line and indepndent circles

Support Animation related help
1

Hi, im new to the whole synfig thing (actually to animating in general), so my question sounds maybe a bit dumb, but please try to help me.
My problem: I need to attach the two points of a line to two different circles, which can move independently from each other (not encapsulated)… is that possible?

thanks for helping

2

Hello and welcome to synfig…

First; sounds that you have an old synfig version, since 0.64.0 the terminology have changed : Encapsulate -> Group

Second; When you say attach a circle… do you mean following a spline ?

3

First: yes, i have 0.63.05… is that bad ??

and second… I don’t think that I mean this… I really mean a line (spline, curve, Whatever) with two ending points, which are each attached to a different circle (rectangle…what you like). The two circles can move free and independently, and the line always connects them…

4

Nop, it’s not that bad. Meanly, that can disturb you when looking at the documentation.

You can

  • Create a shape
  • Group it and move it to have the center of your shape near 0x and 0y
  • Create a (sp)line
  • In the layer panel Select the shape group and the spline
  • In the canvas Select the shape origin (green handle/dot/duck) and the head / tail vertex (brown) handle of the spline
  • Right click on a selected handle and link them.
    Now you can move the shape group origin, the head/tail of the spline will follow.

When i suggested you to take a look to “following a spline” page, it was in order that you adapt the way to link …

5

This can be done in a way similar to what “Following a Spline” page explains. The difference is that each endpoint of the line will follow different splines (BTW, Synfig can create circles as splines, in fact that’s the preferred way).

Made a video which does just that:
youtu.be/o2yACI_MwtA

Things to note:

  • Notice when I select all three shapes and “Link” their origin, this is important to get the line to really connect to each circle.
  • After linking origins, I needed to move the shapes back to their original position (to adapt to the new combined origin)
  • To link each endpoint to each circle I needed to select the line and the circle, then select the point I wanted to link, then right-click on the circle and choose “Link To Spline” (this is explained on following a spline page)