Gradient shape?

Is it possible to do shaped gradient in Synfig?
Using the radial gradient as example, having the gradient go from a center point and then out but instead of a fixed circle having the outer boundary as an animatable shape.
I’ve put together a quick mockup of what I mean;

If not directly by gradients, are there any other way to archieve shapes graded this way in Synfig?

Alright, feel a bit embarrassed for asking and finding out a little while later when playing around in Synfig that curve gradients are exactly what I’m after…
Now, how so I easily switch direction of the gradient? (probably will stumble on the solution in a couple of minutes…)

Hi Rylleman, You can do something similar using curved gradients. Create a curved gradient using the bline tool or just inserting the gradient from New Layer>Gradient>curve gradient.
Add a Region layer and link its vertices list parameter (select both layers and in the vertices list do right click -> Link)
Set the region layer to be under the gradient layer and set the gradient layer to have its Blend Method as “Onto”.
Increase the gradient thickness to a big value and play with the gradient.
Then you can obtain something similar to this:

The curved gradient is created from the edge to the center. See how you use only a half of the gradient because the other half is rendered outside the region where the gradient lies onto.
This “from outside to inside” effect produces collapse of the gradient at the center when the region is not smooth.

To achieve a smooth gradient you can do some tricks using radial gradient like your example.

The construction would be similar to your example but the center of the radial gradient and its radius can be a mathematical formula of the surrounding vertices.

For example you can convert the radial gradient origin to be a averaged sum of the vertices of the bline. This would assure that the radial gradient is always “at the center”. Also the radius can be an average of the difference of the center to those vertices.

I’ll show you with an example:
average-gradient.sifz (1.09 KB)

I hope it fills your requirements and welcome to Synfig :slight_smile:
(Tell me if you can open the file and if you understand what I did.)

-G

OOPS: crossed posts.

Thank you Genete!

It looks like Synfig will help me do something I’ve been trying to archieve for months now with all methods i could think of.
I’ll hold the “hurrah” just for now 'til I see how everything turns out.