Affinity Designer Mesh Warp Distortion Tool

Hi there!

DISCLAIMER: First of all, this is not another "bring the Mesh Warp / Distort Tool right now!" Topic. I'm not asking the Team to give us an estimated time of arival... None of that. It's something different, hinted in the Title.

INTRODUCTION & INTENTIONS

The purpose of this Topic is to share my thoughts and considerations, specially with @MattP, the talent behind this and some other great Features, to keep in mind when developing this. Why? The reasons are simple:

Some of us are more than impatient to have this Feature available.
It's been on the Roadmap for so long...
Many need this and they are all in into Designer and lefting [Design Application] behind.

There are high hopes and so much anticipation. And it's in the Dev Team plans. That's all good, but... is the gap between the Dev Team idea and the users need really been closed, even narrowed? When realeased, will it be what a lot of people are expecting? That's the key point that might turn things ugly here in the Forums.

So, I want to open a relaxed discussion to talk about needs, capabilities and workflow. I will do so by diving the kins of distortions I know in 3:

TYPE ONE

Miscellanous Specific Forms Distortions:

Topic 1: Arc Warp . @TonyB confirmed it will be doable as some other transformations. Said feature works like this for texts (but also for shapes), in Illustrator 2019 and on other Apps like PSE 10:

The other transformations available are this ones. Available on both Apps but they don't work exactly in the same way:

Now, the thing about these transformations (and the other Types) are these ones: Control and configuration . They are done through a set of parameters, not through a Mesh like the one in Affinity Photo. so, it's not just that it's doable , but that it's repeatable and done with a degree of presicion . And of course, it has to be editable and resetable , or as it's called nowadays: live . For example, trying to do it through a Mesh is not that great (the red one is done by hand after a lot of struggle, and it's no good):

That's the Arc Warp but imagine this for all kind of options known to man.

TYPE TWO

The next thing is about Perspective, whis is another popular requested feature.

Topic 2. This is really clear as what it has to do. Not just of one object, but for an entire Group, to do a pseudo 3D thing.

On this one, DrawPlus does a good job and offers interesting options, like the slider on the Top part, and it gives the sens of working with a 3D object.

The one in Illustrator does its part, but once you transform an object, you can't have the original back, so it's a destructive effect (making this a live feature would be awesome).

If the angles of "rotation" can be in the form of parameters and mouse control , would make it cover all scenarios.

TYPE THREE

The last kind of Distortion people ask for in the forums is the Free Transform.

Topic 3. This is the one that sounds more like the one currently present for bitmaps in Photo or the Envelop Tool in DrawPlus. Personally, this is the least I am interested in, but it has its uses and would make this feature as robust as it can be.

I see there are two variations to this feature:

One with the handles, as seen on the previous pictures.
One with "sharp" cornes, without the handles (it's almost like a Perspective Distortion, but I present it like a different one because with a perspective you should be able to maintain the aspect ratio, with this one you can go beyond that).

In Illustrator, the Free Distort Effect does this in the "sharp corner" fashion, turning it to semi-curves in some extreme distortions:

As with the previous ones, the ability to reset and edit the effect on already distorted objects, would be gold.

SUMMARY

As I said, when talking about Distortions / Warping, most people have one or more of the three I showed. So, I leave some key points:

Having all of the three types listed above in Designer is the best thing that can happen in this regard to Serif and us the Users.
Also, having the ability to reset, edit and have parameters in some of the cases, would provide absolute control (and enjoyment).
If the Dev Team implements this one after the other and not all in the initial release, even if it's not desirable, is still a good path.
Limiting to one or two of the Three Types "by design" would hurt the product.
Very important: I'm not saying "copy this and copy that", I'm just showing examples of the possible use cases for a Tool like this; however it's implemented, as long as it's logical and feels natural, offering all of the capabilities presented, would be perfect .

So, citing Matt himself:

I want our products to be good in their own right: It's not good enough to be better than 'x' or 'y', you should just be really good and that be the end of the sentence

I expect from you what you have set as your own goal: the best possible Affinity Designer.

Finally, I invite anyone who wants to contribute by bringing examples or something they want for this Feature that I missed.

Best regards!