xara's flexibility, speed, lightness and stability would be quite something.

Marc

[Blackthorne]

Sketchbook Designer Pro is very cool and has some of the most unique implementations of the standard pen tool I have ever seen.

A warning tho, it is absolutely PLAGUED with glitches. Expect a lot of crashing, and, if you are not using a high ebd Wacom brand tablet expect compatibility issues.

In fairness , the version I used was one of the trials at rollout time, but, honestly it was to unstable to bother with. Its probably been updated since then.

I am not a big fan of Autodesk, thier prices seem high and Macrovision has made me want to puke since C-Dilla slithered it's way into my hard drive back in the Discreet days and hogged all my memory. Lol