New feature idea - Seamless tile generator

[angelize]

Let me put it this way, for those who do web design this feature would be a great help, in this quick screen shot I used a trial version of seamless factory to quickly create 3 very different tiles from the same group of quick shapes, copied and pasted from XDP to Seamless Factory and in less than 5 mins created the different repeating tiles took screenshots and pasted them back into Xara (the trial of SF has the save function disabled) now imagine being able to do this directly from Xara, and then be able to set the tile as a web page background. You could quickly make seamless tiles from photos, vector drawings, etc. Imagine taking your website client"s logo and quickly turning it into a repeating background for their site with out needing to spend time precisely aligning multiple copies, which if are even slightly out will not tile correctly!

I would love to hear from John Horn or one of the other Xara developers what their impressions of this are.

[Big Frank]

I would rather Xara spent their time and resources on one of the many neglected vector features people have been asking for for years, like for example the ability to create your own line styles, I find the ones supplied to be sorely limiting.

[angelize]

we have all been wanting that one for a long time, I've given up hope that we will get it.

[iamtheblues]

and that says something.. no?...

I have to disagree Steve, the fact that this is a niche market (as evidenced by the likes of the seemingly inert Pattern Studio) means that the features should be adopted by a company (Xara/Magix) that has a big enough fan base and is not a one-trick pony, so that the feature could well be absorbed into the program, survive and thrive.

No mention yet of Filter Forge (v 3.0 in beta) which seem to be doing OK, or TextureMaker (last update July 2007) which doesn't.
Bob.

[ODdOnLifeItself]

I am of the same opinion as Frances.

Tiling images is something that is useful for 2D artists (and web designers) as much as for 3D artists. It's not a niche, this "effect" would have universal appeal.

Seeing the image tiling AS you are editing it makes sure that it is done right and allows precision that working on the single tile alone does not afford. Most web pages need a background and this effect would allow infinite possibilities and a wysiwyg way of achieving it. Sounds right up Xara's alley for cool, new ideas with a lot of usefulness.

I have used the manual methods, as mentioned here as well as what I would call the "repeat and displace" options and though they OFTEN work, it is far from ideal and it is time consuming. As Xara is the "fastest drawing program", it seems the perfect home for this type of plug-in/effect.

Just playing for a short time with seamless tile editor (as per Frances' initial post) shows that there are many very creative, aesthetically pleasing patterns that can "pop up" while experimenting.

Additionally, when using this to make TILES, it only makes sense to be able to see them AS TILES while editing.

What a really cool addition it would make.

Those that are suggesting manual methods over the power of these types of plug-ins, just do not fully understand. (imo)

I know this isn't a democracy, but more than any other "wished for" feature for Xara (that I have read), I really would like to see this one see the light of day. It gets my vote "best addition to Xara with far-ranging potential."

Peace

James

[handrawn]

Hi Bob nice to hear from you, as a long term user and creator of tiles on this forum

I have no idea whether this is a niche market or not - but it seems that there is difficulty in getting the idea off the ground in the market place was all I meant

I think I fully understand the point that is being made about seamless tile editors - and my response is 'fine' lets use a specialist third party one

I am not saying this of anyone posting here, but I am often amused by those who on the one hand say the program is the fastest one around and on the other hand want bells and whistles bolted on left right and centre

Yes it could be done as a plugin or a live effect - mind you as many moan about live effects as they do about bloat...

Perhaps it could be done as a separate program - like xara3D - except I'm not sure Xara are up for that

[Guest]

Handrawn,
again, please don't take offense but I believe you are drastically over-complicating things.
All there was required was an option to redraw dumb instances of items which are already rendered inside the Buffer.
We are living in times where 3D Programs replicate thousands of people, all with motion capture applied and lets them
walk on a Street with Collision Detection. Even a Beginner can script the required Repeat-Function for Seamless tiling inside
CAD-Programs.

There's no separate program required but just a "tile" checkbox inside the GUI which could work on anything displayed on the current page.
Anyone who doesn't need to tile anything could leave that Box unchecked forever.

[spline]

As a graphic artist I find myself needing to create textures or pattern time and time again.

A repeating function would be very useful.

When it comes to making repeating pattern in vector. Artlandia is the best. But its very expensive.

And you dont need those mirror, cyclic kind of patterns that artlandia have, since you can create them yourself if you just can make an image repeat.

http://www.artlandia.com/products/SymmetryWorks/

Now that xara has clones, it should be a bit easier to just make this function.

But I agree, we also need customizable lines.

[handrawn]

polyxo:

hopefully no offence anywhere - we are just discussing

yes I can see that you think I am over complicating things , but what I am not doing is over simplifying things

these dumb instances that you require redrawn are redrawn in real time - right? - otherwise there is not much point in the exercise a I see it

so then you have to take into account why xara designer has 'one of the fastest rendering engines on the planet' - it was specially written in machine code

now all this may be completely irrelevant - I don't know - but what I am not going to do is assume that it would be easy to make the modifications you suggest work

good luck though, I can see that it would be appreciated

[Guest]

hopefully no offence anywhere - we are just discussing

Good.
Well, I think Assembler has already done its work when something is ready to be displayed.
Instancing is a super fast thing, one doesn't need much Memory, Multiprocessing or a super fast machine.

It does not play a role speed-wise to display one cube on Screen or 10000 and File-Size doesn't get much larger
than the original Cube. I'll gladly set up an example for you.