I cannot figure out at all how to use this program, although from many examples of other peoples work it looks to be just the right tool for my project. After a month of experimentation, I finally got an SVG to import at (close to, but NOT exactly) the right size. After another month of experimentation (due to lack of explanatory documentation) I still have not figured out how to use the Advanced Outline tool. It would be great if I could simply convert one of my imported paths to an Advanced Outline (so I don’t have to REDRAW artwork which has already been drawn - in a more user-friendly application), but sadly it doesn’t seem like that’s an option. I cannot make sense of the “instructions” for creating Advanced Outlines and animating them. Simplified down, I’m looking to draw a paisley-shape (curved teardrop) but have it animate in the style of being drawn, like some people do for “writing” animated signatures. (This shape will then “morph” into another shape, which I’m expecting will probably take yet another month of experimenting to figure out how to do.)
Are there any “plain-english” straightforward tutorials or proper documentation for this application? The wiki page isn’t very helpful.
Can you post a sample of the SVG files you’re trying to import into Synfig? The way the SVG files are created will either allow or make it impossible to work with on Synfig to do what you want.
In theory you can just right click on the imported path layers in the Layers panel and use “Make Advanced Outline” option. But this may do what you want if the structure of the imported paths is wrong.
Thanks, that was not documented anywhere. Now that it’s an Advanced Outline, I just need to figure out how to animate it such that it draws itself, following the path.
yep, was … now it is [1] [2] and others ! … thank’s to report it .
You can see in dev reports that synfig code is moving quickly … and that’s right that the wiki documentation do not follow, be free to report another missing part or even draft some words directly on the wiki.
Because in that tutorial it doesn’t start out with the whole path already drawn like in my case, or like in the case where somebody wants to animate handwriting using text entered with a font. The flower tutorial uses the transform tool to manipulate the shape of an outline on keyframes, and in my case (and others) a closed shape is already fully defined and it needs to render as though it were being drawn, starting at one point, following the shape of the outline, and ending on the same point it started on. It would be nice if there were a simple tool available to do this. 1: select path object to animate, 2: select animation start point on selected path, 3: select animation end point on selected path (maybe a user doesn’t want to animate the whole path, maybe they do), and 4: specify the number of frames from the start point to the end point (controls the animation speed).
I’ll probably end up not using Synfig for my project because the learning curve is just too steep. The application has a non-standard user-interface and unique ways of naming/implementing industry-standard concepts. Its main appeal to me was price (free) and capabilities, but those mean nothing if the software is too difficult to use.