InsideQC Forums

Inkscape is a free and open source 2D vector graphics application. There are scattered tutorials on it here and there. It is under active development.

http://www.inkscape.org/





Be sure to turn on gridlines and snap to grid and select the option to make the mousewheel zoom in and out.

Can add and combine shapes and takes maybe an hour of learning curve. Then it is easy.

I took a class on Adobe Illustrator, vector graphics are just plain fantastic. Also, as far as open source tools (as an alternative) go I find Inkscape is miles closer to Illustrator quality than GIMP is to Photoshop quality.

DP can't load a vector format (thats not ttf) can it?

GiffE wrote:I took a class on Adobe Illustrator, vector graphics are just plain fantastic. Also, as far as open source tools (as an alternative) go I find Inkscape is miles closer to Illustrator quality than GIMP is to Photoshop quality.

Inkscape sure is better than what GIMP is compared to what it aspires to be. But I always hold out hope for the future.

I did notice that Inkscape doesn't save PNG files with an alpha channel, which means I have to open the SVG Inkscape creates in GIMP and then save it as PNG to preserve the alpha channel.

[It would be cool if a Quake engine supported SVG ... an end to the "crappily rendered 2D graphics element" problem seen in all engines when the resolution doesn't match the ideal ... or so I imagine.]

Someone add support for vector image format loading to DP please.

Baker wrote:I did notice that Inkscape doesn't save PNG files with an alpha channel, which means I have to open the SVG Inkscape creates in GIMP and then save it as PNG to preserve the alpha channel.

Either your build is old or buggy or you did something wrong. Make sure the canvas is transparent (Document Properties).

Urre wrote:Someone add support for vector image format loading to DP please.

I wouldn't be surprised if this happened. I also wouldn't be surprised if it used another third-party library! But that's how she goes. An engine should support vector graphics, anyway, it's true. You should be able to load it up in the year 2080, with a 1048576 x 786432 pixel monitor and it should still look good.

SVG would be nice if it wasn't just XML.

Spirit wrote:

Baker wrote:I did notice that Inkscape doesn't save PNG files with an alpha channel, which means I have to open the SVG Inkscape creates in GIMP and then save it as PNG to preserve the alpha channel.

Either your build is old or buggy or you did something wrong. Make sure the canvas is transparent (Document Properties).

Using current version, tried making the canvas transparent or even not. PNG files still appear to save with no alpha channel.

I can deal with it though by saving as SVG and converting it to PNG with GIMP.