I am making a very simple animation, although I have ran into some fundamental troubles. Here is what I am hoping to achieve:
I have the original circle.
Then I duplicate the layer to create circle 2.
The pattern is then repeated, by duplicating the circles and modifying the ‘origin’ property accordingly. I have now a total of 4 layers, including the background.
I wish to make the circles appear at 1s increments apart from each other, and if possible to make then glide outwards from each other. Basically creating the illusion that circle 1 duplicates from itself to create circle 2, once circle 2 has glided into the proper position, circle 2 duplicates circle 3, which then glides into its according position… ect.
I have tried to disable all layers, except background and then enable a single layer, then creating a key frame, enable another layer, add a key frame 1s later. Unfortunately, once rendered the animation displays the completed pattern from the start.
I am still scouting around on how I could make this happen, but I hope someone will give me an insight on here a little quicker.
I have looked at the animation, and I understand how it is fundamentally done.
I have another question regarding how the Key Frames work.
How exactly do you get the etches made on the timeline that obviously signify the movement of the circles. Basically, how did you manage to get the Key Frames made the way you did.
These etches are called Waypoints in Synfig terminology.
Actually Synfig doesn’t really look at Keyframes at all when rendering the animation, only at Waypoints.
As for your question, Waypoints are created when:
Animation mode is enabled and a parameter is changed by any amount (moving a handle by 1 pixel will create a waypoint)
Waypoints are also automatically created at the next/previous keyframe position depending on keyframe lock mode
Keyframes are mainly a tool to automate how waypoints are created a bit. A more adequate name for them would be “Anchor”, because they fixate the values of parameters at a position in time. As the user creates waypoints in animate mode, additional waypoints are created at keyframes to hold the value of the parameter at that time position, ie. anchor it.
