Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler
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@Baz101 Just to add to the real vector brush aspect, you get all the brush types: artistic brushes (real vector content stretched over a shape), pattern and scatter brushes (as expected), and bristle brushes also (and you can create your own bristle brush styles).
But there are other things also:
- full support for variable and color fonts.
- a blend effect.
- mesh gradients and gradient along/across stroke.
- complex typesetting features, including vertical typography (and support for Japanese typography).
- you should check the stroke expansion quality in VectorStyler, in terms of the number of nodes.
- and what happens when you delete a node.
- and a lot more.
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@Baz101 said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:
Thanks for the warm welcome @VectorStyler.
I think you will be seeing many Affinity users browsing your website this week
We are making sure, the word get spread
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Take your time, start with Tools you know and look how they work in VS.
Take look at the different Panels in the Panel Menu.
The Panels offer Settings to control/manipulate Tools and Shapes.Open the Shape Panel and put a few different so called Smart Shapes ot the Canvas.
Select the a Shape and look how the Panel Settings change for example.
To take a look in the Tutorial section will also be helpful
to understand some Tools and Features.The search Function of the Forum are also very helpful.
In case you don't know, there is also an Offline PDF manual which @freggern kindly maintains.
Here the Link:https://www.vectorstyler.com/forum/topic/1262/vectorstyler-manual-pdf
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@Subpath Thank you for the tips and link to the manual
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Thank you to all who recommended VS.
I purchased a licence yesterday
and will be familiarising myself with the program over the weekend - got lots to learn (again).Can anyone recommend any channels/video tutorials for a complete beginner ? Is it similar to working with Adobe Illustrator?
Thanks.
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There are certainly similarities with Illustrator. But since I come from Corel Draw,
I'm sure other users can say more about this. However, my recommendation
would be to hold off on making comparisons. Otherwise you just have copy of Illustrator.
I know that many would like something like that
The basic vector graphic tools are the same for all of them. It shouldn't be a big problem
to use tutorials from other vector graphic programs.There aren't many YouTube videos for VS. But VS has a Vimeo channel where you can
check out a few functions and techniques can look at. It may be outdated
(no longer appears on the website) but it can still be helpful.Here the link:
https://vimeo.com/showcase/5806531If you get stuck with something, searching the forum or simply asking questions may help.
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may i ask whats happen with the Vimeo channel
its not link any more on your Website
are they outdated ?
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@Subpath Those recordings are outdated somewhat. Mostly because the UI style has changed a lot.
I will be making later some tutorials on youtube.
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@VectorStyler said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:
Those recordings are outdated somewhat. Mostly because the UI style has changed a lot.
I will be making later some tutorials on youtube.
Talking about that, since my tutorials are obsolete do you want me to take them down from Youtube?
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@Devil-Dinosaur said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:
since my tutorials are obsolete do you want me to take them down from Youtube?
No, I do not think they are obsolete.
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One of the main benefits AD has over VS is its tight integration with the rest of the Affinity apps and the much more extensive raster functionality which is available, both within AD, and through its integration with AP (the ability they have to open and work with each others' files). It is also somewhat more approachable for people who don't want to take the time to learn the more complex interface of VS.
AD also has an entire company behind it (maybe two now?) where VS is a single developer. If someone at Serif gets hit by a car and dies today, there are others who can take their place, and the show can go on - is there a continuity plan in place for VS?
VS on the other hand, as was pointed out, does have a much more extensive feature set than AD in many areas which fall more tightly into its domain (vector artwork), and the pace of development is much faster. If you put the time into learning it there is more that it can do within its own area, but you lose the integration that AD has with the other apps in its suite, with no real replacement for them at this time.
Each has its place with its own set of benefits. I'm taking a "wait and see" approach on what ends up happening with the Affinity apps, though it is certainly nice that if it does flop as many seem to expect, I do have alternatives to fall back on for most things, with VS being a solid alternative as a vector app, and I do maintain a QuarkXPress license for DTP; I think Affinity Photo is actually the one I would miss the most right now. I have Pixelmator Pro, and of course there is GIMP, but I generally have not been as impressed with what I can do with that when trying to actually work on a photo. In particular I would miss the inpainting brush, as I seem to get better results with that than with its equivalents in the other tools I've tried (those that even have equivalents), other than PhotoShop, which is no longer an option due to the subscription model.
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VS has advanced vector illustration features similar to Adobe Illustrator's Live Paint, Gradient Mesh and Blend Tool. Its hotkeys are also almost identical to Adobe Illustrator's. AD doesn't have those features.
However, AD can handle more text and it has a checkbox to easily scale strokes proportionately at any vector drawing phase as Adobe Illustrator has, which is essential for vector illustrations.
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@gotanidea But AD can after all these years still not do RTL text. It is laughable. Just think how much of the world population they exclude as potential users by not having this solved.
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I was always a little surprised that AD was advertised as a
vector graphics software and still think thats a bit misleading.On the other hand, I found the pixel/vector mix quite ok. Although it was a
little strange that there were no real vector brushes. But an isometric studio that
I still love to this day. I also liked experimenting with the symbols too.But I stopped supporting AD when I realized that user are already
waiting years for desired improvements.That's when I looked around and discovered VectorStyler, downloaded
the test version, started the program and suddenly found myself in
a vector graphics candy store. Where everything around me was
full of vector graphics sweets
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@fde101 Agree. What I learned from this week's Serif's betrayal of their community to stay independent, is that actually the Studio Link (and same goes for Adobe Suite), we should NOT use only ONE company as our source for all our work/flows. That said, I am completely switching to tools that are independent of each other and will work, as I started 25 years ago. Back than, I used PageMaker and Quark for dtp, Freehand and Illustrator for Vector, Photoshop for editing.
Curious about your take on QX. You said, you use it still to this day. I am just testing it and considering purchasing the license tomorrow. It feels like home, kind of. Mature. Pro. Very complex. But full of features for details and no BS functionalities.
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@michaelokraj said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:
Curious about your take on QX. You said, you use it still to this day. I am just testing it and considering purchasing the license tomorrow
I also use QuarkXPress as my DTP program. About 10 years ago I was able to upgrade an old 3.32 QuarkXpress license to 9 at a reasonable price and got 10 for free. QuarkXPress 10 has been running very stable for almost 9 years on my macMini under OS X 10.11 together with Illustrator CS4 and Photoshop CS5. I access it via JumpDestop from my current Macbook, which often has a 32" display attached. And VertorStyler ist running too on the old macMini as a backup. The Quark installers are usually running 30 days without activation: https://www.quark.com/support/installers
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As for my research, I only read positive opinions about QX. Furthermore, the fact, it has been here since my days at my university in the 90s is mind-blowing. The lack of public success (kind of) I view as a positive thing. It is not about being loud and vocal and beloved by the masses, but about professionalism. I am so tired of gamification and making software gimmicky, too easy to use as it has to be addressed to the masses, lack of complexity as people are intimidated by it and so on. This is also what I like about VS. It is complex as it is not a toy.
The version 2024 of QX is very stable and so smart. I like it a lot. The last time I tested it, was exactly to this day in March 2018. That version was not my cup of tea. I just cancelled Adobe and wanted to switch to something else. I feel, NOW is a good time to jump into the cold water.
Btw, I started with 3.32, I guess, as everybody did
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@michaelokraj said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:
Btw, I started with 3.32, I guess, as everybody did
Back then, there was really only QuarkXPress, Freehand and Photoshop on Mac. PC's and the upcoming InDesign 1.0 were not taken seriously by professionals. The decline of QuarkXpress began with the spread of Windows in the professional sector. It was also said that Quark was not as stable on Windows.
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@creative There was PageMaker. Which I used to the max. But it was in the shadows of QX to be fair. And for some, Freehand
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@michaelokraj said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:
Curious about your take on QX. You said, you use it still to this day. I am just testing it and considering purchasing the license tomorrow. It feels like home, kind of. Mature. Pro. Very complex. But full of features for details and no BS functionalities.
Pros and cons, like anything else. It is pricy, particularly compared to Affinity Publisher, and the updates come on a subscription so if you stop paying you keep the version you have but might need to start over with a new license to get any further updates later (if you wait too long in between) as they don't just sell outright updates otherwise.
For simpler projects I tend to prefer working in Affinity Publisher or some other suitable application because I find the interface more natural, better designed overall, and easier to navigate. When doing more advanced projects that require features that are still lacking in the Affinity suite, then I have QXP to fall back on, because it can do the job.
I didn't "grow up" with Quark the way some users may have, so if you spent more time using it in the past, you may find the [dis]organization of its pull-down menus to be easier to manage, but from my perspective, things seem to be semi-randomly placed in locations where I would not expect to find them (ex. there are ten items in the Edit menu with names that end "Styles..." even though there is a Style menu right next to the Edit menu; it is a macOS standard that spell checking should be in the Edit menu, but in QXP it is in the Utilities menu, along with word/line counts and the ability to set up Hyphenation Exceptions - even though hyphenation styles are defined using the "H&Js..." command in the Edit menu - a very clear and descriptive name for a menu item...), which is one of the bigger reasons I tend to prefer using something else when the project is less demanding.
