3. Limiting path angles to one or two planes?

Limiting path angles to one or two planes?


  • Is there a way to constrain and limit the brush and pen tool nodes into a preset angle? This might be more in line with isometric design. I thought of it when I am trying to vector a photo of a car or building where proper perspective is key. Right now I would have to rotate the picture to make sure the lines are at 90 degrees.

    I could see it working two ways - one where I set an angle path and all strokes and brush lines made after are restricted to that specified angle. I'd have control over how long the stroke is and where the nodes go and I could only deviate from that pre-set angle if I was clicking and going the another direction. Maybe allow it to set a vertical and a horizontal that it is constrained to as I draw and a toggle to turn it off entirely if I want to draw freely and go back to it later. This way I could just place an image to trace and use a guide to line up a row of windows for example as they recede. and I would know every line is exactly at the same angle
    The other cool way I was envisioning was the ability to set perspective points - with one, two and three point prospective.
    I know Illustrator has a crazy almost unusable grid - that's not what I'm thinking. I also know Affinity has done a lot with their isometric design function. So what I am thinking might be tied to a larger isometric tool set.

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  • administrators

    @Boldline Isometric grid and perspective groups are planned for a future version (after v1).
    The pencil and brush tools are not sensitive to grid or guideline, as they are for free painting.

    There are a couple of other things that can be used now to achieve similar results.
    Use the line tool to draw lines, clicking on the end of an existing line will continue with a new line.
    The result can be decorated with any brush from the brush panel.
    Guidelines and grids can be rotated to any angle. There can be multiple grids assigned to an artboard at different angles.
    To rotate guidelines, drag from an ending (close to the document view margin), or use the Guideline panel.
    This, combined with the line tool could be close to what is needed.

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  • Thanks for the tips and info - I found the grid option and I also found where I can snap to the grid. I like how I can add or move and rotate individual guide lines.

    I get what you are saying about using the line tool. That's probably a better option if we're working on a grid.

    You may have alluded to this being part of the post beta additions, but even with the line tool, I'd love to have a way to constrain any lines created to a set angle. right now it relies on a guideline or grid line being in the exact spot, or I make the line and slide it over into position.

    Could the grid panel offer a preview toggle before committing? Could an option be added to automatically set the angle from the grid panel? like if I wanted the grid to be at a 45 degree angle, I could set that in the grid creation panel?
    I saw where I could individually select each grid line holding shift and then move them in unison and the angle is shown as I adjust - that is good. Though it can seem a little tedious to have to manually select each one I want to edit. Could we change the color of the guidelines? that way of we did one set in one direction and then added another set over top, they are easily distinguishable?
    I'm not seeing how I can make more than one set of guidelines. When I add one set and then go back in to make another, it replaces the current set. I also tried adding a new layer and doing it there, but that didn't work either.

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  • @Boldline You can change the guidelines (and grid) color from the Document Settings (the Document button), under the Guides tab.

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  • Thanks @b77 - Thanks for the input. I found the guideline panel by double-clicking the guide line. is there a better way to bring that up? When I look under the main panels option, I did not see it listed there. I found where the document settings were inside the guides tab. The first time I tried to change the color it didn't work. not sure if it was me or not...
    the second time I tried, I did it with the screen capture recording and it worked. Here's the video for that

    Twice before I recorded, VS shut down on me as I was trying to edit and delete guide lines with the delete key. The first time it didnt give me a crash report to reply to, but the second time it crashed, the option came up to report the situation.

    Now that I know where to change the color of the guides is - I'm glad it's there so I can edit the guides after I commit to them. I think I might still consider a color option on the initial creation panel as well... not sure if that's too redundant! Certainly a preset to set the angle and a preview would be awesome from the guide line set up panel.
    It would be nice if we could have a "select all vertical" guides and the same for horizontal from the document settings so we don't have to grab each one individually
    An option to warp the guidelines would be cool - where we could pull the guides closer at one side and move them further apart at the other - things like that. though that might be part of the perspective plans for post beta-release.

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  • administrators

    @Boldline The Guidelines and Grid panels can be found in the Panels -> Editing menu.
    Guidelines and grids are separate things, maybe in this case grids are better suited.
    The angle for the grid can be set in the Grid panel.

    A bit about guidelines: these are organized into guideline groups. There can be multiple guideline groups.
    In the Guideline panel the top row edits the guideline group name (or selects a guideline group for listing in the panel).
    New groups can be created for the whole canvas (visible on all artboards) or the current artboard.
    The panel lists the guidelines from the selected group only, but the other guidelines remain visible and active in the document.
    Each guideline group can have different color.
    The easiest way to create guidelines is to drag them from the ruler.

    About grids: these are configured using the Grid panel (or the Artboard Options).
    By default a single grid is created for the canvas, and one for each artboard.
    Multiple grids at different angles can be created with the Edit Grid command from the Grid panel menu.
    Use the Add Grid button there to add new grids, but set a different angle to make them visible.

    I will try to replicate the crash, but could not so far. But I got the crash reports.

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  • administrators

    @Boldline About the video: when the guideline panel opens, intialy it shows the canvas guidelines (see the top row).
    But the guidelines were created on the artboard. To list these, select the Artboard Guidelines frop the drop down list in the top row.

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  • administrators

    @Boldline BTW: isometric grid is already doable with a bit of clicking. Just add two grids at the required angles with the Edit Grid command from the Grid panel menu.

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