This is the result of my first day of trying out synfigstudio (0.63.2 on Ubuntu 9.04–I know, Medieval Linux) to see how a first-year drawing student would handle animating their quick gesture studies. Turns out that this may be the best way to start on synfigstudio. I’ve even left in the pages un-color-corrected, to show that the tweening still works.
This is the first of a series of pre-viz animations for my upcoming web comic ‘Amorok’ on my website http://nuegua.geekopolis.ca.
I’m just finishing the first draft of the screenplay.
and here’s a second try. This one is quite funny, because I drew the first cell as a cartoon (Contact Left), and then unconsciously drew the succeeding cells as muscular and Renaissance.
Yes, I’m getting used to Synfig. It’s really quite a rethinking, as I am coming from 3d animation in Blender.
My next character is Ellie, who is modelled after the Japanese voice actress Saaya Irie (think of her after a year in the gym).
This time, I’m going to start with hand drawings, and build the vector graphics over the top. My goal is create a series of tutorials for our colleges prospective Digital Culture program.
On second, thought, I decided to finish the Amorok animations first. I drew by hand several version of him, because creating a believable hybrid of man and wolf is tricky. A wolf’s legs work by the principle of mechanical amplification; that is, the metatarsal bones are fused and the toes expanded into pads. In effect, Amorok runs on his tip-toes, and that has to look convincing.
The first screen shot is of Amorok done in Inkscape, and then imported into Synfig Studio. Synfig’s renderer is lightning fast, even on older machines, so this ability to import scanned files and graphics from other programs is quite a plum.
And here’s what it looks like as a video. You’ll need a player that can handle the dvd format, as that is the quickest for OpenShot.
Now, on to Synfig Studio full. I’m using version 0.63, and I found that the ‘encapsulate’ command has a very different outcome than ‘group’ does. Once I figured that out, I was able to control the rotation of the various body shapes that I will need.
Here is the first Synfig file. I’m impressed with how small it is! Amorok looks like he is slogging through the snow, but the work is complete enough to share.
This screenshot is of the first position I usually use in a walk cycle, Contact Left. Many thanks to the great walk cycle tutorial on Angry Animator for this.
Right now, I’m working from what I know into what I don’t know.
I don’t understand the ‘tweening’ algorithms that Synfig uses yet, so I tweaked the motions manually.
The legs work great, but the arms are still a bit wobbly.
That’s because I learned how to set the rotation layer pivot points (or ‘bones’) after I ran the render.
They are a lot of keyframe :S. For a walk or run would not have to have but of 6 keyframes.
It is not necessary that use bones, but podes joint layers in groups asi is but simple to animate
That’s sound wired to me ! How a machine can block an install ? Even the UEFI Secure boot can be bypassed… and your server seems to be older than that technology.
Alas, I am an artist with a lot of computer skills, but usually I let my IT buddies set up my machines.
I’ll have to give your idea a try, however.
As for the model itself, once I remembered my basic object oriented programming, I was able to create a ‘parented’ rig, the kind that I take for granted in Blender. What woke me up was noticing that my animations looked suspiciously like a raw mocap (Biovision hierarchy) rig loaded in Blender, and run without any fix-its. I’ve uploaded both files (no keyframing yet) with the new configurations.
And here is the Synfig Studio file, complete with two full walk/run cycles.
Please note that I haven’t finalized the motion of Amorok yet, this is just proof-of-concept.
And onto our next animation. This is a Draconian Work Bot, the template for Amorok’s armor.
In this chapter, Ellie E. is able to boot it up, but it’s left lower leg is disconnected, and she doesn’t have a manual easily available.
Okay, now for the hard stuff. I want to create a series of poses, with the Draconian Work Bot turning to the left (aka 3/4 profile) and reaching down to grab and then re-attach his leg, then once re-attached, he stands up and walks away.
Since I’ve got no idea how hard this will be, I’ll assume I will need at least 4 poses.
