Complex Shapes in synfig

General Synfig general discussion
1

Hi All!

I’m importing SVGs from Inkscape but finding that the slightly more complex shapes i.e. those with internal loops/voids/holes are having those loops dropped out.

Is there a way in synfig of creating a path with a hole in it, and or carrying out subtraction and addition operations on the paths?

Many thanks in advance

2

Synfig cannot directly represent shapes with holes in them. In SVG terms, Synfig shapes don’t allow subpaths.

It can try to emulate this by using blend methods:

880×394

The hole in the left image is created by adding a layer on top with Alpha Over blend method. On the right you can see the two shapes with default Composite blend method.

Another alternative would be to somehow hide the connection between the outer shape and the inner hole:

882×390

On the left shape I hid the outline connecting the inner and outer paths by using the Width Point List feature of advance outlines. The right shape has the connection visible.

In summary: SVG doesn’t directly translate 100% to Synfig’s file format. Or more like Synfig’s format went it’s own way (ie. proprietary) rather than follow the SVG standard (not sure if there was SVG standard back when Synfig was developed, probably not). The mismatch between the formats cause these issues.

3

There it is! Fantastic, the Alpha Over is what I’ll rely on; I’d thought about the slit, but wanted to retain the shape.

I dare say there’s a long wish list for Synfig but I’d say that would have to be an important one for me.

Thank you!