It's time; I had enough with Inkscape. Its quality has been decreasing with each new update. Speed never was its strength, but it has reached a point that I have to wait several seconds whenever I want to move the view with filters active. Then there are the bugs; for some reason, changing blend modes between layers stopped updating the viewport unless I use zoom in-out to force a refresh. Other problems include vector glitches - the image below shows what I'm getting when zooming in the rectangle on the left.
For extra fun, the latest update of Inkscape crashes while opening my latest Inkscape files, and this my friend, was the last nail on its coffin. Therefore, this week was all about finding a replacement for Inkscape. After checking out some alternatives and running some tutorials, I really thought I was fraked finding something as efficient and easy to work with at a decent price. Adobe Illustrator offers a complete mess of UI, while CorelDRAW offers a clumsy experience with poor Grid management, both coming at a very high cost to the point it insults hobbyists. So, I was forced to extend my search for less-established solutions.
Alas, fortune hit yesterday! Affinity Designer is a nearly perfect experience. Its UI is simply amazing and it has a very good grid management system. In a single afternoon, I became nearly as proficient using it as I'm currently with Inkscape, which I've been using for 7 years.
Affinity Designer packs all the features I need for UI design in a more convenient way when compared with Inkscape itself. Its only drawback is its inability to trace images, but I guess I can use Inkscape for that. I really thought that it would be an expensive solution, but its single-purchase license of less than 30€ was too good to be true! In other words, it costs roughly the same as a monthly subscription of Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw!
So, for now, I'm redoing some work using the new software, but since I'm now on vacation for the next 2 weeks, I might have something to show next week.
Happy vacation, and glad to hear you found a good replacement. Why would you have to redo art you've already created, though?
ReplyDelete@Moorkh thanks! There are files I'm now unable to open with Inkscape. I can open them with older versions of Inkscape, but then, they crash when I change anything, like simply moving any object.
DeleteApart from this, Inkscape has become very slow with that many layers and I still need to add more. When I say slow, I mean looking at the screen for several seconds waiting for my keyboard commands and mouse clicks to register; it has reached a non-functional state that gets on my nerves vastly affecting production speed.
The good news is that, it will be about replicating and not designing. The latter is what consumes all the time.
Nice! I've been getting a lot of 'use Affinity' signals from various source recently. I'd like to make the transition from PS, which I've been using for both vector and pixel since 20 years ago (sheesh). Unfortunately, I have a specific automated process that uses a library of linked smart images and that's not supported by Affinity, as far as I could tell. It seems like a real competition to Adobe, though, who's been choking its apps with that dreaded Creative Cloud. Ugh, so corporate...
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the vacation!
@shoTgun indeed. I completely dislike subscriptions and all that cloud business as an extra excuse to bump up prices. But what bothers me most is the lack of attention hobbyists get from such companies.
DeleteI have this "crazy" idea that creative software should only be paid when you produce something for commercial purposes. Either this or just take the route that Affinity designer does it making is reasonably accessible for the majority of people living in planet Earth.
I agree. Adobe are selling you the whole 'pro experience' as part of their package, regardless of what you actually do with it. I guess they got up inside their own heads after being so long as the industry standard, but CC was the beginning of the end... https://youtu.be/78yigV0GYGQ
ReplyDeleteIt was/is just a matter of time before a fresh and user-friendly developer offers what they don't.
@shoTgun damn! That video was cringy to look at. Thanks for sharing it.
ReplyDelete