Affinity Photo Bubble effect, how to create ?? Go to the tools panel and select the elliptical marquee tool and then go to the top left and set the mode to add so each selection is added to the next. Hold down the shift key to create circular selections.
Go to the edit menu and copy and paste and create a new layer with that selection.
Go to the bottom of the layers panel (view menu studio layers)and click the fx button and add a 3D effect, set radius as required, and click bevel and set to pillow emboss and set direction of light as required. You should now have a bubble like design made up of multiple particles / fragments from the original image. Set the radius to about 500px for the 3D
Go to the layer menu and rasterize and deselect the fx option (you need the entire things to be a single pixel layer).
Layer menu and create pattern layer from selection and re-size and rotate as required by using the move tool. You can now hold down the alt or option key (PC or mac) and duplicate the pattern design and re-size and rotate that and repeat multiple times to fill the entire image with your design.
You can then select all the pattern layers via the layers panel and then merge them all via the layer menu and merged selected. You can also merge them all into a single pixel layer from the same menu via the merge visible.