Creating a character in Synfig... how do I do it?

Hello :slight_smile:

I’m really new to synfig, but I played around with it sometimes and really like it. I intend to use it for some things in my project - it shall be the main animation-creating software for my comedy-project and I want to make my splash-screen with it.

So, first about my project:
I’m making a series for Youtube, in german - it’s the comedy-genre. All of it is filmed, except of one character - he is “Super Fish”, and is in 2D. He jumped from the comics which I created to reality and tries to find a way back to the comics.

He is Super Fish (images created with gimp):
Click
Click

So, my problems are the following…

I want to connect the outlines and details to the “body”. How do I do that? If I make the shapes and outlines from the details, how do I attach them to the main body of him?

Regards,

Daryl

P. S.:
Please tell me which informations or screens I should provide, if anyone needs them to tell me more.

The short answer - Each detail (arm, sword, outline) is a separate layer in Synfig. To group them together, encapsulate them. Then you have a single layer that you can reposition in the picture.

For more information, check out the tutorials, see how other people construct their animations…

Thank you very much! That short answer was all I needed. I love to learn by doing, I remember everything better that way… so I’ll try some more, with a focus on the encapsulating-feature.

I guess I made something wrong now. I hope I don’t have to start everything from the beginning… :open_mouth:

At the moment, it looks like this:

But I want to bring one leg of the fish in the background, that it will look like here:

Did I have to make the legs in seperate layers?.. can I somehow still “repair” it, so I can animate it without both outlines on the foreground?

regards, Puzzle

yes, you would need to have the legs as separate objects. You can animate the z-depth to make one leg go in front of, or behind, the other one
to repair the file, you could try duplicating your body outline twice, rename the duplicates as leg left and right. Then on the body outline remove the points that make up the legs, and on the leg outlines, remove the points that make up the body.
(though in your case it might be quicker just to draw it again!)
You can also link the three points where the legs join the body and each other - so when you move one the other one moves with it
hope that helps

In synfig, when you create a region and a outline with the BLine tool they share the same bline by default. Look for the Bline List parameter on the outline or the region layer and see the “DYN” cyan letters close to the parameter name. It means that the parameter (in this case the list of blinepoints) is linked to a value node.

Unfortunately the ability to link the vertices you want, from an outline with different number of bllinepoints to a region (or other outline) is not an automatic task. You have to do it by hand one by one. Although it is not related to that task you can read the “Sewing BLines” tutorial and see how is the process.

Regarding to the character creation process you have to think on the character construction as part of the animation process. Some times is better to spend some time thinking on how will the character be animated and consequently construct the character in that way than build it directly form the drawing.

See this example I did and study the file. It might help you.

The fish character looks very good. Keep it alive! it has a lot of personality what it the 50% of the success!
-G