Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler

[creative]

@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.

[michaelokraj]

@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

[fde101]

@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.

[Kumr]

Tables and graphs are necessary for my infographic work. Affinity Suite (Publisher) comes to rescue for tables. I copy and paste graphs from Excel and process them as per the client's requirements. Canva can do both, but I doubt they will bring the graphs feature to AD. I am looking forward to VS adding these features one day.

[Subpath]

@Kumr

Because you mentioned tables and graphs, I had a vague
thought of referring you to “cavalry.” I wanted to at least
mention it.

Here the Link
https://cavalry.scenegroup.co/

[Kumr]

@Subpath Thank you for the link. I will check this app.

[gotanidea]

@syllie said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:

@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.

AD is disappointing in terms of advanced vector illustration features, but its stability, performance and graphic design tools are on a par with Adobe Illustrator's. AD/ VS have their own strengths and weaknesses.

[Kumr]

@syllie Agree. Language support is a mess in AD. I really struggle when adapting artwork to South Indian languages. I use Amandine (https://amadine.com) by Belight Software, which is hardly a 40mb size app and handles it very well.

[Subpath]

@Kumr

just like to add, that "cavalry" is made for procedural vector animation
( sometimes called Mograph for vector animation )

its file saving is a bit unique, instead of saving a file you render it
to save it. But its also possible to copy a Result as .SVG to the
Clipboard to use it in a another app. btw you can also render a
vector animation in lets say 20 single vector files

its for animation but renders also stills, there is a free version
its a offline app (but you need a online account) and some
versions are subscription based

[debraspicher]

@Kumr We are more limited on Windows but our options have improved from what they were before, thankfully.

[Kumr]

@Subpath Its interesting app and have potential. With a little patience, it may be possible to accomplish some (or most) of those effects using VS.

@debraspicher Yes, VS is evolving.

[Subpath]

@Kumr said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:

With a little patience, it may be possible to accomplish some (or most) of those effects using VS.

of course

VS offers many possibilities to do things, thats is why it is my
favorite and main program for vector graphics.

The interesting thing about Cavalry was, for me, the way
how different parameters can be linked to each other.

[Kumr]

@Subpath For all my new projects I'm using VS, slowly moving away from AD. For image editing I am using Pixelmator/Photomator.

Cavalry is definitely interesting in that aspect. One more app may be worth checking out in this context is 'Paragraphic' (still in development) by Lostmids, the same company that developed Vectoraster.

[Subpath]

@Kumr

thanks for the tip, also interesting but its Mac only

In the next few days I will post a possible solution
for Windows users, there is still a bit of work to be done

[Kumr]

@Subpath

They mentioned that it will be a cross platform app. (https://paragraphic.design)

In the next few days I will post a possible solution
for Windows users, there is still a bit of work to be done

I am on Mac but curious about it.

[Subpath]

@Kumr

will let you know

[Bones]

For myself, one of the primary advantages of Designer over VectorStyler is simply performance. I tend to work with more complex vector work/art, and where Designer works absolutely smooth, VectorStyler lags and stutters.

Illustrator, PhotoLine, and Inkscape also perform much better with the same vector files.

Of the lot, Designer and (surprisingly) Inkscape work the smoothest on my Windows 10 system (3080 12GB, AMD 7900X, 128GB Ram).

Inkscape used to be absolutely terrible. But the latest version works smooth and fast.
Dare I say? A tiny bit smoother even than Designer. I can tell now that I work on a 144hz screen.

So, between the various apps my experience is that (with the same complex files) InkScape, Illustrator and Designer allow me to work smoothly with those files. Zoomed in, I reluctantly admit that InkScape actually wins (never thought to see the day).

And I am talking about a huge difference measured in frames per second. Where Inkscape and Designer feel smooth when dragging groups of items and transforming them (50-60fps or more), VectorStyler hits a framerate of:

...3 frames per second...

Illy sits around the 40fps. A tiny bit less smooth to work with.

PhotoLine still hits ~20fps (and speeds up to ~40fps when zoomed out), which is workable. And that app is not optimized for vector editing (more meant for high-end image editing).

All apps tested with the same SVG file.

So while I love VectorStyler's expansive tool set, I'd like to see some dramatic improvements in the performance stakes.

I tried all performance settings in VS, including turning on CUDA, multi-threading for all settings... But CUDA only slowed it down to a crawl, and multi-threading didn't really make much of a difference either.

Perhaps it is only my particular machine, though, that VectorStyler has issues with. Not sure. I read about other accounts on these forums with similar issues, so I am inclined to think it is something about the core of VS that limits its performance.

[gotanidea]

@Bones said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:

For myself, one of the primary advantages of Designer over VectorStyler is simply performance. I tend to work with more complex vector work/art, and where Designer works absolutely smooth, VectorStyler lags and stutters.

Illustrator, PhotoLine, and Inkscape also perform much better with the same vector files.

I've also compared the performances of the vector illustration software with the text below and I believe Inkscape is the most performant one:

Text for performance comparison

To compare their performances, try to add more text into the textbox. For example, type "lorem ipsum dolor sit amet" at the beginning of the text.

[VectorStyler]

@Bones said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:

Illustrator, PhotoLine, and Inkscape also perform much better with the same vector files.

If you have some vector files with performance issues, please send it to csraba at vectorstyler.com I will try to find out what could cause this.

[VectorStyler]

@Bones said in Affinity Designer vs VectorStyler:

including turning on CUDA,

CUDA will not affect vector rendering speed (it is for image effects).

multi-threading for all settings

These are enabled by default.

I also run tests on vector rendering here (all sorts of Macs and Windows) and I did not notice these issues.

There still are some open issues with text editing (under some conditions as shown in the file attached by @gotanidea) and these will be fixed.