I have noticed that it is possible to convert some types of parameters to “Animation from File”, which I assume allows for putting e.g. calculated positions from some other program. However, unlike all of the other Convert options, there is no documentation at all on what the format of such a file should be. Does anyone out there know how to prepare a file for this conversion, and how synfig interprets its contents?
Hi,
I have the same enquiry - I can find no documentation or reference to the converter “Animation by file”, which seems to operate and allow selection of a file, presumably to import waypoints.
Has anyone out there got this working and can share the syntax and file formats that work for this? I’ve had a stab with .csv and .txt, but I’m not getting any success.
cheers,
Chris
When I use Papagayo to animate a speaking mouth, and then import the Papagayo file, then examine the structure that gets created upon this import … There is an ‘animation from file’ conversion on one of the parameters of the big ‘switch’ conversion that appears… So I assume that this conversion was created strictly as a hook for how they make ‘import Papagayo’ work, i.e. making the appropriate parameter of a ‘switch’ conversion change over time. I suppose a .pgo file could be examined to determine the format they use to accomplish this, but that’s probably not the functionality you’re looking for.
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I just read the source code and it is for PGO files: Papagayo file format.
I don’t know why it’s available with this name 
Thanks guys, that’s cleared that up nicely - I’ll stop trying to make it work!
I made a very simple PGO file. It animates the phonemes of “a b c d e f g” (in English).
It is a tab-indented text file, describing the moments in time when each mouth shape should be revealed… the mouth shapes are 6: AI,MBP,E,FV,etc,rest
It works great for a Switch group’s “Active Layer Name”, which holds layers with those mouth names.
Is there a way to store real numbers in the PGO file, and connect a REAL parameter to this PGO file?
lipsync version 1
audio 11sec wav.wav
24
336
1
Voice 1
a b c d e f g
1
a b c d e f g
0
335
7
a 0 27 1
0 AI
b 28 83 2
28 MBP
56 E
c 84 139 2
84 etc
112 E
d 140 195 2
140 etc
168 E
e 196 223 1
196 E
f 224 279 2
224 E
252 FV
g 280 335 2
280 etc
308 E
In this screenshot, the MouseOver text shows that it expects a “File with Waypoints”
Finding clues in the souce code:
From looking at that cpp file, it seems that a TSV (table separated value) is an alternative to animating something from a file… and I found this:
Then, digging more:
It should be available in Synfig 1.5
Finally, I figured out TSV file animation:
make animation_waypoints.tsv
0.00 0.01
0.15 1.02
0.27 3.22
0.31 4.98
0.43 3.28
0.47 2.5
the first column are the time instants in seconds. The second column are the values that the object parameter will take as it animates through time.
Drag the timeline cursor to watch the value change according to what’s defined in the file 
It is a way to “bake” values from outside.
Useful math functions but not easy in practice, especially to update.
One day we will have to develop a proper way to edit/integrate it (compatibility with csv/Excel/Calc files or even internal edit)!