…and I hope to learn to use Synfig and contribute to the community in the future. I was impressed by some of the videos I have seen. I can’t wait to try out some of the particle effects.
Dear Guest,
I’m the guy who did the particle templates. I’ve not posted all the new templates I’ve done (but only minor variations are added). Please contact me if you need help on using them. It is an experimental feature and maybe they don’t satisfy all your requirements.
I hope you enjoy them.
-G
where can these templates be found on the site?
Thanks to all honest answers!
synfig.org/Particles
There is a search button in the right top of the wiki. Use it when have any doubt.
-G
I forgot to log in when I started this thread. Today I started on my first animation. I only have a cheap pixelated render of it right now. I am going to introduce my friends to the program and have them collaborate on the project with me. I have been posting this on the forums and websites I frequent:
I’ve decided to start working on a cartoon and try to get several of my friends to collaborate with me on it. This is the first render of the first scene. I am using an animation program called Synfig, which is free and open source and runs on all major operating systems, including windows. It was cheaply done because my current computer doesn’t have the processing power to render full quality, so there is pixelation from the original gif file. I then used audacity to mix ambient noises together and tied the gif and sound together into an avi using Virtual Dub.
All original artwork was done using GIMP.
Here is the video!
youtube.com/watch?v=FjFVPM7qn5U
Now, here is where i need your help…
I am looking for people to collaborate on this. I need everything from original art and storyline ideas to voice acting and advice on sound recording/ambient noise. If anyone is interested, let me know. I think it will probably take 2 to 3 years to finish, but there is 4 seconds done already!
Here is the story so far…
It is set on a remote island about 20 miles across where there is a medium sized town with a tourist resort. Their economy is based on tourism and fishing so there are several small fishing villages on the outskirts of town near the coast. Most of the island is covered in mountains and dense forest. An archaeologist exploring ruins in the mountains (think mayan meets egyptian), come across a stone sealed doorway that leads underground. Inside is an elaborate tomb filled with treasures. In the center is a glass veil filled with a red liquid that looks almost out of place in the ancient surroundings. one of the workers accidentally disturbs a beam and causes half of the cavern to collapse. The bottle is broken in the chaos and the liquid turns into fumes. Inside is an ancient virus and some of the men (it turns out later around 75% of the population is immune to it) began to get really sick. The disease eats off their flesh. When the infected die, they come back to life…not as zombies, but as musculoskeletal monstrosities (rememeber two face from batman? Their whole body like that!) with a hunger for human flesh (or any other kind for that matter). The monsters begin to kill off the humans that are left with great speed and strength.
The movie begins with a father and son on a camping trip when they hear about it on a transistor radio they brought along. They prepare to defend themselves and stay at their campsite deep in the woods. They know nothing else that has transpired during their time away.
I will post a high quality rendered version in the next few days. It’s only the first 5 seconds. I will definitely talk to you if there is something I can’t figure out on the particle templates. I plan to use them often. They will be very helpful in creating the mood for some scenes, such as dandelion seeds and wind blown leaves floating through a forest. I also plan to use them for embers from a fire and possibly smoke. Dust clouds would be nice too! If anyone needs help with things like ambient noise or artwork, let me know and I’ll do what I can.
I figured out what I was doing wrong with the rendering. I was using gif when I should have used PNG and pieced it together in another program.
here is the improved version:
WOW!!! 
that’s pretty awesome! did u create that mountain scene yourself from scratch??? i wish i had that kind of talent!! i’m pretty good at editing already-existing images, and creating something from them!!! but i have found it harder to create something from nothing, if u know what i mean!!! i’m working on something right now, that is a picture of a ninja (for those of u who don’t know what that is, even though its pretty well-known in the US, it was a Japanese assassin!). actually i don’t think its half bad from creating it from scratch, but it still lacks a lot of detail!!! lo! i’m still working on the background for it.
eventually, if i ever get there, i’m planning to maybe create an animation with my ninja in it!!! i’ll probably use synfig, as well as, possibly, blender, gimp, (i was going to use creatoon, but i’m having a problem with the rendering window showing only black!!! i don’t know what the problem is!!), and whatever else comes to mind, when it actually comes to creating it!!!
Here’s the link to my ninja image, in case u want to check it out: i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp97/….
for now, i’ve put him in an alley, for lack of a better background!!! although i actually want to put it in a 15th century Japanese scene. my thoughts on that were, possibly to put him in a night scene, with a little light shining on him, so that he would be visible. in the background i would like for there to be like a Japanese house (even though i have NO idea what one, at least in the 15th century, would look like!!!), and maybe a lantern attached to it, whose light partially reveal the ninja!! but i have yet to still find a good picture of one!!! (maybe u could help with that?)
also, here is the same ninja in a background of a bamboo forest: i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp97/….
i know it still needs a lot of work, so please do not go TOO hard on it!!! yo!
I think the links may be wrong. Try using the image tags and pasting the url in them.
For the mountain scene, I used gimp to create it. I like doing digital painting. The backgrounds will be easy, but when I get to animating characters and particles, I am sure it will be much more challenging. Here is the original picture:
Feel free to use it anyway you like.
All I did was import it and resize the picture to be bigger than the window. After that I positioned it where I wanted it in the start frame. Then, I just animated it like a normal object and moved it to the left.
I may be able to make an ancient Japanese scene in my spare time sometime. I’d like to see the ninja picture fist so I know the mood and size of it.
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COOL!!! sorry about the links! i copied them from an email i sent to someone on Yahoo, which had already been copied and pasted into it from my Yahoo question. apparently they don’t work because for some reason when i copied it from question, it didn’t copy all of it, and copied SOME of it!!!
i think these will work:
for ninja in alley: i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp97 … bucket.jpg
for ninja in bamboo forest: i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp97 … round3.jpg
Hope they work!!! and thanks for that image! i might use it for my ninja project!
COOL!!! 
that would be REAL helpful, as i have NO idea what such a scene would look like, as least as far as details go!!! i would really appreciate it if u do that for me!!! yo! i’ll help u as much as i can, too, with ur own project!!! (if u WANT my help, that is! if not, then that’s perfectly cool too! lo!)
sort of!! 
only i wanted the house to be closer to the viewer, more darkness, and about the same distance away as my ninja image, as i wanted him to maybe be pressed against one wall of the house, and most of his body concealed by shadows, except the parts which the light from the lantern would strike him!!! and is that even a Japanese house? i kind of thought it would be a LITTLE bigger!!! 
nice pic though!!! did u draw it since ur last visit to this forum, or is it something that u have drawn a while back?
Keep up the good work!!!
P.S. did u check out my ninja images? what did u think?
I did it since I last visited. It only took about an hour.
I think the ninja is nice. It has simle shapes so it should be easy to animate.
That’s definitely the kind of house you want for that period in japanese history. Maybe try zooming in on it more be cause it is done in 1024*768 resolution. You could put the ninja where the light stops and try darkening it up some. Of course you’d have to do some editing to it because I didn’t define the lines very well. I may finish this up some time because I think it could make a nice picture. If you’d like, I can use this thread to upload more possible backgrounds in the future. I have another nice on ready that you may be able to use.
yeah…that would be AWESOME!!! i’ll try doing some editing on the one u already gave me, although i REALLY don’t think it will work for what i had in mind!!! yo! and it IS a nice pic!!! just doesn’t really fit what i had in mind! but…i WILL try it!!! i’m a flexible kind of guy, so i might be willing to experiment a little with different backgrounds, and discard my original idea if something better comes along!!! yo! 
of course creating ANYTHING Japanese can be difficult, when one is NOT Japanese!!! much less something set back in the 15th century of Japan!!! that’s why its taking me so long to complete!!! i DO know something of Japanese history, but trying to draw a Japanese house can be difficult when i really don’t know for sure what it would have looked like in the 15th century!!!
anyway…i AM going to try the images u gave me, and see what i can do with them!!! yo! i’ll also keep u posted with all future developments, if ur interested!!!
nice pics!!! u continue to amaze me with ur talent!!! yo! 
did u create those in gimp too? that’s pretty impressive!!! i think the two will make nice scenes in my ninja animation!!!
much appreciation, and thanks!!!
I do all my digital paintings with gimp. I’m actually new to it. the grass field was the first thing I ever did in it and the mountain was second. I’m not really that good, but with digital painting you can easily correct/undo mistakes.
here is the image it was based off of. When I finsih the picture I will curve the roof correctly.
also maybe try some of these:
also remember that most interior walls were paper walls and bamboo was used in the frame construction.
VERY NICE!!! here’s a rough version of what my ninja will look like in the house background: i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp97 … ndcopy.png
i added a couple of filters to make the scene darker, and adjusted my ninja so he would be standing against the wall of the house, half concealed in shadows, and half of him showing up in the light of the lantern! i know its not perfect yet, and a little too far away to see clearly, but the background wasn’t too bad for him after all!!!
and here’s another one, with him in a black background, with a lightsource: i401.photobucket.com/albums/pp97 … aimage.png
Thanks for the last few pics!!! they’re really nice!!!
oh! 
and another thing…i have no idea what the inside of a Japanese house would look like!!! could u possibly help with that?
Thanks, and much appreciation!!!
Sort of like this. Alot of paper walls and oriental design. Elaborate wall tapestries.